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How quickly things can change in just one week. Last week at this time the talk was about how the Saints were one victory out of first place in the NFC South and how Coach Sean Payton has the Atlanta Falcon’s number. You had to really search the forum to find negative threads and comments leading up to Monday night’s matchup in the Superdome. But all of that seemed to change with one freak special team faux pas. Within the next two hours the Saints would no longer be a team on whom we could place our hopes. Even the most diehard of fans began to realize that we didn’t deserve to be first place in our division. That in fact we are still the same team that hadn’t won a game all year (preseason included) and one that has yet to field anything that resembles an NFL defense. Our season now stands at the brink of ‘Wait Til Next Year’, and our trust in this franchise’s decision making skills has reached a new ebb.
Like most of you I rushed to read the newest threads and comments that were posted after our latest home field debacle and I felt many of the same frustrations that were being added to the SSF pages which were going up faster than anyone could read. So many times I began to type out my own thoughts feeling like I just needed to get the disappointment out of my system. But as I re-read my intended post I could tell that I wasn’t really saying anything different or noteworthy. Like everyone else I was just feeling upset and frustrated. I refused to click the ‘post quick reply’ button. As I began to calm down and reflect on all the painful ways that our loyal members were saying the same basic things I was feeling, I knew that the Saints Super Forum had once again done just what I always needed it to do for me… get me through another Saints game. But in the case of this past Monday evening it even got me through the funk of another season that seems to be over before it even started. But many are not dealing with it so well. Aggravation has turned to anger, and disappointment to disgust.
This is how many feel, and it explains the extreme desperation recorded in a lot of the posts I read after the game. And it’s not our fault for feeling this way. Coach Payton himself said this would be the case as he presented the Lombardi Trophy before an adoring crowd of Saints fans. He noted that this fan base would no longer be satisfied with what we had to deal with for the first 40+ years of this franchise. He himself knows that our having dined on winning, championship seasons, and success for a few years now makes it impossible to accept what is being served to the championship-hungry masses.
Being among the large number of forum members who are also dealing with the question marks that are hanging over the LSU football program for remainder of this season, the realization of what just happened in Saintsville is a double-whammy of reality which demonstrates how quickly things can change in this business. (Yes, college football IS big business and the numbers that you’re going to hear coming out of Baton Rouge at the end of this season will be evidence of that.) But when things are this bad, then change is a good thing… and some things are really bad with the New Orleans Saints. So what does all this have to do with the topic of this thread?
Simply put, the realization of where the Saints are in both the NFL’s stats & standings makes Know Who To Pull For an exercise in futility. No matter what list of important wins or hopeful losses I (or anyone else) could assemble here does absolutely nothing for a team that is incapable of upholding their end of the bargain. If they cannot win, it truly doesn’t matter who else wins or loses. When it comes to the NFC, we aren’t just IN the hole, we ARE the hole.
Yes, the premise of KWTPF is to identify which teams can help us in our quest for the post season. But at this point in the season the answer is obvious. The ‘help’ we need must come from our team first. If we cannot take care of our own business it makes no sense to request and/or suggest that other teams can make our goals possible. Unless it’s our personal agenda is to see the Saints scrap the season in search of a higher draft pick, there is really only one reasonable thing left to do…
Pull for the Saints to get a win on Sunday before our BYE week. Without that, we have nothing. And we have to start somewhere.
Like most of you I rushed to read the newest threads and comments that were posted after our latest home field debacle and I felt many of the same frustrations that were being added to the SSF pages which were going up faster than anyone could read. So many times I began to type out my own thoughts feeling like I just needed to get the disappointment out of my system. But as I re-read my intended post I could tell that I wasn’t really saying anything different or noteworthy. Like everyone else I was just feeling upset and frustrated. I refused to click the ‘post quick reply’ button. As I began to calm down and reflect on all the painful ways that our loyal members were saying the same basic things I was feeling, I knew that the Saints Super Forum had once again done just what I always needed it to do for me… get me through another Saints game. But in the case of this past Monday evening it even got me through the funk of another season that seems to be over before it even started. But many are not dealing with it so well. Aggravation has turned to anger, and disappointment to disgust.
This is how many feel, and it explains the extreme desperation recorded in a lot of the posts I read after the game. And it’s not our fault for feeling this way. Coach Payton himself said this would be the case as he presented the Lombardi Trophy before an adoring crowd of Saints fans. He noted that this fan base would no longer be satisfied with what we had to deal with for the first 40+ years of this franchise. He himself knows that our having dined on winning, championship seasons, and success for a few years now makes it impossible to accept what is being served to the championship-hungry masses.
Being among the large number of forum members who are also dealing with the question marks that are hanging over the LSU football program for remainder of this season, the realization of what just happened in Saintsville is a double-whammy of reality which demonstrates how quickly things can change in this business. (Yes, college football IS big business and the numbers that you’re going to hear coming out of Baton Rouge at the end of this season will be evidence of that.) But when things are this bad, then change is a good thing… and some things are really bad with the New Orleans Saints. So what does all this have to do with the topic of this thread?
Simply put, the realization of where the Saints are in both the NFL’s stats & standings makes Know Who To Pull For an exercise in futility. No matter what list of important wins or hopeful losses I (or anyone else) could assemble here does absolutely nothing for a team that is incapable of upholding their end of the bargain. If they cannot win, it truly doesn’t matter who else wins or loses. When it comes to the NFC, we aren’t just IN the hole, we ARE the hole.
Yes, the premise of KWTPF is to identify which teams can help us in our quest for the post season. But at this point in the season the answer is obvious. The ‘help’ we need must come from our team first. If we cannot take care of our own business it makes no sense to request and/or suggest that other teams can make our goals possible. Unless it’s our personal agenda is to see the Saints scrap the season in search of a higher draft pick, there is really only one reasonable thing left to do…
Pull for the Saints to get a win on Sunday before our BYE week. Without that, we have nothing. And we have to start somewhere.
