the VG board football thread

I shouldn't be, but I'm surprised at how people are reacting to this loss.

It seems obvious to me that after jumping out to an early lead, Sean Payton shut it down on offense. He went vanilla, and when he tried to switch the flip back on, we sputtered, Colston fumbled, and we missed a field goal.

Payton is still growing as a coach. Just as he used to be "too cute" on a micro level with his play calling, he is now being too cute on the macro level with trying to not show much of his top shelf plays until the playoffs. I personally think he's playing his cards too close to the vest. It bit us today.

We don't know yet if his strategy will work; only the playoffs will show us.

But to me it's obvious what's going on. Since the playoffs became inevitable to us, we've looked crappy often. We never looked crappy before. I'm supposed to believe that we suddenly suck, or that people have suddenly figured out Payton's offense, when they haven't been able to since 06? That's just way too unlikely.

It's much more reasonable to assume Payton is outhinking things. He's shown an inclination to do that very thing in the past. He's been walking a razor thin line the past four weeks, and it's impossible to stay balanced. After jumping up 14 today, we became incredibly vanilla. He thought we were good enough to hold on to the lead being uber vanilla (and if we make a kick he's right).

The defense is another story. I don't believe they are holding schemes back; they are just short handed. They only gave up 10 points in regulation today though. I'm most concerned about them stopping the run. The pass defense will be fine once everyone is healthy. But getting pushed around up front is disturbing.

I honestly believe we will be the unstoppable force again in the playoffs. Payton is simply going too far with the hiding of his best schemes, and it might have cost us homefield advantage. But we will be just fine.

As for Carolina next week, I'd rather have everybody healthy than homefield advantage. Hopefully Chicago will do us a favor.