ROUSES_Fall2023_Magazine

ARROW-CIRCLE-LEFT This Costacos Brothers poster featuring Saints teammates Sam

Mills, Rickey Jackson, Vaughan Johnson, and Pat Swilling posed on the apron of the Superdome is truly iconic. The collabora tion between John and Tock Costacos, known as The Kings of Sports Posters, alongside Tom Reese and photographer Corky Trewin, resulted in this memorable masterpiece.

in the third round,” he tells me. When the short-lived United States Football League folded, the Saints signed middle linebackers Sam Mills and Vaughan Johnson, both of whom had dazzled in that league. “Obviously, our knowledge of Sam Mills was immense from having him in the USFL,” says Fangio, who was defensive assistant coach for the USFL’s Philadelphia — later Baltimore — Stars. “We knew of Vaughan Johnson from coaching against him. We acquired Pat, just through the natural progression of the draft. We got three of the four in that one off-season.” According to Swilling, Rickey Jackson was the key to the Dome Patrol’s early attempts at greatness. “When I got here, I looked around and I looked at him and I thought to myself, ‘If I could be half the player that Rickey Jackson is, we could be special. I could help him.’” Then, two weeks into training camp, a bus pulled up with USFL players that the Saints had the rights to. “Two of those guys were Vaughan Johnson and Sam Mills, and I watched them and thought, ‘Man, those two guys can play!’” That summer, he says, the linebackers realized that they had something really special. “And man, everybody worked their butts off.”

The linebacker corps evolved over the first year. Swilling began as a rookie, and played about half the time. The Saints made Johnson the starting inside linebacker by the fourth game of the season. By the second year, Swilling was a full-time player as an outside linebacker, and the four members of the Dome Patrol became full-time starting players. “We had a lot of success defensively there, and it just seemed to be that those four guys together, usually, somehow, someway, made the plays to get the stops in critical situa tions,” says Fangio. “I remember our second year there, when the Saints had never had a winning season in the history of the franchise. Then finally we went to Pittsburgh and got our ninth win in our 12th game, which cemented our first winning season. It was all clinched with a goal line stand late in the game with those inside linebackers making some big tackles down there in the goal line area that preserved the win.” Rickey Jackson, who played with the Saints from 1981 to 1993, tells me that the Dome Patrol excelled because each of its four members held each other to astound ingly high standards. You just wanted to play your best to keep up with the guy next to you.

“You had three other great players, so you had to try to make sure that you made your plays, too,” Jackson says. “It was a good little competition thing where all four guys tried to be the best on and off the field. You wanted to hold your side up. Each of us had great things that we did and, together, we ended up doing even greater things.” According to Fangio, the Dome Patrol’s pursuit of excellence and the competitiveness that resulted sometimes needed moderating — and that could be a challenge. “There was friendly, healthy competition between them. All four of them wanted to be the best, and stay the best. There was always a team-first mentality, but I had to referee that sometimes.” For example, after winning games, the coaching staff would sometimes give one game ball to a defensive player and one to an offensive player. “Sometimes all four of them played pretty damn good,” he said. “I’d have to pick one, obviously, and make the other ones mad, or at least one or two of them mad. They each usually thought they should have gotten it! But that’s healthy. Once you deal with the emotion of it, they all wanted to be recognized for their plays in a good way.” In 1991, the NFL named Swilling as the

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