The Season That We Gave Away (1 Viewer)

Bill

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At this stage of the season it's hard to play the 'we were so close' game when reflecting back on what could have been for the New Orleans Saints. There is no doubt that most teams who will fail to make the playoffs will be able to look back at a handful of plays and key injuries that affected their performance during the year and turned potential wins into crushing defeats.

But their list will be nothing compared to what the 'foot-shooting Saints' have compiled.

The fact is that by any gauge imaginable the Saints showed themselves to be not only formidable against their competition, but in fact quite dominant despite finding themselves consistently on the short end of the scoreboard as the final seconds of those games ticked away.

2016 will not be the kind of season that Saints fans will want to reflect back on fondly in the coming years. But when they do, the consensus will recall that it was the season that the team simply gave away.

The Saints have not gotten steamrolled into the loss column for their first 10 games, but instead have been very generous to their opponent by giving away football games by every freakish means possible. For every flash of brilliance by our up and coming squad there have been mind-numbing mistakes and key breakdowns that have/will define another miserable attempt to assert ourselves as a top team once again in this league.

The numbers are there and the potential for this team is obvious. But we are not there yet. True, all teams suffer from the occasional game-altering breakdowns that can cost them victories and the success that goes with it. Yet the fact that we are so close to being a far better team (record-wise) is what makes our inexplicable mistakes so hard to bear.

Growing pains??? Perhaps. But we do need to grow up and find a way to be a lot 'stingier' with the football and sharpen our execution in all those important areas that makes teams snatch defeats out of the hands of victories.

I see our team as being very close to being great once again. The ship has probably sailed regarding our chances this year. But once we learn how to stop giving away victories as we have in 2016, the sky is the limit.
 
It would seem that way but clock management isn't something that is on the players. Also, if you have the same special teams deficiencies, then the team will continue to have huge point swings when you expect to score 3 but instead give up 6.

That doesn't improve until you operate and remove the cancer
 
It would seem that way but clock management isn't something that is on the players. Also, if you have the same special teams deficiencies, then the team will continue to have huge point swings when you expect to score 3 but instead give up 6.

That doesn't improve until you operate and remove the cancer

Oh, I know where you're coming from. And no, the coaches certainly do not get a pass for this or any of the losses. However, the coaching mistakes in those concluding series last night were mostly made after the horse got out of the barn. Naturally I wasn't dancing on the tabletops over the play choices and clock management either.

However, coaches don't kill drives with turnovers, field kicks out of bounds at the 1 yard line, drop key passes, and (consistently) fail to execute on possibly the most common of plays in all of football. I mean, if the players are doing things the right way in practice, what are you going to suggest they tell the players who break down during the actual game?

The players need to execute and show some pride in doing their job right every time. There are no guarantees that they always will, but top to bottom the number of foot shooting mistakes must be reduced significantly if a team like the Saints are going to move up to the next level.

I personally think they will. But it needs to start now no matter how the season will end in 2016 in order to show us all that the team is getting there and will be ready to strut their stuff in the seasons to come.
 
The season we gave away? Which one?

2013: Start off undefeated and at the head of the division, have a complete mental breakdown at the end of the season and hand it to Carolina.

2014: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2015: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2016: Lose every game aside from 1 by stupid coaching decisions and special teams doing everything possible to make sure the other teams scores, even on an extra point kick.
 
The season we gave away? Which one?

2013: Start off undefeated and at the head of the division, have a complete mental breakdown at the end of the season and hand it to Carolina.

2014: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2015: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2016: Lose every game aside from 1 by stupid coaching decisions and special teams doing everything possible to make sure the other teams scores, even on an extra point kick.
 
The season we gave away? Which one?

2013: Start off undefeated and at the head of the division, have a complete mental breakdown at the end of the season and hand it to Carolina.

2014: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2015: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2016: Lose every game aside from 1 by stupid coaching decisions and special teams doing everything possible to make sure the other teams scores, even on an extra point kick.


Hey, not a problem. If you would like I will change the title from "The" to "A".

Just let me know. :hihi:
 
The season we gave away? Which one?

2013: Start off undefeated and at the head of the division, have a complete mental breakdown at the end of the season and hand it to Carolina.

2014: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2015: Start terrible make it to .500 and the wheels fall off.

2016: Lose every game aside from 1 by stupid coaching decisions and special teams doing everything possible to make sure the other teams scores, even on an extra point kick.

I don't have the energy to even write a blurb for all the the seasons I've watched begin given away. 1983, 1988, 1993, 2002, then the ones you mentioned. Back to watching the start of the hockey season, I guess.
 

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