Saints factoids that have been forgotten or get overlooked... (1 Viewer)

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With football, or even life in general, it's often easy to specifically remember the REALLY GOOD during the good years, or the REALLY BAD during the mediocre years. So I thought it would be cool to have a thread where we can take things that are normally stated, and throw in a few additional facts. I'll give my list, so you can have an idea of what I'm talking about.

1. It's often said that Gregg Williams and the Saints D crapped the bed in the 2011 Frisco divisional playoff game, which cost the Saints that game (and possibly another Super Bowl title). Do you recall that the Saints only allowed a combined 6 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of that game?

2. It's often said that we went into the 2010 Seattle playoff game a battered, beaten, exhausted team that was down to our 5th string RB.....and combined with their raucus stadium environment and Marshawn Lynch's desire, it was just too much to overcome. Do you recall that the Saints had a 10 point lead in that game on 2 different occasions in the first half?

3. When discussing the infamous 2006 Atlanta home game, most people talk about the blocked punt, and how the Saints rode that epic emotion to an easy victory over the Falcons. Do you recall that (a) the Saints were actually 4 point underdogs heading into that game, (b) the Saints scored the only 3 points of the ENTIRE SECOND HALF, and (c) Drew Brees did not throw a TD pass in that game ?

4. When discussing 2009, people tend to remember how we blew out several teams in route to a 13-3 record and the Lombardi. Do you recall that the Saints only went 8-8 against the spread that year in the regular season? (The first 6 weeks in a row, they covered...and only covered twice more in the remaining 10 games!) Compare that to 2011....when the Saints had an identical 13-3 record, but covered the spread 12 times.

5. Aaron Brooks and Drew Brees (as a Saint) have the same regular season winning percentage vs. the Rams, which is 0.500. Brooks is 3-3, and Brees is 2-2. Why is that relevant at all? Well.....it's safe to say that Brooks mainly had to play far more talented Rams teams (Warner, Faulk, Bruce, Holt, etc) than the ones Brees has played since 2007. Fortunately, Brees gets a chance to improve upon that later this year.

Yall get the idea......let's hear 'em...
 
With football, or even life in general, it's often easy to specifically remember the REALLY GOOD during the good years, or the REALLY BAD during the mediocre years. So I thought it would be cool to have a thread where we can take things that are normally stated, and throw in a few additional facts. I'll give my list, so you can have an idea of what I'm talking about.

1. It's often said that Gregg Williams and the Saints D crapped the bed in the 2011 Frisco divisional playoff game, which cost the Saints that game (and possibly another Super Bowl title). Do you recall that the Saints only allowed a combined 6 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of that game?

2. It's often said that we went into the 2010 Seattle playoff game a battered, beaten, exhausted team that was down to our 5th string RB.....and combined with their raucus stadium environment and Marshawn Lynch's desire, it was just too much to overcome. Do you recall that the Saints had a 10 point lead in that game on 2 different occasions in the first half?

3. When discussing the infamous 2006 Atlanta home game, most people talk about the blocked punt, and how the Saints rode that epic emotion to an easy victory over the Falcons. Do you recall that (a) the Saints were actually 4 point underdogs heading into that game, (b) the Saints scored the only 3 points of the ENTIRE SECOND HALF, and (c) Drew Brees did not throw a TD pass in that game ?

4. When discussing 2009, people tend to remember how we blew out several teams in route to a 13-3 record and the Lombardi. Do you recall that the Saints only went 8-8 against the spread that year in the regular season? (The first 6 weeks in a row, they covered...and only covered twice more in the remaining 10 games!) Compare that to 2011....when the Saints had an identical 13-3 record, but covered the spread 12 times.

5. Aaron Brooks and Drew Brees (as a Saint) have the same regular season winning percentage vs. the Rams, which is 0.500. Brooks is 3-3, and Brees is 2-2. Why is that relevant at all? Well.....it's safe to say that Brooks mainly had to play far more talented Rams teams (Warner, Faulk, Bruce, Holt, etc) than the ones Brees has played since 2007. Fortunately, Brees gets a chance to improve upon that later this year.

Yall get the idea......let's hear 'em...

This post should be titled: "Perspective"
 
Love this post.. It is easy to forget the good years already!! I love this forum but ir is home to some of the most negative posters i have ever seen Some of you are just so negative and whine too much Sincerely.. The truth
 
Okay, I'll play. Before Mike Ditka became our coach, we were 3-14 against the Dallas Cowboys. Since then: 7-1. Finally! Justification for the Mike Ditka era!:9:
 
Saints only paid 1Offensive Linemen to a long term deal: Jahri Evans. letting Jeff Faine , Carl Nicks , Jermon Bushrod all walk..
 
Despite Having no HC, the worst defense in the league and a ton of dropped passes in critical situations we were still in the playoff picture till week 15.
 
Despite Having no HC, the worst defense in the league and a ton of dropped passes in critical situations we were still in the playoff picture till week 15.

That brings me to another good one. Jim Haslett's coaching often gets criticized after the fact, namely because of his allegiance to Aaron Brooks and the fact that he never got to the playoffs after his first season. But with the exception of the 2005 Katrina season, all of Haslett's teams were in the playoff hunt up until at least week 15 of those other seasons.

Sticking with the Haslett era for the next two..

When people speak of Donte' Stallworth's career with the Saints, labels such as "lazy"..."underacheiver"...and "injury-prone" seem to pop up. Of course, it didn't help matters when Payton traded him and replaced him with Colston before the season started.....then later cited some of those same reasons in his own book. But do you recall that Stallworth caught a TD pass in each of the first 4 games of his career, during weeks 1-4 of the 2002 season? Just to give that some perspective.....even Randy Moss in 1998 (who probably had one of the best rookie WR seasons of all time) didn't do that.

When we think of Haslett holdovers that still remain with the the team....we think of Will Smith and Devery Henderson (well, Devery's a FA, so technically he's not on the team at the moment, but still). Do you recall that Lance Moore actually was on the 2005 Saints practice squad during Haslett's final season?
 
Simply a great post, well done. Looking back a lot of things aren't as bad as they seemed at the time. Except for the Ditka years. That was hard to live through. It seems longer than it actually was. The horror, the horror. He used so many high picks on O-lineman and then...Ricky. The horror.
 
I still can't figure out how Haslett failed, he is a great defensive coach, just look at washington and Mike McCarthy is a great Offensive coach, just look at green bay. neither one did much in new orleans.
 
I think Haslett failed because he thought Brooks was the answer to all our problems even when he couldn't lift his arm above his belly button. Had he replaced Aaron with Jake Delhomme, just for enough games to heal, we would have, at the least, made the playoffs.
 
I still can't figure out how Haslett failed, he is a great defensive coach, just look at washington and Mike McCarthy is a great Offensive coach, just look at green bay. neither one did much in new orleans.

Haslett is actually 2-0 as defensive coordinator vs. the Saints offense now. And Mike McCarthy had some solid moments in New Orleans...particularly 2000 and 2002. Look at some of the scores of those Saints games during that initial 7-2 start in 2002. They were routinely dropping 30 points on teams.

Back to more factoids...

So it's often said that Drew Brees had a down season in 2012 without his mentor Sean Payton. Do yall know that Brees only threw 3 less TD passes (43) than he did in 2011, and 5 more interceptions? (19) ? Drew was a problem that most teams would love to have!
 
1. The problem is the 49ers had one of the worst offenses in the league that season and the Saints allowed them to score 36 pts. Also, the Saints had a great chance to win the Superbowl that season. I don't know when we will have that chance again.

2. You won't win many playoffs games allowing a mediocre Seattle Offense to score 41 pts.
 

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