Saints have fired assistant coaches Joe Vitt, Bill Johnson, Greg McMahon, Stan Kwan & James Willis (MERGED) (1 Viewer)

[El Caliente]

Last 8 weeks of the season minus the ST's and Offensive turnovers/pts given up we were ranked 16th in the league in defense. So the start aided by injuries resulted in a continuation of 2015 and then healthy, understanding of scheme, identifying a strength (3 Safeties) lead to us improving a great deal.

From there the main things to fix/build on are

: Lack of speed/depth at LB- Need more closing speed in a predominantly zone defense. Get someone to Coach up Anthony
: Build on the 3 Safety 4-2-5 look. - That's your base. Figure out ways to reinforce it/improve it. Here's a hint. Add a safety at some point
: Add a CB that's Better than Breaux
: Attack Passrusher similar to how we attacked DT last year. Sign a quality FA at a discount price and then draft a guy.

Agreed on the fix/build on segment. I think 1 & 4 are not mutually exclusive, and that we can take care of that with the right signing/draft pick.

Breaux is New Orleans Saints great, but he is NFL middle of the pack. Kind of like she is a Massachusetts 10 but a California 6, we can get better. Its not to say he is a bad, he just isn't what we think he is.

I am growing on the idea of taking a Hooks or Adams with the 1st pick. If that system truly is our best, then work it.

All and all, I think better coaches will really help get this team to its next level.

 

[St.Fury]

Seems like that explains your argument though. The facts are the facts. We are still a very bad defense. To say he did an amazing job because we are still a bad defense, but were able to accomplish that despite the injuries is not seeing the facts. I understand wanting to let him have a second shot because he may not have been dealt a "fair" hand with the injuries, but cannot see where he has proven any form of success yet. Since it appears we will keep him, I hope he has great success. The only two I could definitely see canning him for would be Phillips or Bradley. Outside of those two, I agree with giving him another shot.

We lost our top 5 CB - Lewis, Breaux, Swann, Williams, and Wilson - for all or most of the season. Our #1 draft pick missed half the season. We also lost Kikaha for the season. That's a lot of talent not on the field. Given the amount of injuries we had, the defense should've been much worse than it ever was. Instead, there was (very minor) improvement.

 

[Meachemdat]

We lost our top 5 CB - Lewis, Breaux, Swann, Williams, and Wilson - for all or most of the season. Our #1 draft pick missed half the season. We also lost Kikaha for the season. That's a lot of talent not on the field. Given the amount of injuries we had, the defense should've been much worse than it ever was. Instead, there was (very minor) improvement.

Don't forget KV missing 5 games, Ellerbe missing half the season, all of our depth going down like Erik Harris, Mauti and players of that sort.

Sterling Moore also got nicked up throughout the season.

It would basically be the equivalent of the offense starters being all undrafted rookie free agents minus Drew.

The fact that they made it through the season and didn't have the worst ranked defense is a small miracle.

 

[SAINTSFAN]

We lost our top 5 CB - Lewis, Breaux, Swann, Williams, and Wilson - for all or most of the season. Our #1 draft pick missed half the season. We also lost Kikaha for the season. That's a lot of talent not on the field. Given the amount of injuries we had, the defense should've been much worse than it ever was. Instead, there was (very minor) improvement.

32nd instead of 31st in scoring? We were 27th in yardage allowed as well. I get that we had a lot of injuries and that maybe can use that as an excuse for why the defense was so bad. However, I do not get giving DA credit for doing an "amazing" job. Seems we are happy if we do not set records for worst defense in history again.

 

[Zztop]

Disagree. We did not win7 games because of the defense, we won 7 games in spite of the defense. We still were not even close to average on defense (27th in yards and 31st in scoring). Again, you can make an argument to excuse the poor play due to injuries, but I cannot see that anything amazing was done.

I think 5 or 6? Games this year, the other team scored over 30pts. However, in the few under 20 point games, the offense couldn't get it together. And then special teams... Basically all 3 phases could rarely get on the same page at the same time.

These past few years have reminded me of Haslett coached teams

 

[Chef B in STL]

Thank God!!!!

 

[blackadder]

32nd instead of 31st in scoring? We were 27th in yardage allowed as well. I get that we had a lot of injuries and that maybe can use that as an excuse for why the defense was so bad. However, I do not get giving DA credit for doing an "amazing" job. Seems we are happy if we do not set records for worst defense in history again.

Injuries on the back end would have been helped by a more consistent pass rush on the front end and other than Rankins for half the year the front 7 wasn't what you would call decimated by injury. We had what we had and that was undermined somewhat by the Laurinaitis decision and the regression of Anthony. So, apart from injuries across the back end, we still have significant issues elsewhere to address.

 

[VPCajun]

If you don't WANT to see it, then we can't make you see it. And you clearly don't want to see it.

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I hope you realize that applies to "all sides"...

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As it's been said before:

It's not that they see things differently, it's that they see two different things.

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[VPCajun]

People like you confuse me.

I don't profess that our defense was some outstanding unit or something.

But the fact that you think that our 6th and 7th string players should be able to preform at some high level when they were literally the cast offs that nobody wanted... I just don't understand that mindset.

Like I said, I'm not claiming that we had an elite defense. Or even a good defense. But to disregard the fact that we were absolutely obliterated in the CB position.. I dunno. How someone doesn't realize the difference between an NFL starter and a 6th stringer is beyond me.

But go ahead and keep expecting a good defense with 6th stringers. You'll never be satisfied with any DC we get.

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It's called Depth - or in the Saints case, lack thereof.

Why after 11 years were the Saints in that situation - somebody is making the choices that resulted in what was fielded every Sunday!

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[TheSaints7]

 

[JackT.]

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It's called Depth - or in the Saints case, lack thereof.

Why after 11 years were the Saints in that situation - somebody is making the choices that resulted in what was fielded every Sunday!

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I believe that they have taken steps to correct that already. we had our depth playing significant time this season. Can't wait till next season either way.

 

[krushing]

Always figured Vitt would be water boy if nothing else. He just seemed like SPs security blanket. I think this is better then removing SP with the chaos in ownership.