One of the strangest segments on a NFL pregame show in a while popped up on Fox NFL Sunday this week. There, Terry Bradshaw discussed the New Orleans Saints’ journey from a 2-0 start to a 2-5 record currently, and sang about calling famed 19th-century herbalist and voodoo practicioner Marie Laveau to make a potion to turn their season around:
Terry Bradshaw has voodoo saving the 2-5 New Orleans Saints. pic.twitter.com/w3S7cvKgSn
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 27, 2024
“I called, you guys ready for this? I called Dennis Allen, the head coach of the Saints. I love the Saints, I’m from New Orleans, and I believe in voodoo, like all the people do in Louisiana. And I called him and I said, ‘Listen,’ [sings], ‘Down there in Louisiana where the tall pine trees grow/There lives a voodoo lady named Marie Laveau.’
“I called Marie Laveau, she took her pot, she went into the Saints, they put all that potion in there. Then they had Pete Warner come over, he got him a cup of it. Then Taysom Hill, he got him a cup of it. [Marshon] Lattimore, the corner, he got a cup of it. [Derek] Carr, the quarterback, he took a cup, but he had to take some home, he needed a little bit more. All of these people are coming back! The Saints are decimated with injuries, and Marie Laveau, God bless her for coming in there.”
Host Curt Menafee then asked Bradshaw “Did you have a cup of something over here? Because I’m wondering what’s going on” and inspected Bradshaw’s coffee cup.
There probably weren’t many people expecting to hear about Marie Laveau and voodoo potions on Fox NFL Sunday, or to hear Bradshaw sing a bit of “Marie Laveau” (a song written by Shel Silverstein and Baxter Taylor, first recorded by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, made particularly famous by Bobby Bare’s 1974 live recording that hit No. 1 on the country charts):
The Saints could certainly use some kind of help to bounce back from these five straight losses. But Bradshaw’s suggestion for how they can turn this around was definitely unique, at least for a national NFL pregame show. And while the 76-year-old Bradshaw does have strong Louisiana ties (he was born and grew up in Shreveport, and played at Louisiana Tech in Ruston) and has recorded several country music albums and performed music live (including in his stage show-turned-2022 HBO special), this still probably wasn’t anything anyone was expecting.
[Awful Announcing on X]