Drew Brees guided the New Orleans Saints to their greatest season in history, bringing a Super Bowl championship to New Orleans for the first time last season.
Now he wants to help start a new tradition in the Superdome that he hopes will live on for decades after he’s gone – a pregame “Who Dat!” chant, 70,000 strong.
“We as a team wanted to find a way to kind of engage our fans prior to the start of the game with some kind of interaction where we just get the Dome excited, electric,” said Brees, who invited the media for a hastily-arranged press conference Tuesday afternoon to explain the plan that he and his teammates came up with for the organized chant, which will take place following the opening coin toss.
He said the team will also try to spread the word through Twitter and Facebook and other social media outlets.
What they want is for all 70,000 fans in the Superdome to be ready to break into three rounds of their legendary “Who Dat! Who Dat! Who Dat Say Dey Gonna Beat Dem Saints!” chant following the coin toss.
Brees said he will personally get it started on Thursday night before the season opener against the Minnesota Vikings. He said he’ll raise his arm in the air, then when he drops his arm it’s time to chant.
For every other home game, the plan is for the Saints’ honorary guest captain to give the signal.
“That’ll obviously get us fired up as a team. I think that will just echo throughout the Dome. I mean, just imagine 70,000 people screaming that in unison right before the game,” Brees said. “I mean, it’s part of our identity. You go anywhere in the world, and you hear somebody say, ‘Who Dat,’ you know exactly where they’re from and what they’re all about. So I think it’s appropriate.”
Brees said he’s particularly excited about the idea of a player on the field getting the chant started, because, “We understand that we have a bond with our fans that a lot of other people don’t.”