By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The 13-3 New Orleans Saints arguably were the best team in football this season – certainly better than the 9-7 Philadelphia Eagles, but they weren’t better than the Eagles during the first quarter last Sunday.

In their playoff matchup, the Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead. New Orleans couldn’t stop them or get anything started. Head Coach Sean Payton had to do something to Make the Saints Great Again.

And so, early in the second quarter, Payton called for a fake punt on fourth-and-1 from the New Orleans 30-yard-line. The Saints picked up four yards and scored a touchdown on that drive. They won, 20-14.

Payton knew he had to do something to shake things up, even though failure would have given the ball back to the Eagles with another score within reach. The momentum was all on the Eagles’ side. It wasn’t a crazy gamble; the backup quarterback who took the snap had the authority to call off the fake punt if he didn’t like the defensive alignment. It was a controlled risk, but a risk nonetheless.

Sports-to-politics analogies are overused by newspaper columnists, but let’s go with this one. 

Starting with the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention, the world’s oldest democracy has enjoyed a pretty good run.

But we’ve been stuck these past couple of decades in an expanding “triple D” quagmire of debt, dysfunction and division. If something is not done, those problems will worsen. Momentum is not on our side.

Americans know something must be done. Unfortunately, there’s not a single coach who can decide what trick play to call. In a big, diverse country like ours, getting creative with the playbook will be messy.

Arguably, this has already occurred – in 2016. I did not vote for President Trump and will not vote for him if he’s on the ballot in 2020, but I understand why people did. Some voters who understand America is floundering took a risk on an outside-the-system candidate who could shake things up, and he has. For some Americans, the 2008 election of President Obama was kind of a fake punt as well. He was untested and unproven but showed promise as a candidate who might help America overcome its divisions.

There are other ways America might fake a punt in the coming years. Like Ross Perot did in 1992 and 1996, a rich businessperson might eventually run for president as an independent. (I won’t be surprised if one runs as a Democrat in 2020.) Various groups are pushing many types of political reforms. Convention of the States activists have been advocating for a states-led constitutional convention to consider amendments for term limits, a balanced budget and other changes. They’ll once again try to get a resolution through the Arkansas Legislature this year. As reported here previously, Arkansas voters in 2020 might have a chance to adopt a ranked choice voting system where they rank candidates on the ballot rather than select just one. Unite America’s “fulcrum strategy” seeks to elect a handful of independent U.S. senators who would hold the balance of power and force Republicans and Democrats to solve problems.

Whatever play is called, as with the Saints, it must be a controlled risk. The United States shouldn’t discard certain generally accepted values: individual liberty, the rule of law, and free markets along with a social safety net. There is much historical precedent for nations like this one instead to blame scapegoats and embrace autocracy. That must not happen.

If the fake punt had failed, the Saints still might have won, but it would have been harder. Regardless, something had to change, and if not early in the second quarter, then when? Those realities made the coach’s fake punt call risky but not crazy.

I think that’s where America is now – still great, but struggling, and needing to get creative with the playbook to reverse the momentum.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.