Underhill article: “Saints moves are telling us what they felt the real problem with the team was last season”

VolSaint said
I think it's mainly bc there's no evidence suggesting that even if the team was fully healthy that'd we'd be serious contenders. Our major weaknesses are run defense, oline, and receivers. Lines had next to no injuries and were still subpar, while we're one concussion away from Shaheed being our WR1. I think we've seen the team healthy in 2023 and there's really no evidence that we'd be much better than that going into 2025. Maybe an 11 win ceiling if literally everything goes our way. Then our team would have to start playing actual teams in the playoffs, which seems grim since we've beat next to no .500 teams in the past couple years.

Additionally, it's worth saying that injuries will be a fundamental problem even heading into the season. With how old so many of our stars are, the risk of injury is going to be very high and thus we need to factor that in when realistically accessing the team.

For some of the truthers, I really would encourage as a thought exercise to rank the Saints when compared to other teams. Saints can seem like they're pretty good when viewed in isolation, but soooo many teams look so much better when in comparison. It all just seems really grim.

Of course it's all conjecture. But we do have evidence by not only the 1st 2 games but the 2nd 2 games where we were ahead with under 1:30 left in the game and a fluke play and a DPI kept us from winning those games. I can't look into the miltiverse and see what happened in the alternate time line. But IMHO i think we would have won 10 games and very possibly the NFCS if we had stayed healthy. If that happens maybe DA does not lose the team. The team by all accounts seemed to be bought in in TC . And you know that after that start they were all in. Had we gone into KC 4-0 and fairly healthy , the optimist in me says things could have gone differently

And what is a serious contender and what is serious contention? Before the season were Denver and Wash serious contenders? Wash in fact had not beaten a team with a winning record until very late in the yr. And if Det's d had not been decimated by injuries and Goff played his worse game of the yr. The Lions may have very well beaten the Eagles and been in the SB

You can't compare the 23 team with the 24 team. Whole new offensive coaching staff , new LT , Penning playing much better @ RT . Gay @LB and Young on the edge.

Injuries are different every yr. Maybe this yr Miller stays healthy, Saldiveri stays healthy and progresses. Maybe Olave sees concussions are a real problem for him and takes steps to strengthen his neck area and he wears the concussion cap .