Another year, another crushing end to the 2017 NFL season for the New Orleans Saints. It seems the Saints always find themselves on the losing side of the some of the most spectacular games in playoff history.

Needless to say, the heartbreaking losses have started to weigh on general manager Mickey Loomis. According to Josh Katzenstein of The Times-Picayune, Loomis feels there are three times the Saints were on the verge of going to a Super Bowl:

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“Look, for the rest of my life, I'm going to feel like, ‘We were this close to being in three Super Bowls,'” Loomis said. “And hopefully it's more than that.”

Loomis went in-depth about how frustrating these last-second defeats can be.

“What's hard about the end of the season, any season, is that it's so hard to get to a point where, man, you've got a real chance to get to the Super Bowl,” Loomis said. “And when something happens, you feel like it got taken away from you. And I'm not saying ‘wrongly' or anything like that. Just that, hey, it got jerked out from under us.

“And it's just like, ah, you got thrown back into this deep hole and there's no light.”

Of all the disappointing losses, this year's defeat weighs particularly heavy.

New Orleans had the NFC Divisional Game in the bag until a miscue by safety Marcus Williams effectively allowed Stefon Diggs and the Minnesota Vikings take their place in the conference championship.

As great as the Saints have been for the last decade, they have only managed to appear in one Super Bowl—which they won. Still, it seems they are well aware of their status as one of the NFL's legitimate contenders.

Unfortunately, with an aging quarterback in Drew Brees admitting retirement is just on the horizon, the Saints countdown to another Super Bowl continues to tick away.