 This is Larry Munson the usual crew we are speaking to you as I'm sure you realize in the Superdome in New Orleans. This is not necessarily the friendliest place in the world I have to play today and today in the newspaper by the way they had 15 reasons why they should hate the Falcons. I was listed in the paper as one of the 15 reasons why they should hate the Falcons. When you look at this rivalry it was so important to the two teams. I mean maybe it wasn't as important to the rest of the league but it was so important to these two ball clubs I'll be very surprised if today's game isn't extremely exciting a lot of big plays. The Saints rivalry was probably the biggest rival that Atlanta had and I loved it. I loved going to play in the Orleans as about 100% because you know it's gonna be gritty it's gonna be nasty it was gonna be dirty and it was gonna be hype. It was the loudest stadium we've ever been in and when we left when that game over it was the quietest stadium and I gotta say they're fans there was no noise ever like that and when we threw these two connected it went so silent I looked around I thought everybody died. To your point for seven years we never audible there yeah never audible in the Superdome. Our old Lyma would hold hands Chris Hinton on the edge Mike Kent because they couldn't hear me and I'm right here under Jamie Dukes calling the signal screaming and yelling and it was so loud and it was such an intense rivalry the Houdats versus the Falcons and never audible in seven years which is unheard of in the national football league. Looking at that film we haven't mentioned Tim Green and Tim Green is a great story. Tim Green was a linebacker when I came. Yeah that's right. And my office I had windows I could see the parking lot well I saw him out there chasing his son his son was this big right and it took the parking lot to turn around so I brought him up I says I'm moving you to tackle he goes you can't do that coach I'm a linebacker when you can't catch your son in the park. And he became the number one defensive tackle in football. He had a great career in the tackle. He was awesome. I said takes you to that whole park and I turn around we got to put your hand up. He never had his hand on the ground behind the back. So we had the same players we just moved them around a little bit. You grew up in New Orleans. But you grew up hating them right. I did and you know Saints was the only game in town that didn't have basketball didn't have baseball. New Orleans Saints was the only team in New Orleans professional team. So everybody everybody I knew everybody loved the Saints. And so when I got and I got drafted by Atlanta I mean I became hated because I'm the kid from the wrongs not playing against the Saints and I can tell you I've had some of my best games but I love love going down there playing. Why'd you hate the Saints growing up. Well when I was growing up they were the inks. I don't know if you remember. I've seen the video. So they were the inks. So I mean they were they weren't very good. The Saints historically wasn't very good. And they had won a playoff. I don't think they ever want to play off game up until the point. I think it was really the probably late 90s when they won their first playoff. That was their first playoff game at home. We beat him. So going home as a native and playing against the team that you grew up watching and then all my friends everybody I know all Saints fan. So I loved going in and beating those guys. And like he talked about the fans there. Unbelievable. Those people love their team and they cheered for them. And when they traveled here they brought more than 30,000 people. It was like it was full of Falcons. They brought 30,000 people. And it was the same when we traveled there. We did the same. So that rival was huge. And the thing about their fans in our stadium. They hadn't been to bed since Friday. They were awesome. Absolutely. So it was one of the it was one of it was one of those situations where you and a big rivalry with your team and you go down and you you have the fans sitting on their hands. Do you have memories of friends and or family telling you like not to not to play well against the Saints or anything like that? All my friends, all the guys I went to high school with. I'll tell you I'll tell you a story. We went down and played the Saints. It was my 10 year clash reunion. So I was 10 years out of high school and we had I just had a really big game against them. And so I'm down in there all talking about the Saints this and the only thing I could say I was like you got to look at the school board and I scored two touchdowns against your team. And that was huge because they loved their team. Absolutely. And just is that is that the Saints hate something that you that you get when you walk in Falcons headquarters. It's like a thing that they give you on the way in. I have to play in 14 years. Obviously, I don't play against him a lot. And I'm like, Mike, I've had some of my better games against the Saints over a period of years and almost like a big NFL. You get that college rival feel that when you play the Saints and you want to you want to give your best effort. But I had an extra motivation because I always looked at the same meals, the late Sam Mills. And he was a great inside linebacker for the Saints. But then, you know, you had Bon Johnson, then you had Pat Swillens, then you had Ricky Jackson. So they had all the linebackers that were Pro Bowlers. And they had one of my spots that I wanted because I wanted to be a starter Pro Bowler. And so I wanted to play my best game against that team for a lot of different reasons. One reason I don't like them. I didn't like them. The fans here didn't like them. No one liked each other. You know what I mean? So so it just brought the best out of it, you know what I mean? And so and I wanted to do it, you know, personally for myself, for the team, for the city, and for everybody because it was one of them games where you want to give your personal best. And I think if you look at some of my stats, I think one game I had 24 tackles the highest I ever made in one game against the Saints. And that and I could barely walk coming out of the game. And that was the time when they had Hayward there. I don't know what I'm telling you, he was around a pound of running back. Yeah, Dalton Hill your autumn guys man so that was so competitive. So that environment was a great environment to play in. Because they take you want to bring it bring the best out of you. So I enjoyed it. I'll tell you that 91 season, it was to finish that season playing against that team. You couldn't ask for much more than that. It was the third time we had played them. There was our arch rivals. It was the best over it. It was four to move on to the next round of play. You did. And I think that year at their play, it was the best. Did they beat us in Atlanta? No, no, no, they did. They beat us in Atlanta. We beat them in New Orleans. So we swapped on each other's turf. So yeah, and then we had to play them again. It was it was weird that the visiting team won that series a lot. One that series, and Chris, you said from a quarterback standpoint, how hard was it playing in that way against the same? It was just so loud. You know, I mean, when you go in there, you feel like you're at a rock concert where the volume is on high the entire time, like an AC DC concert or something like that, you know, back in the day. And and when you leave the place, you know, you shower up, you go get on the bus, you go to the airport, your ears ring for like the next day. No, seriously, I mean, your ears are ringing and you're like, and you can't sleep when you get home because you're you're just, you know, it's just a contact high from being in there. But you know, I think I think Jesse touched on some of the guys we played against, you know, it was a hated rivalry, but it was a mutually respected rivalry. I played in the Pro Bowl in 91, 92. And therefore linebackers that Jesse just mentioned were all there, you know, Sam Mills, Von Johnson, Ricky Jackson, Pat Swilling, and then Philadelphia, they had Seth Joiner, Jerome Brown, Reggie White, and Clyde Simmons. And eight dudes made up two positions in the Pro Bowl and four of them were Saints players. So I mean, they their defenses were nasty. It was always a physical game. It was always violent. It was always intense. The crowd noise was unbelievable. But it was just that much more gratifying when you go in there and beat them at their place. We prepared for that game by bringing speakers out to our practices and blasted noise because we knew how loud it was going to be. So the same words from the locker room. We actually just brought our new one, that's how we brought these speakers out. And at practice, he's blasting this music. It's just sound and it just gets so loud. But we had to function as an all I know for an offense, we had to function as offense, not being able to communicate with each other. He mentioned their four linebackers. Their passion was really unbelievable. So June Jones was we all know him. And we chart and we're charting and all their games are won. When they they were on defense on third and long, they knocked the ball out, they'd sacked the guy, and they would do something to win the game and we'd watch a film and they're okay, okay, then they win the game on third and long. So in your game, I said to June, this is this style crazy, your coach was I'm switching down in distance. I said, we'll throw on every first down and second down and treat third and long like run. We got on the airplane, we're laughing. We won the game and he didn't care about third down. But they never made a play against us where they scored on defense. And that's how they won. So they didn't know what the heck we're doing. Every first down, these two cats are throwing it in third down. We're running 32 cut on a draw draw. It was awesome. I got to give you tribute real quick to my good man Mike Ken who played left tackle for he was with the Falcons for 17 years. In that particular season 1991 going up against Ricky Jackson, Pat Swilling, Kevin Green. Oh, wow. Charles Haley, he gave up a second and a half that year. I felt bad that he didn't make the Pro Bowl that year. Yeah, Pro Bowl year. He was phenomenal. But I got to give a shout out to him because he is along with Jeff Van Note and Tommy Nobis Mike Ken. I think he's probably known for one of the absolutely the Falcon. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.