There have been teams throughout history that have taken on the personality and identity of the city they called home. There have been players who have become beloved citizens, even icons in their own town.

Still, it’s hard to think of one who has become more ingrained in, more important to, more beloved by his city than Drew Brees has in New Orleans. In 2006, he signed as a free agent with the Saints, not long after Hurricane Katrina ravaged his new home city. He immediately became more than just a football player.

In some ways, he was a beacon of hope.

“We feel like we are playing for so much more than just to win a game for our organization or team,” Brees said after his team finally arrived at a Super Bowl city for the first time in the franchise’s 43 years. “We’re playing for an entire city and region, and you could say for an entire country because there are still so many New Orleans natives who had to evacuate after Katrina who have not been able to move back yet. We know we have fans across the country who are pulling for us and rooting for us, fans who will eventually come back to New Orleans, but are just waiting for the right time.

“Whatever we can do to give them hope and raise their spirits, that’s what we want to do.”

It seems like a bad cliché to say that the Saints helped save New Orleans. It seems wrong to suggest that the fates of a football team have anything to do with all the lives that were destroyed when the levees broke and the waters rose in poverty-stricken places such as the Ninth Ward. People died. Homes were lost. Lives were upended.

A winning season by the Saints wasn’t going to change all that.

But it’s also unfair to underestimate the uplifting power a successful sports team can have. When the Saints decided to return to New Orleans after spending a year as vagabonds operating out of San Antonio, it was hailed as the first step in the city’s rebuilding. When the Saints started winning, people were emotionally moved.

“It’s our self-esteem,” says former Steelers quarterback and current FOX analyst Terry Bradshaw, a Louisiana native not afraid to profess his love for the Saints. “So many people feed off other people’s good, and their self-esteem rises with it. The hope and everything that this team gives all these people who have struggled, I have not seen anything like this in any other NFL city.”

Brees epitomized all of that hope. He had no other real options when he was a free agent with a surgically repaired shoulder in ’06. The Miami Dolphins talked to him, but they had concerns. The Saints were willing to offer him a long-term commitment. He believes that was a “calling” for him, and he began to offer a long-term commitment to his new home.

He became a leader in the community trying to rebuild, offering his name, his money and his time to charitable endeavors. He rallied business leaders, mostly behind the scenes, to commit to his new home. He was out front of the process with his voice, lending his support, all while he was lifting up people’s hearts with his play on the field.

They were thrilled by his trip to the NFC Championship Game in 2006, and they fell in love all over again when this current team started 13-0. The party and the noise in the Superdome and on Bourbon Street before, during and after the NFC title game were absolutely indescribable.

Not surprisingly, Brees and the Saints will be honored with a post-Super Bowl parade, win or lose.

“You can draw so many parallels between this team and our fans,” Brees says. “We've had to lean on each other in order to survive, in order to get to where we are now. We've used the strength and resiliency of our fans to go out and play every Sunday. It hasn't always been easy. We've had to overcome adversity, just like this city has.”

And as the Saints overcame their own adversity, they took on an added burden. Playing for their fans, their city or themselves is one thing. But they’re playing for something deeper, much more meaningful than that.

“Not only is the burden and the pressure on them to win for those fans, but it’s also (for people) all across the Gulf Coast where Katrina hit,” Bradshaw says. “So many people live and feel as though they deserve something special to happen to a region that’s been so devastated and (had) so much heartache and families’ lives lost.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to play (where) if you lose you feel like you let down a region. I’ve never seen anything quite like that.”

Brees can imagine it. He wants to imagine it. He has welcomed the pressure and he has no intention of letting those people -- his people -- down.

“It means so much,” Brees says. “I’ve met season-ticket holders since (the Saints) started in 1967. For so many of them, just to have waited so long through so many tough times to this point, and what people went through in New Orleans post-Katrina, it’s so much more than just a game to us. It’s a feeling that we have an opportunity to give them so much hope, lift their spirits and give them something they deserve.”