Saints coach Jim Haslett embraces Dwight Smith before their emotional game on Sunday. AP
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BALTIMORE -- An open letter to New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson:

Dear Tom,

It's been a heck of a couple of weeks, capped off by the emotionally wrenching 23-20 victory that had America cheering for your team yesterday in Carolina. I feel for you and for everyone who has a home or business in the affected parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. A family friend, Josh Norman, is a reporter for the Biloxi Sun-Herald and he has been embedded in a destroyed region, witnessing death and devastation and smelling decaying death. "There's no other smell like it,'' Norman told me on the phone the other day. "It's unmistakable.'' And what was Josh doing yesterday, on a well-earned day off? Watching NFL games at a friend's place, a home that wasn't destroyed -- and, miraculously, still had cable.

I asked him if the NFL should be playing games with the immense swath of destruction on the Gulf Coast.

"Absolutely!'' he said. "People desperately want to watch football. People need football right now.''

Which, Tom, is why I'm writing this public letter to you. These people need the Saints. This region needs the Saints, now more than any other time in the 38-year history of the franchise. And the future of this team -- and I would say even this incredibly needy region -- is in your hands as much as any single person in the United States right now. You want to know what the displaced people in Houston and Dallas and all over America want to hear right now? They want to hear you make a clear, unmistakable declaration that the Saints will stay in New Orleans, no matter what infrastructure hurdles stand in the way over the next few years and no matter how incredibly lucrative it would be for you to move the team. They want to hear you say: "There's no way on God's green earth we're moving this franchise. We will be a part of any reconstruction effort the city of New Orleans plans, and we'll get through this painful chapter in our lives together. We'll do it in New Orleans, nowhere else.''

You've come reasonably close to saying something like that. Last week, you issued a statement that said, in part, "As we move forward together, the Saints look forward to serving as a leader in the rebuilding and the revitalization of our great community.'' That's good. But it doesn't say what needs to be said. It doesn't scare off the vultures that soon will circle from the cities that would love to have your team play there. San Antonio and Red McCombs will be first in line. There will be others. I've said for months the specter of the Los Angeles Saints is a great possibility. And maybe before Hurrican Katrina, it would have been understandable for you to make the best deal you could make in a better market. But not now. Not anymore. Now is the time to do the right thing.