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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.
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.