Saintman2884
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2003
- Messages
- 17,443
- Reaction score
- 5,104
Offline
Sean Payton is 2-3x more of an accomplished innovator on offense and in creating potent, high-scoring squads. He did it in New York with Kerry Collins from 1999-2022, then he helped develop Quincy Carter into looking like a halfway decent QB for one season in 2003, when he ran himself out, he actually managed to make late 30's/early 40's way-past-his-prime Vinny Testerverde look decent for two seasons as well as helping a young, raw, but unpolished project QB called Tony Romo come into his own later on as a Pro-Bowl QB. His biggest problems or flaws are his lack of attention to detail, focusing on a halfway-decent defense and in that respect, Bounty gate and the draft picks we lost, the momentum we lost as a team, organization, our focus and chemistry, his own year-long suspension from the NFL in 2012. Bounty gate essentially forced Payton and the Saints organization to kind of rebuild from scratch and unfortunately, the biggest toll it took was on our defenses. From 2006-2011, Saints defenses were never great and could downright stink at times(like in 2007 and 2008), but at least they serviceable sometimes. After Bountygate, taking into consideration the players that retired, negative scrutiny, draft picks lost, our defenses took a nosedive and it took around 5 years to fix. And those 3-4 lost years were right in the middle of Brees' prime.
McCarthy never have to deal with a Bounty gate situation. He had a lot more to work with, on both sides of the ball, and he should've won more then just one Super Bowl. He had just 3 losing seasons as Packers HC(2008, 2017, and 2018) A HC like Bill Belichek, hell even Andy Reid and Mike Tomlin wouldve likely done more with that great talent McCarthy had for well over a decade from 2006-2018 up until currently. I have my doubts now, one day removed from seeing another one of McCarthy's teams that did so well in the regular-season lose, again, in a game where their defense showed up and played so hard but their offense went AWOL and didnt make necessary adjustments after Pollard's injury. Eventually, even Andy Reid got over that proverbial mental block of only advancing so far in the postseason, both in Philly and now in Kansas City.
Maybe its just me but back in the early-mid 90's, Jerry Jones was at the absolute height of his power, influence and direction as an NFL owner, he could throw his weight around a bit more because he knew in 10-15 years, if he took reasonable care of his health, he wouldn't die. Other owners, like Robert Kraft, Jeffrey Lurie, and Paul Allen came along and successfully built their teams into SB contenders and kind of stole his thunder. Jones is now 80(81?) years old, he knows he probably he doesn't have 5-10 years to tinker, rebuild or meddle too much into his team's day-to-day operations as he did 10-15 years ago, so perhaps in his desperation, he might be willing to concede some measure of personnel control to Payton in terms of hiring/firing, running his own drafts, picking his own players in drafts or attracting key FA's. At his age, he knows blowing up the team and rebuilding the team likely wouldn't lead to him witnessing Dallas winning another Super Bowl in his lifetime. He tried to do his best Al Davis impression and he failed miserably, at that too. Then again, in Davis' last decade as Raiders owner, the game passed him by too, and he couldn't rectify or solve the situation to his satisfaction before he died.
Last edited: