King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Saints legend Archie Manning says come on down to New Orleans, and the Crescent City swoons for him all over again. Plus: Vick, Bonds.

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Sept. 27, 2007 | During Monday night's beatdown of the New Orleans Saints by the Tennessee Titans, ESPN sideline reporter Suzy Kolber asked Archie Manning one question and he answered it.

There's not much to say in the Crescent City about the Saints and their 0-3 record that can't be said by putting a paper bag over your head, but the old quarterback has tongues wagging.

"He has been quite the buzz around the city," said Grace Wilson of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., who described going to a meeting Tuesday in the French Quarter, where "everyone was fawning all over him, saying what a stand-up guy he is."

All he said was come on down.

Kolber asked, "Year 2 after Katrina, what should people know about where this community stands?"

Manning's answer: "Well, that I think that we're fighting back. I think there's so many people around the country, Suzy, that like to visit here, and they need to know that we're ready for 'em. You know, the hotels, the convention facilities, the restaurants and all the things people seem to enjoy about New Orleans, they can come back.

"And we need 'em back. There's still a long way to go, it's going to be a long time to get back to full strength, but everybody's trying real hard."

"Archie's comments were wonderful and right on target," said Wilson's boss, Lea Sinclair. "We couldn't have scripted them better than what he said."

Manning was traveling and couldn't be reached Wednesday, but his assistant said his comments weren't scripted. She said Manning wasn't working for anyone when he spoke with Kolber. He was just at the game as a former player and talking as a citizen of the city, where he still lives with his wife, Olivia.

I'm guessing a lot of people in TVlandia were surprised by what Manning said. With New Orleans' recovery having slipped from the top of the daily news cycle, I don't imagine that my reaction -- visit New Orleans? now? -- was that unusual.

But New Orleans, for all the devastation that remains, is slowly starting to experience a tourism revival.

Sinclair said the latest stats from the University of New Orleans show that New Orleans had as many visitors in the first eight months of this year as it had in all of 2006, about 3.7 million. Still a far cry from the record-breaking 10.1 million visitors in 2004, the year before Hurricane Katrina, or from the pre-Katrina yearly average of about 8 million, but an improvement.

"I'm not surprised that you're surprised," Sinclair said, "because while we know it, and we say it over and over and over every day in many languages, I just think that hard news tops us every time. So people turn that on, and they see crime and they see nothing but more devastated neighborhoods."

"It's not true," she continued. "I mean, it is true, you understand. It's definitely true. But it's not the whole story."

Next page: "Manning's not just blowing smoke," though huge problems remain