A Honest Look At Haslett/Brooks (‘00-‘04) (1 Viewer)

It's absolute hyperbole when people claim that Haslett/Brooks was the "worst". The best era in Saints football is the current one. 2nd best is Mora and clearly 3rd best is Haslett with everything else being distantly behind those 3. Other than the Katrina year, yeah, they disappointed, but it was because they clearly had talent and were right on the cusp, but could never quite get over that hump, other than year 1. And if you are a Delhomme guy, that's cool, but go look up Delhomme and Brooks stats...they are virtually identical. No way in hell Jake takes the Saints to the Super Bowl with Jim Haslett as his coach.

We weren't great under Haslett/Brooks, but compared to Ditka, the pre Mora 80's and the entirety of the 70's, no contest.
 
They were awful. Just awful. They had one good year.

2002 was a year where they had to win just 1 game out of I believe 4 all against last place teams. They lost all of them including the Culpepper fumble/conversion on the 2 pointer to lose the game. No playoffs.

Haslett's press conferences were unbearable to watch. I wanted to punch the screen. It was always excuse after excuse why we lost. "Well, if it wasn't for those 4 interceptions in the red zone, we would have won." Made my eyes and ears bleed.
There is no number 3.

It's number 1, then Archie gets honorable mention, and the rest are just forgettable.
Brooks was not awful. Haslett, maybe.
 
The Jim Haslett era ended when Kyle Turdley pulled a helmet off the opposing teams' player and threw it. Everything fell apart after that game.
I would say our season fell apart after that. It's crazy how that game was stolen from us due to that personal foul that literally took us out of FG range and gave NY the game.

Earlier that day I remember watching the Fox countdown show and Jimmy Kimmel( yes the talk show guy) was calling out his upset picks and he picked the Jets to beat us that day. He emphasized that "Yes the Jets will go and stop New Orleans". It was around that time when I started to wonder how did they get that kind of insight because we would have won the game if that DB never tried to twists Aaron's neck around.
 
I sadly think he is underrated by some fans b/c as i mentioned, I went to a game in 15 or 16 where some people (not everyone, but definitely a sizable and vocal group) were booing him even though he got us our 1st playoff victory.
That in itself should tell you about some of the people in our we have in our fanbase. Before last season, you had several people screaming "F Drew Brees" when he made the statement regarding the protests. Just terrible.

The flip side is that if any of the QBs from the Ditka era showed up in the dome, there wouldn't be any booing at all.
 
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It's absolute hyperbole when people claim that Haslett/Brooks was the "worst". The best era in Saints football is the current one. 2nd best is Mora and clearly 3rd best is Haslett with everything else being distantly behind those 3. Other than the Katrina year, yeah, they disappointed, but it was because they clearly had talent and were right on the cusp, but could never quite get over that hump, other than year 1. And if you are a Delhomme guy, that's cool, but go look up Delhomme and Brooks stats...they are virtually identical. No way in hell Jake takes the Saints to the Super Bowl with Jim Haslett as his coach.

We weren't great under Haslett/Brooks, but compared to Ditka, the pre Mora 80's and the entirety of the 70's, no contest.
Horrible defense, bad drafts and free agent signings. Even if we had Brees during that time, our record wouldn't have been much different.
It was games like this that kept us from getting over the hump: https://www.espn.com/nfl/recap/_/gameId/241017018
 
Haslett should of let Mike McCarthy run his style offense, that's when Brooks flourished and his talents were best utilized.

Haslett being a defensive minded coach hamstrung both Brooks and McCarthy by switching to that two tightend heavy run based attack.
 
Saints QB Mt. Rushmore is easy until you get to #4.

1. Brees
2. Archie (for the romantics out there)
3. Brooks
4. Billy Kilmer
5. (tied) A bunch of bums
5 for me is a tie between Fourcade because he was a homeboy there for us in crazy times … and the Bobby Scott, who might have had one of the longest and best careers as a NFL back-up before becoming a USFL starter for Donald Trump’s Generals
 
I proudly wore my No. 2 jersey from the mid-90s Sunday and we won. Right now it’s Brees, Archie and Aaron. But watching Jameis, or even better, “Taymeis,” is going to be fun.
 
He did have that chance...

Brooks did not make that cut.
Brooks pre shoulder injury may have been a different story. Something wasn't right, picturing him in my mind dropping the ball and his arm coming forward with no idea that the ball was not in his hand.

All in all that 2000 year was awesome, Jeff Blake was playing out of his mind before AB came in. Man I feel like we really missed out on a really special year if he stayed healthy. It was still special with our first playoff win as well...

so with that being said my QB rating in my lifetime (35 so no Archie ), and Jameis yet to be decided

1. Drew Brees
2. Aaron Brooks /Blake
3. Chris I mean Jim Everett (this is more of a joke than anything)
.
.
.
Last Bobby Hebert (yeah, I said what I said :LOL:)
 
The insanity of saying brooks was better than Archie is ridiculous. Hebert was better than brooks. Jim Everett was better than brooks. Jeff blake was better than brooks. I could go on. No one in their right mind would say brooks was better than Archie. Period.
 
Oh, and the haslett years were terrible. Except for the one good seasonlead by Ricky Williams and getting to watch Deuce in his awesomeness, Haslett is just a step above Ditka...
 
It's interesting because when many think on this era, they place all of the blame on Brooks when in reality the true downfall of those teams fell on the shoulders of the defense.

The year we went to the playoffs was due to the fact that we had a top 10 defense. After that, I believe we ranked towards the bottom each year and Haslett was too stubborn to let Venturi go.



They were not as bad as you think. If you look at our 7-9 years, they were very similar to the years we had under Haslett & Brooks: No defense, bad draft picks/ free agent signings & a winning offense.
God! Venturi!!!! There’s literally people on this board that should have been part of that staff before Ole Rick lol
 

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