Another playoff, another chance to root for the New Orleans Saints!
And just as she did last year, when the Saints made it to the NFL playoffs, Hoda Kotb is making sure little Haley Joy is ready to go marchin' in again.
Hoda posted this sweet, short video on Instagram Friday:
In it, mom and daughter raise their hands to cheer, "Go Saints!"
Frankly, we're cheering over the little girls' shirt, which reads "Tiny but AWESOME." It has scored a touchdown in our hearts!
Hoda is a longtime Saints fan; one of her earliest jobs as an anchor and reporter was at CBS affiliate WWL in New Orleans, where she worked from 1992-98.
The Saints are back in the playoffs for another season, and on Sunday will face off against the Philadelphia Eagles. During TODAY Friday, we learned that FiveThirtyEight.com does give the Saints a 64 percent chance of triumphing over the Eagles. And either way, it seems like Hoda and Haley have already won, with Brees sending a personal thank you for her being such a big fan.
Meanwhile, Eagles Savannah Guthrie joked about a "battle of the babies," because earlier this week she'd posted Vale, 4, running around the house cheering, "Go Eagles, go, go, go!"
And Savannah got her own call-back from a team player; this time, it was Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins:
Being a cheerleader sure can pay off!
All of this attention paid to Sunday's game had to culminate somewhere, and it ended up being not a battle of babies, but a battle of anchors. Hoda and Savannah started trash-talking each others' teams, and ended up with a shared challenge: If the Saints crumble on Sunday, Hoda will have to go into the New York City subway in an Eagles' T-shirt and squawk like an eagle; if the Eagles crash on Sunday, Savannah will also have to go into the subway in a Saints jersey and serve breakfast for commuters while singing the Saints' fight song.
Now we're even more excited about the game!