It was nice to finally be able to relax during the fourth quarter of a Saints game this season, though some were a little too relaxed. Mass exodus with 10 minutes to go in a win? How about hanging around to celebrate a bit? But I’d love to know why the Superdome is an information-free zone. Chris Ivory disappeared partway through the second quarter, but we in the dome never knew if he was injured, in the dog house or sitting down to give Pierre Thomas a chance to get some reps. When Courtney Roby was injured, he was on the carpet for 10 minutes. People at home knew who it was and likely saw the replay of his injury and fumble ad infinitum; we didn’t even know who was injured. The scoreboard went to black with the Saints logo instead of showing us…anything. Who’s down. Replays. Replays from other games. Stats. The only indication that there is a world going on outside the dome is Bob Breck’s shouted, dignity-free weather forecast for the drive home, and same slow, dated crawl of game scores on a small scoreboard that the dome employed when I first started coming to games in the early 1990s. It’s fun to guess which crawfish is hiding a corncob up its ass and which Copeland’s speedboat will win (those races are rigged!), but it’s more fun to know basic game stats and game-related info. Since it’s likely that at least a quarter of those in attendance at the dome play fantasy football, stats from the day would be fun. As we go down a stretch drive, highlights from other relevant games would be nice. Lions beat Green Bay 7-3??? How the hell did that happen? We didn’t know until later that night.

If the dome really wanted to join the information age, it could also improve wi-fi in the dome so that people could easily tweet and update Facebook from the game. (AT&T could also step up its game; the dome is a black hole for iPhone users.) It wouldn’t be hard to have some drone monitor Twitter for the best and most entertaining #whodat and #saints tweets and throw them up on a screen in the building, making it possible for fans at home and at the game to actively be a part of the entertainment.

But for now, I’d settle for the dome simply letting me know what’s going on. The occasional NFL Red Zone highlight is a toe in the water; how about we step on in?