Here’s what I don’t get re Saints ranking predictions
Just for "scale", how many "could bes" did we have in the 08 offseason?
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nor/2008_roster.htm
Without going into a player-by-player comparison, and with the understanding that hindsight is 20/20-- I only see a handful of "could bes" including Sederick Ellis and Jason David, who turned out to be colossal busts. Carl Nicks was a rookie but handled himself well from the get-go.
But just a few takaways--
Coach SP and DB were still "could bes" in the context of winning a championship, but they were clearly on the ascendancy.
The rest of the roster is stacked with either players who were established vets or young players clearly on the ascent.
Numerous players on the roster, too had already been to the NFC Championship game and had playoff experience. Just by way of an example, I think it's pretty obvious then and now that Jeremy Shockey was a much better player than Juwan Johnson, and it's not even close. The team also had two solid, contributing book-end DEs in Charles Grant and Will Smith. The Saints now have an aging Cameron Jordan and a bunch of could-bes. Now, I hope Chase Young or Carl Granderson or someone else steps up, but the point is that this team has a crap-ton of questions surrounding coaches and players that previous teams did not.