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Let's take a run through the NFC South headlines.

The New Orleans Saints allowed four fans to take part in Wednesday’s workout. They were winners of a raffle and the proceeds are going to charity. Quarterback Drew Brees said it’s a way to make the most out of the lockout.

Former New Orleans kicker Tom Dempsey recalls the labor strife in 1974.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that Tampa Bay cornerback Aqib Talib is expected to be indicted by a grand jury Friday. Talib was charged with assault in a March incident in Texas.

San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers said he’d be in favor of adding Carolina receiver Steve Smith. There have been reports Smith wants a trade and the Chargers are a team he’d like to play for.

Even in the lockout, Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan is finding ways to make money.

Atlanta cornerback Christopher Owens said he has gotten over a rough performance in the playoff loss to Green Bay.

There will be two new members inducted into the Saints Hall of Fame this fall. Former safety Sammy Knight and longtime radio and television announcer Bruce Miller have been named as the newest selections.

Each NFC South team has some way of honoring its former players. For instance, the Bucs do it with their Ring of Honor, which, so far, includes only Lee Roy Selmon and John McKay.

We’ll see how long this lockout lasts, but I’m thinking if it drags into the middle of June or later, we might go ahead and do some Call It polls to let you select who belongs in the NFC South Hall of Fame. There’s no such thing right now, but, even if it’s just for fun, it might be a good time to start one.

Here’s a list of past inductees into the Saints Hall of Fame.

• 1988 -- Archie Manning and Danny Abramowicz
• 1989 -- Tommy Myers and Tom Dempsey
• 1990 -- Billy Kilmer
• 1991 -- Tony Galbreath and Derland Moore
• 1992 -- George Rogers, Jake Kupp and John Hill
• 1993 -- Joe Federspiel
• 1994 -- Henry Childs and Jim Finks
• 1995 -- Doug Atkins and Bob Pollard
• 1996 -- Dave Whitsell and Dave Waymer
• 1997 -- Stan Brock and Rickey Jackson
• 1998 -- Dalton Hilliard and Sam Mills
• 1999 -- Bobby Hebert and Eric Martin
• 2000 -- Pat Swilling and Vaughan Johnson
• 2001 -- Jim Wilks and Hoby Brenner
• 2002 -- Jim Mora and Frank Warren
• 2003 -- Jim Dombrowski and Wayne Martin
• 2004 -- Rueben Mayes and Steve Sidwell
• 2006 -- Joel Hilgenberg
• 2007 -- Joe Johnson
• 2008 -- William Roaf
• 2009 -- Morten Andersen
• 2010 -- Joe Horn

What key event significantly changed the fortunes of the Saints -- for better or worse? Give us your take and we’ll give you our definitive moment on May 25.

These events could be positives or negatives. In the case of the Saints, I elected to just stick with the positives because there have been a lot recently. This long-suffering franchise has done all sorts of good things since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

There have been two trips to the NFC Championship Game, a Super Bowl title and a future that still looks very bright, and most of your choices are from the modern era. You can trace all that's right with the Saints these days back to 2006, when coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees, who supposedly had a shoulder injury so bad he might not play again, arrived. For those with longer memories, I even included the arrival of Jim Mora as coach in 1986. That move triggered the first real surge of competitiveness as the "Dome Patrol'' and Bobby Hebert showed it was possible to win in New Orleans.

Prior to that, the highlights I left out were Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal and the days of Archie Manning running for his life, but also throwing some nice passes. Beyond that, there wasn’t much else.

If you vote Other, give us your suggestion in the comments area below.

We’ve got a real treat for New Orleans Saints fans over on our main NFL page. Colleague Seth Wickersham and a host of others have put together a tremendous package about one of the great moments in Saints’ history.

We’re not talking about the Super Bowl victory. We’re going way back into history. We’re only a few days away from the 40th anniversary of Tom Dempsey’s record-setting 63-yard field goal.

We’ve got readers of all ages on this blog, and I’m guessing a lot of you fall into the same category I do on Dempsey’s kick. I was born before it, but was too young to follow sports at that point. I’ve been aware of the basics of Dempsey’s kick for years, but never really knew many of the details.

Wickerhsam’s piece has all the details. I highly encourage you go get over there and check out the whole package.

Tampa Bay coach Raheem Morris compared rookie running back to LeGarrette Blount to Mike Alstott. It would be nice if it turns out that way. But let’s see a little bit more of Blount before we get too carried away with the comparisons.

The Panthers signed Chris Morris on Wednesday. That will help give a struggling offensive line a little more depth. But it’s not going to solve everything. Morris was a seventh-round pick by Oakland in 2006 and started 10 games for the Raiders last season.

The Bucs gave rookie Arrelious Benn some first-team work at wide receiver. If they’re doing that in a bye week, it’s a pretty good strong Benn will be starting opposite fellow rookie Mike Williams when the Bucs return to play and Sammie Stroughter will be allowed to focus on being a slot receiver. That’s the plan the Bucs had all along, but Benn took a little longer than Williams to catch on to things in the preseason.

Outstanding columnist Peter Finney checked in with a couple of legendary New Orleans kickers, Tom Dempsey and Morten Andersen, to get a view of what Garrett Hartley is going through as he tries to find his accuracy.

NEW ORLEANS -- If you weren’t in the Superdome on Sunday night, and a lot of New Orleans Saints fans are going to claim that honor for years, let’s make you feel as if you were.

Let’s turn it over to Jerry Romig, the official public address announcer in the Louisiana Superdome. If you’ve been to a Saints game, you’ve heard the voice because Romig has been here for a long time. Here’s the microphone, Jerry:

“Ain’t this beautiful?” Romig said over the speakers a couple of minutes after the Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in overtime in the NFC Championship Game. “The Saints are going to the Super Bowl.’’

There, you heard the official word -- and isn’t it kind of ironic that Romig used the word "ain’t"? Yes, the team that once was called the Aints and had fans wearing bags over their heads, is going to the Super Bowl. They’ll play the Indianapolis Colts -- and New Orleans native Peyton Manning -- in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami on Feb. 7.

It’s over now, but what a strange path the Saints took to get there -- both Sunday night and throughout their history.

“Anybody want a rejuvenated ulcer?’’ an elevator operator in the Superdome press box asked a few minutes after the game.

“I’m just trying to congest all this,’’ a fan said as she walked down a Superdome tunnel.

Congest it, ingest it, digest it or whatever, but enjoy it. This was about more than one of the best postseason games in NFL history. This was about the city of New Orleans, really the whole Gulf region. From Bogalusa to Lake Charles, La., from Biloxi, Miss., to Mobile, Ala., and even into parts of extreme northwest Florida, they’re celebrating more than the first Super Bowl trip in franchise history.

They’re celebrating a way of life -- a way of life that’s helped this region come back from one of the worst natural disasters in history.

“Brett Favre is a great story,’’ New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita said. “But the New Orleans Saints are a better story.’’

Fujita’s right. What happened Sunday night was about history and legacies, but not about Favre. Sure, the stage was set for another legendary Favre moment. You know, something like the old gunslinger comes home (he grew up just up the road in Kiln, Miss.), takes an incredible beating, spends most of the game limping around and, in the end, makes a play to take his team to the Super Bowl.

Another chapter in the storybook. And all of it except the very last part came true. On a night when Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin were bouncing balls off the Superdome floor, Favre almost overcame them.

But you want to talk about overcoming things? Let’s go back to the Saints and the community around them.

“This is for everybody in this city," coach Sean Payton said as he raised the George S. Halas Trophy over his head. “This stadium used to have holes in it and be wet. It’s not wet anymore."

No, it’s not. Looking out at the Superdome floor afterward, all you could see was confetti. Lots and lots of it. You also could see Payton dressed in a suit, throwing passes to his son and a few of his friends.

It’s playtime for the Paytons and party time for Saints fans everywhere. The days of rooting for lovable losers are over. The misery is over. At least for one night, what happened a little over four years ago is a distant memory, kind of like Archie Manning and Tom Dempsey.

What happened was the world changed for New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina hit. The city and the region were devastated.

“The city is on its way to recovery and in a lot of ways it’s come back better than ever," New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees said.

The Saints have come back better than ever, after temporarily seeking shelter in San Antonio, and that has done a lot to boost morale. But this moment is, without a doubt, the highest point yet.

“We said we were going to keep fighting until they kick us off the field and go home,’’ New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma said.

That’s exactly what the Saints did Sunday night and, really, what their fans have been doing since the hurricane. The Saints beat the heck out of Favre, repeatedly stripped the ball from the hands of Peterson and Harvin and won the turnover battle five to one.

Still, in the end, they needed Favre to try to throw a cross-field pass that turned into an interception near the end of regulation, and a 40-yard field goal by 23-year-old kicker Garrett Hartley to win it nearly five minutes into overtime.

Hartley’s kick replaces Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal as the most famous kick, and probably the most famous play, in New Orleans history.

But you want one play to define this moment and the history of the Saints and New Orleans? Turn back to just before the end of the first half, with the score tied 14-14 and Reggie Bush standing near his own end zone waiting to field a punt.

Bush failed to catch the ball and the Vikings recovered at the New Orleans 10-yard line with 1:13 left in the first half.

"That’s a gut-wrenching feeling," Bush said.

Bush could have been the goat to top all goats in Saints’ history had the Vikings punched in a quick touchdown and gone on to win. Thing is, this time, it didn’t happen.

Two plays later, Favre and Peterson messed up an exchange on a handoff and Fujita recovered. Payton made it a point to have Brees hand the ball to Bush on the next two plays as the Saints ran out the clock.

That was about keeping confidence and a shot at redemption. We’re not just talking about Bush’s confidence or about Bush’s redemption, although he did score the final New Orleans touchdown. We’re talking about redemption for a franchise, a city and an entire region. Bush just happened to sum it all up perfectly in what he did on the field and what he said after the game.

“For anybody who thinks we didn’t deserve to win, they weren’t watching the same game we were," Bush said.