Despite Having no HC, the worst defense in the league and a ton of dropped passes in critical situations we were still in the playoff picture till week 15.
That brings me to another good one. Jim Haslett's coaching often gets criticized after the fact, namely because of his allegiance to Aaron Brooks and the fact that he never got to the playoffs after his first season. But with the exception of the 2005 Katrina season, all of Haslett's teams were in the playoff hunt up until at least week 15 of those other seasons.
Sticking with the Haslett era for the next two..
When people speak of Donte' Stallworth's career with the Saints, labels such as "lazy"..."underacheiver"...and "injury-prone" seem to pop up. Of course, it didn't help matters when Payton traded him and replaced him with Colston before the season started.....then later cited some of those same reasons in his own book. But do you recall that Stallworth caught a TD pass in each of the first 4 games of his career, during weeks 1-4 of the 2002 season? Just to give that some perspective.....even Randy Moss in 1998 (who probably had one of the best rookie WR seasons of all time) didn't do that.
When we think of Haslett holdovers that still remain with the the team....we think of Will Smith and Devery Henderson (well, Devery's a FA, so technically he's not on the team at the moment, but still). Do you recall that Lance Moore actually was on the 2005 Saints practice squad during Haslett's final season?