I'm excited, cautious and curious.
I'm curious about how Allen will decide to let this new strategy and offensive philosophy play out. Will he be lile Payton was with the defense and rely on his defensive coaches to do their job while he focused on managing the offensive and game play outcome decision making? If Allen sticks to the defense and in game decisions leaving Kubiak to manage the offensive playcalling and strategy, I think we may have something. Carmichael was a major part of the problem last year, yes, but I don't know if we yet know to what extent Carmichael was able to be independent. Carmichael's mentor's offense was as creative, impulsive and challenging as it comes. In Carmicheal's opportunity to call plays before Sean's departure, the offense looked and felt like Payton's. It's odd that it became so conservative. Either Carmichael's philosophy differed drastically from Payton's or he wasn't free to do some of the things he would've liked. So, I'm curious how much influence and freedom Kubiak will have. I'm guessing (hoping) it's all his, but this question nags at me. What's going to happen when the games start counting?
I'm cautiously optimistic because I'm higher on the talent on the team than most people here. We realize that the offensive philosophy and Oline play/strategy from last year was...subpar, let's say that, but then we're down on the offensive players. We have to divorce the players from their appearance in a poorly designed offense. How do I know the Saints still have good talent? Because in today's NFL which dramatically favors the offense, the Saints still managed to go 9-8 despite a bad offense. For example, I saw the Saints WRs make great plays despite being limited to route trees that didn't take advantage of the whole field. I saw Kamara still be Kamara even though it was obvious he was getting the ball and working with bad O line. I saw an offense that didn't use TEs well at all. People are questioning if Kamara is still good so I'm not surprised everyone is so down on the TE room. The room could be better, yes, but I don't think we've seen its full potential. As far as the offensive line goes, there's more talent invested there than any place on the team except maybe Dline where the team could be starting 3 or 4 positions with first rounders and rotating in another one. There's a better mix of talent competing at LB this year as well. The secondary may even be improved as odd as that sounds. The weakest link in the current secondary is probably the guy who has more than 30 interceptions.
Yeah, I'm excited. It's Saints football! Who Dat!