Saint KayBee
Football
Online
Yeah, and the head coach who isn’t as good as Sean Payton finished all of two wins worse the following season. Let’s not act like the bottom fell out, though! If the Saints had gone from 2021’s 9-8 to, like, 4-13, this degree of criticism and scrutiny would be very warranted. Not once, not twice, but three times Payton had bigger dropoffs year-over-year, and two of them occurred with his Hall-of-Fame QB under center (2007: 10 wins to 7; 2014: 11 wins to 7; 2021: 12 wins to 9). Two second-place finishes, twice in the playoff hunt in week 18 of the NFL season, and many of you are acting like it’s catastrophe season, blowing the team’s circumstances way out of proportion, and can’t read so much as a weather report without begging the team to clean house. Fans around the league are watching this fanbase with a raised eyebrow, going “don’t those guys know how much worse things could get?” - and for a fanbase that knew worse for 35+ years, y’all sure are acting like it’s actually been 55 years of consistent, sustained excellence and only now two years of dog doodoo.
That’s just how Mickey manages the cap, borrowing from the future to pay the present, hoping to be right enough at least so the bottom doesn’t fall out. At some point y’all are going to have to get over that. He’s never seen a team both play its home games in New Orleans and be as dreadful as most of the 20th century Saints were. That man might be the best thing to happen to this franchise, and that’s before considering what conversations he might’ve had with Tom Benson in believing the team could return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on the city. A 7-win floor and a Super Bowl contention ceiling for two decades, with a championship for good measure, is nothing short of exemplary.
2022: Two starters, a special teams contributor, and an OL to figure out. The fifth player has an Air Force career to look forward to if the football thing doesn’t go all the way. Added a rookie WR/RS after the draft who plays with a ton of passion, contributes positively every time he touches the ball, and is expected to take another big step forward this season.
2023: Four rotation players, with three directly expected to see increased playing time in 2024 due to free agent moves at their positions (DT, S, and WR), with the fourth rotation player being behind the team’s best player on the depth chart. A young QB to have some belief in. Jury’s still out on an OL and a DL. Found new K and P in UDFA pool.
…but to you, because every draftee isn’t a Pro-Bowler and All-NFL team member, it’s “awful.” Okay.
One player took lots of shots at the coaching staff, and now he’s doing it without a team to play for. As for the final play vs. Atlanta… look, you wanna get your teammate a TD, cool, but to then pump your fists in triumph like you just won a title game because you got a guy his first TD on a play where nobody else was trying… it just comes off a bit dorky to me. TO ME. I didn’t like DA apologizing to the Falcons (another dorky move made necessary by the first one) but he did have to make it clear that the gentlemen’s agreement play will continue to have that standing, to take the risk of injury (someone playing through it, believing it’s a ruse) away from the players that, like it or not, he’s still coaching. And even if they brought your dreams to life and fired him, the move would still be attached to “the Saints” and the next guy in charge would carry the exact same risk.
TH has been one of the more balanced posters I’ve seen in my short time here. I feared perhaps he wouldn’t be, with the name and avi, but even ideas of his I don’t find agreeable don’t have the tinge of pessimistic smarm over them that so many other fonts do.
