Underhill article: “Saints moves are telling us what they felt the real problem with the team was last season” (173 Viewers)

[Randy Jones]

That's all free agency is, though. Drew Brees was a cast off.

More luck than brilliance on the part of the Saints.

 

[Rexman100]

In football it's usually is a combination of things. But when it comes to selling tickets, it becomes selective. The Saints have become ticket sellers first and foremost. The strategy of rebuilding the team is dictated by it. It just reeks of a money man (Lauscha) calling the shots. Maybe, just mabye, Mickey's kick the can program was only supposed to be during Drew's window but the bean counters aren't giving him a choice now. I can't see any other reason why Loomis would have continued kicking the can. Sean's last season should have been year 1 of a proper rebuild. As for the excuse that Sean called the shots, Mickey should have stepped in. At some point, if the program isn't working or appears headed for a crash the GM needs to step in. I think it was obvious the Saints were in decline prior to Sean's last season. All of that said, I'm starting to think that it was always driven by revenue, which means they had to sell hope. I can't help but feel this way. I worked for 2 professional franchises that were 100% driven by sales 1st, performance and sport was a far 2nd.

It’s definitely the way it is, it’s a business. So selling hope is always priority one in the offseason. I’ve never seen an NFL team tank a season. The closest thing that I’ve seen, is a mid team like Carolina releasing and trading starters mid season. We sort of tanked last year by trading Lattimore. Another example of an NFL tanking is resting starters. All that to say, a team doesn’t decide to tank before a season starts.

 

[Boy_of_wonder75]

More luck than brilliance on the part of the Saints.

If that's the case, there's no reason not to believe they won't get lucky again.

 

[St. Widge]

The difference is the Andy Dalton Bengals versus the Joe Burrow Bengals (i.e. the Dalton Bengals were one and done in the playoffs for years, respectable and mediocre). The Bengals finally bottomed out and drafted high enough to get Burrow and Chase and reinvigorated their franchise. The Carr Saints are the Dalton Bengals at their best and they haven't even managed that in a mediocre to bad division. My hope was to tank for Arch Manning.

That sounds great in theory, but you are just as likely to have a year where you get Zach Wilson as you are to get Joe Burrow. And there is no guarantee that Arch is going to be that good when he comes out in 2 or 3 years. For all we know he gets hurt or just doesn't prove to be a great QB.

And even with the Bengals, they had one great year (where they went 10-7 in the regular season - a record that many hate the idea of), one year in the conf championship and have now had mediocre 9-8 season two years in a row. So, it's not as simple as tank to get a young franchise QB and then profit. Even if you get the franchise QB after tanking, it's no guarantee of a Super Bowl win, and at least half of the time you get Zach Wilson, Josh Rosen, Mitch Trubisky, Trevor Lawrence, Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield, etc.

 

[St. Widge]

That decision by DA was his nail in the coffin. Who goes into a season without a backup qb on the roster?

Luckily we don't have that problem this year since Rattler is now a season pro after all those snaps he took last year.

 

[Rexman100]

Lol, your backups don’t have to be good as your starters. Plus, if any athlete laughs at the “next man up” mantra, then they are not worth being in a sport. No one builds a roster thinking that their backups cannot hold their own. No backup thinks that they cannot provide the help that is needed from them. Look at Cam’s recent comment about the DE depth chart. He literally believes that the entire DE unit can be contributors. Thats the difference between an A1 player who believes (and should believe) vs some talking head that is not worth the salt on a 2 day old bagel.

Tell that to the backup journeyman signed a day before the game, whose job it is to contain Jalen Carter. “Hey don’t forget, it’s next man up”.

 

[St. Widge]

This is the comment I left from that article:

I really don’t understand the perception coming from the front office. We can be competitive, but to do what?, win a playoff game?. We may be as close to Tampa as we are far from Detroit, the rams and Philly.

If we are doing a mixture of cleaning cap and roster while going for it, we should not be signing new players that are over 26 years old. We should be questioning extending veterans that will not be playing up to their cap value.

To me, we are improvising, not building towards a real competitive future.

Why do you assume that guys over 26 can't live up to their cap number? 26 to 30 or so are usually the prime years for players.

I also don't understand how adding good players that will have every chance to live up to their cap number for the next 2 or 3 years is not building a team? What counts as building a team if that doesn't?

 

[sfidc3]

In hind sight letting DA go mid-season was no advantage. The D played worse and we got some juice from Rizzi that really ended up hurting us come draft time

I think this is an absolutely tone deaf argument.....the team had quit on DA, do you realize how ugly those last games would have been? Gayle was not going to find out and she was right in that regard......

I've never believed in sacrificing wins for draft position, arguably the best draft in Saints history we were picking 11th....

And with regards to the article I'm not totally surprised that they are retaining many of the vets because financially it probably makes sense to do so, the main thing with this first year of CKM and staff is the draft.....we need cheap young starters and depth....