First off this is a rather long post and might bore many casual Saints fans or fans that are already predisposed to their own thoughts on why we win and why we lose. Which I realize that on an individual game basis a win or loss can be determined by a ton of individual decisions, reasons, calls, and plays. However, in my opinion sustained winning and or losing is determined by something much more intangible, CULTURE.
So for well over the past year or so I personally thought I was on an island by myself when it came to some of my views of the Saints organization and their woes. As I started to share my views on what I thought ailed the Saints with my friends and fellow football fanatics I began to find out that I wasn’t the only one that felt the way I felt or shared similar opinions. Same here, on SR. Yes there’s always going to be half the board that takes one side and half the other. Half the board blames a loss on this or that, half on something else. So on and so forth.
I recently caught myself getting wrapped up into the kinda back and forth posting that I honestly loathe. Granted, nobody’s getting hurt and it’s only opinions but still I use to pride myself on taking the high road or uniting the fan base not ripping it apart. Then again, this is what losing does not just to players and coaches but also to fans. It brought me back to when I was a kid and the rough seasons as the “AINT’S” and the finger pointing. Our organization and fan base was hardly a united front back then either.
Throughout our franchise history there has been attempts to change the culture of our organization. Some attempts by coaches, some by GMs, heck some by owners (right Mr. Benson?). Usually with mixed results, until as many of you have pointed out we caught lightning in a bottle with SP, ML and DB9. Where I get off track as a fan and as SR member is arguing with people about who’s to credit for our success from 2006 to 2019 and who’s to blame for the lack of success since 2019.
There are points to be made on both sides for sure but the one thing i think everyone can agree on is that the “culture”, the winning culture or mindset that was once well established in our facilities, players, and organization is no longer there. It’s the old Vince Lombardi saying “chase perfection, catch excellence”. In my opinion it’s been a long minute since our entire organization, from top to bottom, each and every man has chased perfection.
I feel this way only based on what I see starting with the play on the field. The mistakes, the lack of focus, lack of execution, just overall inconsistency and that has played out with our win/loss record since 2019. Middle of the road effort gets you middle of the road results. Nope, it’s not just on the players, we all know that coaches have to set the tone, and at the end of the day fall on the sword for lack of performance.
The FO is just as culpable in the quagmire of complacency as well. Wether it was appeasing SP with silly player contracts that hurt the team, poor draft selections or the constant restructuring of veteran contracts converting money to signing bonuses in order to spread the cap hit but kick the can down the road. For what? To maintain our “window to win it all”? Really.
For the past 2 seasons I wanted both DA and ML gone. DA is gone and I still want ML gone. My exact sentiment is that I’d like Ms. Benson to terminate the contracts of the entire old guard FO in Mickey, Dennis Lauscha and Greg Bensel. I’ll go a step further, I’d like to see Gayle Benson hire an outside consulting firm to come in and analyze/audit every aspect of both the Pelicans/Saints organization’s to include every internal and external department. Including contracted medical staff, doctors, trainers even massage personnel (see hamstring issues).
We all know the definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results”. Well folks what the Saints have been doing the past 4 years has definitely been insane. To be clear, I don’t hate Mickey or anyone in the FO, I just think that they are part of this now culture of complacency that is plaguing the organization as a whole. The organization in my opinion needs an entire overhaul from top to bottom and the FO has to be part of that turnover if we want to move forward and try to catch that lightning in a bottle again.
As a veteran of almost 34 years I know just how important culture is to organizational success. I also know that when you reset an organization to change a culture or a mindset you don’t just change one or two people, you change everyone in leadership.
My wish, and I know that it will never happen would be for Ms. Gayle to bring in Drew as the GM. I know, he doesn’t need the money and probably doesn’t want to invest the time. However I do trust his football acumen (even more than John Lynch) to come in a rebuild the organization from top to bottom. To find the right coaches, players and create a culture of winning that breeds success. In my opinion as an organization I think that we would have a better chance at winning a Lombardi sooner with Drew as our GM than Mickey.
As fans we can agree to disagree and share our opinions on SR. I think we can all agree though that as an organization we are in need of some drastic changes.