How do you see the first two games of the Saints’ season? (4 Viewers)

[SaintStephen1]

Injuries derailed our season.

No question. Feel bad for the old guard.

 

[Saint Greg]

Both teams: Carolina (with Young as QB) and Dallas were absolute trash

That’s fine. We played Philly tight and gave the Falcons game away muffing a punt on the 1 yard line. And Philly is when the injuries started. It wasn’t until they got out of control that our season went off the rails.

 

[Madmarsha]

It's what could have been, but looking back it highlights the lack of quality depth.

IOW .... what can be, unburdened by what has been.

 

[saintlyn8]

Both teams: Carolina (with Young as QB) and Dallas were absolute trash

This. This is the answer. We were fooled into thinking the cowboys were good. They are not, they are horrid, and picked a dude for their new dc that no longer has what it takes to be good in this league, its passed him by, much like our own DA.

 

[Saint Greg]

This. This is the answer. We were fooled into thinking the cowboys were good. They are not, they are horrid, and picked a dude for their new dc that no longer has what it takes to be good in this league, its passed him by, much like our own DA.

So you don’t think it makes a difference that we had Shaheed, Olave, Carr, McCoy, Ruiz, Patrick, Taysom, Werner, Harris, Lattimore, and Adebo then and we don’t now?

 

[saintlyn8]

So you don’t think it makes a difference that we had Shaheed, Olave, Carr, McCoy, Ruiz, Patrick, Taysom, Werner, Harris, Lattimore, and Adebo then and we don’t now?

Of course it does… but those first two teams were still trash. It was a very enjoyable mirage nothing more nothing less.

The other thing it does point to, is that to have any kind of success in the NFL of today you have to have a team depth better then that of a small puddle, and a coach that has the ability to get the best out of his players. We are seriously deficient in both categories.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

I thought nothing of the Carolina game, it was the Panthers and they stink. The Dallas game gave me hope that the Saints would be able to win more than 7 games this year. Ever since our back to back to back 7-9 seasons, I have gone into each season expecting 7 wins and anything after that was a bonus. After they expanded the schedule, I had us @ 7-10 and it looks like even this will leave me disappointed this year.

 

[Saint Greg]

The other thing it does point to, is that to have any kind of success in the NFL of today you have to have a team depth better then that of a small puddle, and a coach that has the ability to get the best out of his players. We are seriously deficient in both categories.

Part of that is because we use draft picks to move up and miss on other picks. I think out of all of the OL depth guys we’ve used during this mess, Saldeveri and young are the only ones we’ve drafted. Saldeveri was drafted to be a starter at LG and in year two, he ended up being the 3rd or 4th guy we turned to at LG. Young was a solid backup at tackle last year but at guard, not so much. We need to draft better. The “we trade our picks because our team is too good for all of those guys to make the team” isn’t going to cut it anymore. Draft better players and they’ll make the team.

 

[SigFreudianSlip]

It was fun as heck and I thought we were a contender in the NFC.

Thoroughly enjoyed those two weeks.

 

[Bill]

It was fun as heck and I thought we were a contender in the NFC.

Thoroughly enjoyed those two weeks.

The entire city (and Who Dat community everywhere) was abuzz with excitement about the ease at which we rolled to those first two victories. Even if Carolina & Dallas are as pitiful as everyone claims, they were beaten as soundly as you'd expect a true contender to dominate them.

With the injuries that followed, the lack of depth became apparent. When there were less injuries, we played the next two games with a legitimate chance to pull out victories in both. But as the ever-increasing list of key players on the injury report fell into the 'OUT' column, the team became less & less competitive.

What we have now is a team that is a mere shadow of what it was to start the season, and the lack of effectiveness at almost every position is evident. If anyone believes that our current Win/Loss record is the result of anything other than the depletion of so many starters on our active roster, then you don't know professional football as well as you think you do. Without all these injuries I can dare say that our record would be better than it is right now.

 

[picnicwithfish]

Really good teams dismantle and destroy bad teams. “Yes”, Carolina and Dallas turned out to be bad teams that were dismantled and destroyed by us.

We will never know, but from what my old football eyes were showing me, this offense had the potential of a “pick your poison” ground and pound with the ability to destroy you in the passing game at any level. I just wasn’t expecting that to be so reliant on how the defense pre snap focused on Taysom. The Oline drop is expected when you lose who we lost. That line was something to watch in Weeks 1 and 2 but it relied on scheme and execution. Can’t do that now with who we lost.

This was a team that could have beaten anyone but built with no answers if someone got hurt. Guess what? Lots of people got hurt.

 

[silverbullet]

Carolina with Young was the worst team in the NFL by a pretty large margin. He was playing like a HS QB. So take nothing from that.

Dallas isn't good but it's still a legit NFL team that the Saints absolutely smoked.

The truth is right in the middle of those two games.

A totally healthy Saints team could beat the bottom 10 most times.

I still think they'd struggle against good teams due to coaching a lack of elite talent.

Add injuries to the mix and they're a bottom 5 team.

Healthy, they're in the 8-9 win range.

 

[Rouxble]

On offense, I think those games showed we have some good foundational players on the OL, but we have plenty of question marks almost everywhere else. Some of the standout players from those games aren’t getting any younger (Kamara & Hill), and after playing a few more games it seems our smaller WR group can’t stay healthy.

On defense, it was mostly an aberration, which led to the huge margins of victory. Bryce Young has been outplayed by 37yo Andy Dalton on a bad Panthers team, and Dallas currently has the 26th ranked offense by DVOA. We gave up 273 yards/game after the first two games, we’ve given up 444 yards/game since (which helped us to get to last for the season in that metric). The age of the defense and lack of production of the DL picks don’t inspire a lot of hope that we can turn that unit around soon. Keep in mind our defense was also an aberration last year, with our defensive schedule ranked easiest in the league by offensive DVOA of our 2023 opponents.

 

[blotch1]

They were legit. We have a team that, if healthy, could hang with most teams in the league. Unfortunately we have zero depth, so even 1 or 2 injuries is devastating... let alone missing half the starters like we are.

 

[SweetT]

Both teams: Carolina (with Young as QB) and Dallas were absolute trash

Correct. We can all say two things:

1.) Our team the first two weeks could’ve beaten anyone in the league.

2.) We still would’ve lost to good/great teams.

Only 1 has the history behind it to prove the other one incorrect.
So we did the same thing that we always do. Which is beat bad teams. The only difference is we beat those two bad teams more convincingly than normal