Don't let ESPN steal your focus. This is what Saints fans need to be focused on...By: Martin Allen (@SaintsDigest)
Posted 05-14-2012 at 05:26 PM by D. Flowers
Updated 05-14-2012 at 05:28 PM by D. Flowers (To re-catagorize this blog posting)
Updated 05-14-2012 at 05:28 PM by D. Flowers (To re-catagorize this blog posting)
The Saints may have had the worst off season of any team in recent history, after being involved in the Bountygate scandal, which robbed the team of its head coach (Sean Payton) and it’s defensive leader (Jonathan Vilma) for the entire 2012 season, as well as it’s GM, Assistant HC, D-line Coach, and it’s best D lineman (Will Smith) for varying periods of the upcoming season.
Do you want the best Saints analysis? Follow me, Martin Allen, @SaintsDigest
I promise that the previous paragraph will be the last mention of Bountygate. Let’s move forward.
So the question that we, as Saints fans, need to be asking is “How do the Saints win now?”. And the good news is that in spite of the suspensions and other disciplinary action taken against the team, the Saints are still in very good position to be right back in the mix for the NFC crown.
When the scandal first broke, a lot of analyst were predicting that the Saint’s season was over before it began. As the weeks have gone by, most have eased up on those sentiments as they are beginning to see what I have all along: That the Saints still have the capacity to be a Super Bowl contender this year. And these are the reasons why:
1- The Offense is still 95% in tact from last year’s record breaking squad. There were only 2 major offensive losses: Carl Nicks and Robert Meacham. Carl Nicks was a big loss , but replacing the best Offensive Guard in the NFL with the second best is not a real step down. The Offensive line should be as good as last year’s unit. And as much as I liked Robert Meacham, we’re so deep at the WR position that his loss shouldn’t even show up on our radar. This move actually makes room for the emergence of Adrian Arrington, who is an amazing talent who couldn’t even get into games the last 2 seasons because of the sheer depth at WR on the Saints squad. And with Marques Colston’s resigning and the return of Lance Moore and Devery Henderson, I think it should be business as usual. No one knows what this team will get from the defense this year, but if the offense can play at the level it played at for the last 8 games of 2011, I would be willing to challenge any team to match us point for point. Now depending so heavily on offense has never been the blueprint to Super Bowl success. Even the Saints 2009-10 Super Bowl run was due in large part to the Defense’s propensity to cause and pounce on turnover opportunities. But with our current situation, we don’t have a choice but to use this offensively heavy strategy. Anyone with an ounce of football IQ will tell you that the Offensively heavy Saints should have been in the Super Bowl last year, despite a great defensive showing by the 49ers in the Divisional Playoff back in January. And if there was one offense and quarterback that I would be willing to bet on, it would be the Saints and Drew Brees. Now SIGN HIM ASAP! That’s a blog for another day though. There will be an immense pressure for the offense to produce with the defensive woes that we may experience this year. But again, the Saints are prepared, as they have found ways to prosper in spite of less than stellar defenses the past 2 seasons. The difference is that the team will go in to this season knowing that they will have carry more of the load. This will not be implied this year, it’ll be written all over the wall all season.
2- Special Teams will be better this year: There were flashes of potential for the Saints Special Teams last season with Darren Sproles taking on most of the team’s return duties, but he has some help coming into this season. I don’t know if you remember him, but the Saints have another return stud in Joe Morgan, who was brilliant during the Pre-Season last year before an injury ended his rookie campaign. He’ll provide us the opportunity to only use Darren Sproles in spot duty out there and still have a game breaker in the return game. Prepare for him to contribute as a WR also. Also helping the Special Teams is a pledge from the coaching staff to place a premium on improving in special teams returns and coverage in the upcoming season. And the Saints will need that squad to make a bigger contribution this season as we are again unsure of what the defense will be able to provide. The tools are in place to make that improvement, and I expect the Saints to concentrate even more on the special teams.
3- The Defense will not be as bad as the media wants you to believe. At the end of last season, I predicted that the Saints Defense would be better this year based solely on the new defensive scheme that is being put into place by new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo. I expect our defensive backs to be much better than in the past 2 seasons since they won’t be playing on an island all game, as the Saints will no longer blitz so often under Spagnolo’s watch. Jabari Greer is going to be what he has always been. I expect his consistent high level of play to continue, if not rise under the new system. And anyone who watched the Saints last season knows that Patrick Robinson is on the verge of breaking out this season. After a rough rookie year, he bounced back with a good sophomore effort, starting 7 games and picking off 4 passes. The linebacker core has been completely rebuilt through the free agent acquisitions of LBs Curtis Lofton, Chris Chamberlain, and David Hawthorne. The leadership and football IQ of John Vilma will definitely be missed, but considering that he played hurt most of last season, Lofton should be an upgrade in that position, production wise, from last year. With Chamberlain and Hawthorne in the mix, we should see our underneath coverage of backs and TEs improve greatly, as well as an improvement in the run support from that position. Our safeties will be better than ever in the new system as they won’t be left in as many one on one situations as before. And after the Greg Williams one on one coverage trial by fire of the past 3 seasons, all of the Saints should settle more comfortably into a more conventional defensive scheme this season. Now I think that all of these factors will have to support the still developing Defensive Line that I don’t expect much out of as it stands today. This will not be a new problem for the Saints, as they haven’t gotten a lot of support in the pass rush in recent memory. Spags is a D-Line wizard, so he could completely surprise me and everyone else by putting a fierce pass rush out there, but I expect it to take some time to build that unit. Here’s hoping that Spags can work his magic on the likes of Cedric Ellis think that the other levels of the defense will be able to hold up the D-Line until they are ready to emerge. And another factor in this is that the Saints have such a potent offense, that only 2-3 stops per game minimum are needed for the Saints to handily win a game. Ask the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts about that. This Defense won’t be stellar, but they can be better than last year, which is all we need from them to win it all.
4- I say this with the hope that the NFL doesn’t try and use this general statement as “evidence” of wrongdoing later (I apologize, couldn’t help myself), but the Saints, and their fans, will approach this entire season with bad intentions (A.K.A a chip on thier shoulders- because the team and the city approah every fight together) . Not intent to hurt anyone. I repeat, no intent to hurt anyone. But the combination of every Saints fan NEEDING badly to get back to football, the entire city feels it was wronged in this matter. And that “us against the world” mentality will be a rallying cry for the team and the city. This team hasn’t had a cause so deep to play for since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This will be a slightly different journey, as the Saints probably won’t have the world on their side this time around, but the Who Dat nation has proven countless times, through high attendance, merchandising support, and TV numbers that they are plenty capable of fully supporting it’s team without a lot help from anyone outside of the Gulf Coast region.
The coaching carousel the team will experience this year might warrant some adjustment along the way, but people forget that the Sean Payton SYSTEM has been in place for 7 years now. Trust me, people where to be and how to get there. Now it will take a mature effort on the part of the tem as a whole to make this work, but this team has exhibited that mature behavior constantly since the arrival of Sean Payton in 2006, so I don’t expect that to change now. So with all being said, wouldn’t hope for a good season this year from the Saints. I would expect it.
Do you want the best Saints analysis? Follow me, Martin Allen, @SaintsDigest
I promise that the previous paragraph will be the last mention of Bountygate. Let’s move forward.
So the question that we, as Saints fans, need to be asking is “How do the Saints win now?”. And the good news is that in spite of the suspensions and other disciplinary action taken against the team, the Saints are still in very good position to be right back in the mix for the NFC crown.
When the scandal first broke, a lot of analyst were predicting that the Saint’s season was over before it began. As the weeks have gone by, most have eased up on those sentiments as they are beginning to see what I have all along: That the Saints still have the capacity to be a Super Bowl contender this year. And these are the reasons why:
1- The Offense is still 95% in tact from last year’s record breaking squad. There were only 2 major offensive losses: Carl Nicks and Robert Meacham. Carl Nicks was a big loss , but replacing the best Offensive Guard in the NFL with the second best is not a real step down. The Offensive line should be as good as last year’s unit. And as much as I liked Robert Meacham, we’re so deep at the WR position that his loss shouldn’t even show up on our radar. This move actually makes room for the emergence of Adrian Arrington, who is an amazing talent who couldn’t even get into games the last 2 seasons because of the sheer depth at WR on the Saints squad. And with Marques Colston’s resigning and the return of Lance Moore and Devery Henderson, I think it should be business as usual. No one knows what this team will get from the defense this year, but if the offense can play at the level it played at for the last 8 games of 2011, I would be willing to challenge any team to match us point for point. Now depending so heavily on offense has never been the blueprint to Super Bowl success. Even the Saints 2009-10 Super Bowl run was due in large part to the Defense’s propensity to cause and pounce on turnover opportunities. But with our current situation, we don’t have a choice but to use this offensively heavy strategy. Anyone with an ounce of football IQ will tell you that the Offensively heavy Saints should have been in the Super Bowl last year, despite a great defensive showing by the 49ers in the Divisional Playoff back in January. And if there was one offense and quarterback that I would be willing to bet on, it would be the Saints and Drew Brees. Now SIGN HIM ASAP! That’s a blog for another day though. There will be an immense pressure for the offense to produce with the defensive woes that we may experience this year. But again, the Saints are prepared, as they have found ways to prosper in spite of less than stellar defenses the past 2 seasons. The difference is that the team will go in to this season knowing that they will have carry more of the load. This will not be implied this year, it’ll be written all over the wall all season.
2- Special Teams will be better this year: There were flashes of potential for the Saints Special Teams last season with Darren Sproles taking on most of the team’s return duties, but he has some help coming into this season. I don’t know if you remember him, but the Saints have another return stud in Joe Morgan, who was brilliant during the Pre-Season last year before an injury ended his rookie campaign. He’ll provide us the opportunity to only use Darren Sproles in spot duty out there and still have a game breaker in the return game. Prepare for him to contribute as a WR also. Also helping the Special Teams is a pledge from the coaching staff to place a premium on improving in special teams returns and coverage in the upcoming season. And the Saints will need that squad to make a bigger contribution this season as we are again unsure of what the defense will be able to provide. The tools are in place to make that improvement, and I expect the Saints to concentrate even more on the special teams.
3- The Defense will not be as bad as the media wants you to believe. At the end of last season, I predicted that the Saints Defense would be better this year based solely on the new defensive scheme that is being put into place by new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo. I expect our defensive backs to be much better than in the past 2 seasons since they won’t be playing on an island all game, as the Saints will no longer blitz so often under Spagnolo’s watch. Jabari Greer is going to be what he has always been. I expect his consistent high level of play to continue, if not rise under the new system. And anyone who watched the Saints last season knows that Patrick Robinson is on the verge of breaking out this season. After a rough rookie year, he bounced back with a good sophomore effort, starting 7 games and picking off 4 passes. The linebacker core has been completely rebuilt through the free agent acquisitions of LBs Curtis Lofton, Chris Chamberlain, and David Hawthorne. The leadership and football IQ of John Vilma will definitely be missed, but considering that he played hurt most of last season, Lofton should be an upgrade in that position, production wise, from last year. With Chamberlain and Hawthorne in the mix, we should see our underneath coverage of backs and TEs improve greatly, as well as an improvement in the run support from that position. Our safeties will be better than ever in the new system as they won’t be left in as many one on one situations as before. And after the Greg Williams one on one coverage trial by fire of the past 3 seasons, all of the Saints should settle more comfortably into a more conventional defensive scheme this season. Now I think that all of these factors will have to support the still developing Defensive Line that I don’t expect much out of as it stands today. This will not be a new problem for the Saints, as they haven’t gotten a lot of support in the pass rush in recent memory. Spags is a D-Line wizard, so he could completely surprise me and everyone else by putting a fierce pass rush out there, but I expect it to take some time to build that unit. Here’s hoping that Spags can work his magic on the likes of Cedric Ellis think that the other levels of the defense will be able to hold up the D-Line until they are ready to emerge. And another factor in this is that the Saints have such a potent offense, that only 2-3 stops per game minimum are needed for the Saints to handily win a game. Ask the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts about that. This Defense won’t be stellar, but they can be better than last year, which is all we need from them to win it all.
4- I say this with the hope that the NFL doesn’t try and use this general statement as “evidence” of wrongdoing later (I apologize, couldn’t help myself), but the Saints, and their fans, will approach this entire season with bad intentions (A.K.A a chip on thier shoulders- because the team and the city approah every fight together) . Not intent to hurt anyone. I repeat, no intent to hurt anyone. But the combination of every Saints fan NEEDING badly to get back to football, the entire city feels it was wronged in this matter. And that “us against the world” mentality will be a rallying cry for the team and the city. This team hasn’t had a cause so deep to play for since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This will be a slightly different journey, as the Saints probably won’t have the world on their side this time around, but the Who Dat nation has proven countless times, through high attendance, merchandising support, and TV numbers that they are plenty capable of fully supporting it’s team without a lot help from anyone outside of the Gulf Coast region.
The coaching carousel the team will experience this year might warrant some adjustment along the way, but people forget that the Sean Payton SYSTEM has been in place for 7 years now. Trust me, people where to be and how to get there. Now it will take a mature effort on the part of the tem as a whole to make this work, but this team has exhibited that mature behavior constantly since the arrival of Sean Payton in 2006, so I don’t expect that to change now. So with all being said, wouldn’t hope for a good season this year from the Saints. I would expect it.
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