bclemms
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Only Ricky Jackson can argue with Davis about being the best in Saints history. Given that Ricky Jackson is also considered one of the best LB's to ever play the game it tells you what I think of Davis.
There, I said it.
He's better than Vilma was at his best. Although he's a completely different type of player than Swilling he is better than Swilling and better than Vaughn Johnson. He is Sam Mills in a LB's body.
He is also the most complete LB the Saints have ever had. The guy hits like a tank, makes wonderful presnap reads to get defense in position, he works his way through traffic running sideline to sideline. He can penetrate to get in the backfield and when he does not only is he a sure tackler but he makes opposing players feel his intensity. In the passing game he is always taking beautiful angles in his drops and when asked to man up on players that should outmatch a LB he doesn't get beat. When he comes on a blitz he is one of the best blitzing LB's in the league. The guy plays passionate, full throttle, aggressive defense and it's contagious. He is a leader on and off the field and has become the most valuable player on the team with Brees on the sidelines. He's a 6'2, 240lb LB that runs a 4.6 with a 39" vertical and 32 reps on the bench without pads. With pads he is a warrior. If anyone ever wondered what Sam Mills would have looked like if he was 6'2, 240lbs the answer is Davis.
Best, most complete LB in the league and gets very little recognition.
This defense is becoming special and hitting it's prime but it all starts with DD. I love Brees, my son's name is Brees, should tell you about the man crush I have. I hate that he is injured but at the same time I think it's giving this defense a mission that was needed. They are playing at a different level knowing that they don't have Brees to bail them out. For the first time in the Payton era the heart of this team is the defense.
The way these guys are playing together, the communication, the way each is carving out their role on the defense and the way they attack as a unit is extremely impressive. The swagger, the confidence, intensity, comraderie and athletic ability as these guys hit their prime is extremely rare. It's the combination that great defenses were built. Enjoy it!
The defensive line is the most complete the Saints have ever had. Cam is Cam, we all know what we are getting there. Most complete DE in the game. Davenport, despite taking some heat has carved out a role of setting the edge in way that not many ends in this game can do. He doesn't get the pressure throughout the game that many may want but he doesn't have to. He sets that edge which funnels the rest of the defense up the middle. Then in crunch time he is turned loose and can give any OT in the league fits. He is just starting to get it and is becoming a force. On the inside, Onyemata brings a mean streak with his impressive combination of athletic ability and strength. He has turned the corner and completed the learning curve from small college prospect to NFL player. He is playing with good leverage and technique and is only going to get better. Hendrickson gives us a 3rd pass rusher without a big drop off and the depth we have inside is the best in the NFL. If Rankins can slowly work his way back to the player he was becoming last year then it's just lagniappe.
You get to the second level and Alonso was a huge addition. He isn't big in the stat line primarily because Davis is so dominant but he gives us the athletic ability and flexibility to prevent match up problems in the passing game. Klein is not a very good LB on a bad defense but he becomes a very good LB on a great defense. He is a role player and when the defense around him is good enough to allow him to stay within his role he is a perfect complimentary piece and Klein has also accepted this role and no longer tries to do more than he is asked. The way he plays in short yardage situations is really fun to watch.
When you get to the secondary, Lattimore had a rough start to the season but if you look at the coverage, it was really high level. He is running receiver's routes and the first few games gave up some big catches to perfectly thrown balls. Since then he's turned it up a notch but he is absolutely the kind of guy you can leave on an island with any WR in the league. Apple has been a ghost this year and a corner that disappears and takes his man with him is rare. It'll be interesting to see if this holds up throughout the year but even if he regresses some from his play so far this season he is still one of the best #2 corners in the league. PJ Williams appears to have finally put it together. Coming into the NFL he had all the talent in the world but I'm not quite sure he understood the work ethic needed to succeed. Now, he is flying all over the field from the slot position and making plays while rarely giving up plays. Slot corner is probably the toughest position on defense and he's playing at a high level with the potential to become elite with the talent around him. At safety, Marcus Williams gives us the range and ball skills in the back end. I feel like he is just now starting to get over the play that doesn't need to be mentioned. At this point he is a role player in the defense but he is still continuing to improve. A good free safety on a good defense is rarely ever seen. Vonn Bell is becoming a better player than we could have ever hoped for. He had some learning curve and he was drafted to be a smart player with decent athletic ability to be versatile and just be consistent. He was never drafted to be a playmaking, game changer type player. He is playing confident at every level. The way he mans up on tight ends, the way he crashes on ball carriers and his ability to make big plays without giving up big plays is becoming elite. Dennis Allen is starting to put a lot on his shoulders and moving him all over the field and Bell has responded. Chauncey Gardner is starting on 31 other teams. He is going to be incredibly difficult to keep off the field. The awareness last night to put his head down on the final play of the game and not make contact with Dak's helmet was something you don't see out of a rookie. NOT committing a penalty on that play was a game winning play.
The depth- Teams will have injuries and we have the depth to overcome injuries at every position. While the loss of AA hurt and we may have some questions at corner past our top 3 the defense around them is playing at such a level that we could plug and play. At LB I feel like we still have some depth between Robinson and some unproven guys that flashed in the preseason. On the defensive line we are incredibly deep. The addition of Malcolm Brown is proving to be more than a stop gap signing and he is starting to play up to his draft position. This also allows us to constantly rotate on the defensive line which is key in today's fast pace NFL. Gardener may be equally as good as Marcus Williams right now and has the size to plug in at either safety position. He also has the coverage skills to play slot corner in a big nickle package. He offers us a lot of depth by being so versatile.
This team may not put up numbers like the Dome Patrol did but to expect a modern NFL defense to be on par with historic defenses isn't really fair due to rule changes favoring the offense and number of plays being run each game but they may be good enough at the end of the season that we look back on the numbers compared to other defenses around the NFL and see something really special. The only team I see around the league that has the talent on defense that the Saints have are the Bears and Cowboys.
This team without Brees probably isn't good enough to win a championship. Kamara and Thomas are great but we lack a 3rd player that can stretch the field to allow them to make more plays. Cooks and Ginn can do it occasionally but neither are guys that strike fear in defenses. Ginn can still run but not like he once could. Teddy is a game manager who has to improve on his decision making and the officials have to start playing better to give him a chance to be more effective running this offense. This defense will keep us in games as long as we aren't turning the ball over on offense. Our special teams are by far and away the best in the NFL and perfectly compliment the Breesless offense and dominant defense. If we can stop with the penalties we can become a dominant running team. We were about to take the game over last night with good ole fashion ground and pound but it was raining yellow flags taking us out of the running game. A big part of this goes on the officials.
Here is the most exciting part of it. Cam Jordan is the oldest player on the defense at 30 years old. Kiko Alonso is 29 and the rest of the defense is so young that most haven't even hit their prime.
The coaching- Payton's focus on special teams this offseason was absolutely massive. The way he has transformed this offense into a mistake free dink and dunk offense with a power running game is incredible. Not many coaches are good enough to change their offensive philosophy to match the talent at hand but he's been able to do it. The coaching decisions the last two games are as good as any two game stretch I've seen. He knows we are racing a car with 3 wheels and knows we can't set lap records but he is giving the team a chance to get across the finish line. He's put the faith of the team on the defense. To get to this spot he also had to look inside, tranform the locker room and the coaching staff around him. He's built the best coaching staff in the NFL while creating a team chemistry that isn't matched in the NFL.
The Brees injury is proving just how much he meant to Payton's offense. If not for Brees, Payton would probably be coaching at the college level or be an offfensive coordinator. A Brees injury in the ugly defensive years would have had us looking like the Dolphins and no coach could have overcome that. Some of those years we quite literally don't win a single game without Brees. The Brees injury is also showing just how great he is and shows that he was the queen in Payton's chess game. You take an offense that has been top 3 in the league for more than a decade, remove one player and suddenly can't even score speaks volumes. It shows how much he has helped the players around him become better. It's also showing just how much Payton has matured as a coach. He's no longer hell bent on making his system work and instead has tranformed his system to fit the players he has. He finally understood that you have to play good defense to win in the NFL and was mature enough to realize that this isn't his strength. He brought in qualified coaches on defense to help him. Loomis also realized he was outmatched on the football side of being a GM. Together they brought in Jeff Ireland who has since put together the best draft classes of any team in the league giving the defense enough talent to be successful. Those draft classes have also fixed Loomis' financial side of the game. We are no longer reaching for the Jarius Byrd's, resigning 34 year old players well past their prime and able to build the team around youth that is already in house while giving us enough money to retain players and bring in the occasional guy to fill a role or add depth and we are doing it without having huge amounts of dead money.
We always hear players and coaches talking about overcoming adversity. There isn't more adversity in the NFL than losing one of the best QB's in history. Brees injury is a disaster that was once the worst case scenario that could not be overcome. This year is different. Our very young but talented defense last year is now mature enough to say, "we got this". The timing couldn't have been better to lose Brees because we have the talent on defense that is just becoming experienced enough to say, "we got this" and actually back it up. We have a coach that is mature enough to understand that Bridgewater has limitations and to change the offense to be a conservative, run first, short passing game offense. We have a coach who is now experienced enough to leave his offensive ego at the door and let the defense win games. We have a defensive coaching staff that is able to pull it all together and make something special.
Moving forward, we aren't going 6-0 without Brees and and this schedule, not in today's NFL favored to the offense. I do feel like we can compete in any game though. We will lose another game. We will get behind early at some point and lack the firepower to catch up, it's the one thing I don't think we are capable of overcoming. We've also just won two games we had no business winning and kind of looked dominant doing it so we also wont go on a losing streak either. I don't think any team comes into the dome and beats this team with or without Brees because of how dominant our front 7 has become. More important than wins over the next few games without Brees is allowing our young defense to carry the weight which will continue to accelerate the growth curve into becoming truly great.
At the end of the day this team has a dominant young defense, the best coaching staff on the planet, the best special teams unit in the NFL and they're really hungry. I think this team has endured the perfect storm from the no-call last season and the Diggs play the year before. When Brees does come back this team is going to obliterate everyone and I feel like this team is ready to put it on the rest of the NFL and Brees is about to get the hardware to match his success that the defenses of the past kept from him for so many years.
Payton's next job? Don't let this young defense eat the cheese.
There, I said it.
He's better than Vilma was at his best. Although he's a completely different type of player than Swilling he is better than Swilling and better than Vaughn Johnson. He is Sam Mills in a LB's body.
He is also the most complete LB the Saints have ever had. The guy hits like a tank, makes wonderful presnap reads to get defense in position, he works his way through traffic running sideline to sideline. He can penetrate to get in the backfield and when he does not only is he a sure tackler but he makes opposing players feel his intensity. In the passing game he is always taking beautiful angles in his drops and when asked to man up on players that should outmatch a LB he doesn't get beat. When he comes on a blitz he is one of the best blitzing LB's in the league. The guy plays passionate, full throttle, aggressive defense and it's contagious. He is a leader on and off the field and has become the most valuable player on the team with Brees on the sidelines. He's a 6'2, 240lb LB that runs a 4.6 with a 39" vertical and 32 reps on the bench without pads. With pads he is a warrior. If anyone ever wondered what Sam Mills would have looked like if he was 6'2, 240lbs the answer is Davis.
Best, most complete LB in the league and gets very little recognition.
This defense is becoming special and hitting it's prime but it all starts with DD. I love Brees, my son's name is Brees, should tell you about the man crush I have. I hate that he is injured but at the same time I think it's giving this defense a mission that was needed. They are playing at a different level knowing that they don't have Brees to bail them out. For the first time in the Payton era the heart of this team is the defense.
The way these guys are playing together, the communication, the way each is carving out their role on the defense and the way they attack as a unit is extremely impressive. The swagger, the confidence, intensity, comraderie and athletic ability as these guys hit their prime is extremely rare. It's the combination that great defenses were built. Enjoy it!
The defensive line is the most complete the Saints have ever had. Cam is Cam, we all know what we are getting there. Most complete DE in the game. Davenport, despite taking some heat has carved out a role of setting the edge in way that not many ends in this game can do. He doesn't get the pressure throughout the game that many may want but he doesn't have to. He sets that edge which funnels the rest of the defense up the middle. Then in crunch time he is turned loose and can give any OT in the league fits. He is just starting to get it and is becoming a force. On the inside, Onyemata brings a mean streak with his impressive combination of athletic ability and strength. He has turned the corner and completed the learning curve from small college prospect to NFL player. He is playing with good leverage and technique and is only going to get better. Hendrickson gives us a 3rd pass rusher without a big drop off and the depth we have inside is the best in the NFL. If Rankins can slowly work his way back to the player he was becoming last year then it's just lagniappe.
You get to the second level and Alonso was a huge addition. He isn't big in the stat line primarily because Davis is so dominant but he gives us the athletic ability and flexibility to prevent match up problems in the passing game. Klein is not a very good LB on a bad defense but he becomes a very good LB on a great defense. He is a role player and when the defense around him is good enough to allow him to stay within his role he is a perfect complimentary piece and Klein has also accepted this role and no longer tries to do more than he is asked. The way he plays in short yardage situations is really fun to watch.
When you get to the secondary, Lattimore had a rough start to the season but if you look at the coverage, it was really high level. He is running receiver's routes and the first few games gave up some big catches to perfectly thrown balls. Since then he's turned it up a notch but he is absolutely the kind of guy you can leave on an island with any WR in the league. Apple has been a ghost this year and a corner that disappears and takes his man with him is rare. It'll be interesting to see if this holds up throughout the year but even if he regresses some from his play so far this season he is still one of the best #2 corners in the league. PJ Williams appears to have finally put it together. Coming into the NFL he had all the talent in the world but I'm not quite sure he understood the work ethic needed to succeed. Now, he is flying all over the field from the slot position and making plays while rarely giving up plays. Slot corner is probably the toughest position on defense and he's playing at a high level with the potential to become elite with the talent around him. At safety, Marcus Williams gives us the range and ball skills in the back end. I feel like he is just now starting to get over the play that doesn't need to be mentioned. At this point he is a role player in the defense but he is still continuing to improve. A good free safety on a good defense is rarely ever seen. Vonn Bell is becoming a better player than we could have ever hoped for. He had some learning curve and he was drafted to be a smart player with decent athletic ability to be versatile and just be consistent. He was never drafted to be a playmaking, game changer type player. He is playing confident at every level. The way he mans up on tight ends, the way he crashes on ball carriers and his ability to make big plays without giving up big plays is becoming elite. Dennis Allen is starting to put a lot on his shoulders and moving him all over the field and Bell has responded. Chauncey Gardner is starting on 31 other teams. He is going to be incredibly difficult to keep off the field. The awareness last night to put his head down on the final play of the game and not make contact with Dak's helmet was something you don't see out of a rookie. NOT committing a penalty on that play was a game winning play.
The depth- Teams will have injuries and we have the depth to overcome injuries at every position. While the loss of AA hurt and we may have some questions at corner past our top 3 the defense around them is playing at such a level that we could plug and play. At LB I feel like we still have some depth between Robinson and some unproven guys that flashed in the preseason. On the defensive line we are incredibly deep. The addition of Malcolm Brown is proving to be more than a stop gap signing and he is starting to play up to his draft position. This also allows us to constantly rotate on the defensive line which is key in today's fast pace NFL. Gardener may be equally as good as Marcus Williams right now and has the size to plug in at either safety position. He also has the coverage skills to play slot corner in a big nickle package. He offers us a lot of depth by being so versatile.
This team may not put up numbers like the Dome Patrol did but to expect a modern NFL defense to be on par with historic defenses isn't really fair due to rule changes favoring the offense and number of plays being run each game but they may be good enough at the end of the season that we look back on the numbers compared to other defenses around the NFL and see something really special. The only team I see around the league that has the talent on defense that the Saints have are the Bears and Cowboys.
This team without Brees probably isn't good enough to win a championship. Kamara and Thomas are great but we lack a 3rd player that can stretch the field to allow them to make more plays. Cooks and Ginn can do it occasionally but neither are guys that strike fear in defenses. Ginn can still run but not like he once could. Teddy is a game manager who has to improve on his decision making and the officials have to start playing better to give him a chance to be more effective running this offense. This defense will keep us in games as long as we aren't turning the ball over on offense. Our special teams are by far and away the best in the NFL and perfectly compliment the Breesless offense and dominant defense. If we can stop with the penalties we can become a dominant running team. We were about to take the game over last night with good ole fashion ground and pound but it was raining yellow flags taking us out of the running game. A big part of this goes on the officials.
Here is the most exciting part of it. Cam Jordan is the oldest player on the defense at 30 years old. Kiko Alonso is 29 and the rest of the defense is so young that most haven't even hit their prime.
The coaching- Payton's focus on special teams this offseason was absolutely massive. The way he has transformed this offense into a mistake free dink and dunk offense with a power running game is incredible. Not many coaches are good enough to change their offensive philosophy to match the talent at hand but he's been able to do it. The coaching decisions the last two games are as good as any two game stretch I've seen. He knows we are racing a car with 3 wheels and knows we can't set lap records but he is giving the team a chance to get across the finish line. He's put the faith of the team on the defense. To get to this spot he also had to look inside, tranform the locker room and the coaching staff around him. He's built the best coaching staff in the NFL while creating a team chemistry that isn't matched in the NFL.
The Brees injury is proving just how much he meant to Payton's offense. If not for Brees, Payton would probably be coaching at the college level or be an offfensive coordinator. A Brees injury in the ugly defensive years would have had us looking like the Dolphins and no coach could have overcome that. Some of those years we quite literally don't win a single game without Brees. The Brees injury is also showing just how great he is and shows that he was the queen in Payton's chess game. You take an offense that has been top 3 in the league for more than a decade, remove one player and suddenly can't even score speaks volumes. It shows how much he has helped the players around him become better. It's also showing just how much Payton has matured as a coach. He's no longer hell bent on making his system work and instead has tranformed his system to fit the players he has. He finally understood that you have to play good defense to win in the NFL and was mature enough to realize that this isn't his strength. He brought in qualified coaches on defense to help him. Loomis also realized he was outmatched on the football side of being a GM. Together they brought in Jeff Ireland who has since put together the best draft classes of any team in the league giving the defense enough talent to be successful. Those draft classes have also fixed Loomis' financial side of the game. We are no longer reaching for the Jarius Byrd's, resigning 34 year old players well past their prime and able to build the team around youth that is already in house while giving us enough money to retain players and bring in the occasional guy to fill a role or add depth and we are doing it without having huge amounts of dead money.
We always hear players and coaches talking about overcoming adversity. There isn't more adversity in the NFL than losing one of the best QB's in history. Brees injury is a disaster that was once the worst case scenario that could not be overcome. This year is different. Our very young but talented defense last year is now mature enough to say, "we got this". The timing couldn't have been better to lose Brees because we have the talent on defense that is just becoming experienced enough to say, "we got this" and actually back it up. We have a coach that is mature enough to understand that Bridgewater has limitations and to change the offense to be a conservative, run first, short passing game offense. We have a coach who is now experienced enough to leave his offensive ego at the door and let the defense win games. We have a defensive coaching staff that is able to pull it all together and make something special.
Moving forward, we aren't going 6-0 without Brees and and this schedule, not in today's NFL favored to the offense. I do feel like we can compete in any game though. We will lose another game. We will get behind early at some point and lack the firepower to catch up, it's the one thing I don't think we are capable of overcoming. We've also just won two games we had no business winning and kind of looked dominant doing it so we also wont go on a losing streak either. I don't think any team comes into the dome and beats this team with or without Brees because of how dominant our front 7 has become. More important than wins over the next few games without Brees is allowing our young defense to carry the weight which will continue to accelerate the growth curve into becoming truly great.
At the end of the day this team has a dominant young defense, the best coaching staff on the planet, the best special teams unit in the NFL and they're really hungry. I think this team has endured the perfect storm from the no-call last season and the Diggs play the year before. When Brees does come back this team is going to obliterate everyone and I feel like this team is ready to put it on the rest of the NFL and Brees is about to get the hardware to match his success that the defenses of the past kept from him for so many years.
Payton's next job? Don't let this young defense eat the cheese.
