Interesting matchup tonight down in the Bayou tonight as the Atlanta Falcons (2-0) take on the surprising New Orleans Saints (2-0) in a game that is being hyped as the Rebirth of New Orleans! Many people in will grab the points and suggest that you take the home dog. But before you do any at your favorite , take into consideration that the fans and stadium noise will be a 12th man on the field. Logic suggests you side with the visiting Falcons.



Atlanta comes into the game having not yielded a touchdown and their running game looks like it is unstoppable. I couldn't help but notice that Michael Vick has decided to get back to the aggressive rollout passing and running game and if you lay off him, he will have 100 yards rushing by the half.

The player in the game who really should be honored is not a Saint, but rather Warrick Dunn of the Falcons. For eight years now, Dunn, the Falcons? superb running back, has been touching the hearts of single moms -- first in Tampa, then in Baton Rouge, and now in Atlanta. Some 135 kids also have been affected. Every holiday season he surprises more women, usually up to three in each city, with a check for $5,000 toward their down payment and these truckloads of furnishings. They've cried and laughed and fallen to their knees and hugged him so hard he has lost his breath; some have been so grateful they have hardly changed anything in their houses five or six years later.

Dunn's mom, a Baton Rouge policewoman who was moonlighting as a security guard, died after being shot five times while accompanying a night deposit. She left six kids; Dunn was the oldest. It has taken him years to begin to understand why after he buried her he stopped smiling, why he never went clubbing at Florida State, why it became so painful for him even to converse.

"I was just in a place where I was content to stay in a room with four walls and not go outside," he says. "I lived my life within me. I didn't know why. I was just sure that if I got close to someone, something would happen to them, and I wasn't going through that again. I didn't want to take a chance."

Now things are different. He recently began therapy after hearing a Falcons teammate speak positively about its benefits. Only now is he starting to discuss publicly the terrible hurt and depression he never has understood.

"I knew I could never find anyone to take her place," says Dunn, 30, who has never married. "I lost everything I cared about. Now I have to learn to trust people, let them get close. I'm working on that. I'm working on expressing myself. I'm just a better person to be around. I feel better about myself, better than I have for a long, long time. It is a blessing."

On the other side of the field tonight will be Drew Brees and Reggie Bush and how they have turned around the fortunes of the Saints. How they have given hope to the wounded residents of New Orleans. Without wanting to sound cynical, neither guy was even remotely been involved with the community when disaster struck.

The talent and the emotion are with Atlanta and they will dispose of the Saints 35-10!

Bob Acton