5 things Haslett did before Payton

Goatman Saint said
Haslett was an idiot as a coach. The guy had very little to no scheme, couldn’t manage players, couldn’t get any kind of consistency. He was a rah rah go beat em up emotional sort of guy. The absolute opposite of the Payton era here. I still tot his day think Brooks could’ve been an all time great QB, he just had no consistent or good coaching to help him improve. As long as he could sandlot QB he was great, as was the team. But that’s all Haslett was

A major issue with having a coach and QB come along and succeed to the level that Payton and Brees did is that it gives some the confidence to unfairly / inaccurately paint the predecessors in a completely dim and unflattering light. "The other guys were inept dimwits, but the new guys were amazing!" I've often griped at how those who didn't truly follow the Saints pretty much assigned the narrative of "this team was the poor, pitiful Aints until Payton and Brees arrived!"........but posts like this remind me that some members of our own fanbase are just as responsible for that happening.

An "idiot" for a coach probably isn't gonna immediately win a playoff game, then keep the team reasonably in the playoff hunt for most of the other seasons, minus Katrina. Sean Payton himself talks about how hard it is to win 1 game in the NFL.......so, if we're to take that at face value, the fact that Haslett could usually win at least half his games would indicate that he at least knew SOME aspects of winning football.

Ultimately, Sean Payton ended up being better, we know this......but let's also not forget that we've had plenty of 7-9 under him as well.

HouseCall said
I think what Haslett did was give the Saints fans a sense of what we could experience as a fan base with the early success and the playoff win.

Probably as good of a one-sentence summation of the point I was trying to capture with this thread, as any I've read.