Underhill article: “Saints moves are telling us what they felt the real problem with the team was last season” (148 Viewers)

[SweetT]

So we won 5. We lost the Philly game on a stupid 3 DB collision on a 3rd and 16 with 1:20 left and we were ahead- 6 wins . We were ahead against ATL with 23 sec left 2nd and 10 and Adebo commits DPI = 7 wins
Just with those 2 games we make 7 wins, and that's not fully healthy. I think 7-8 wins if we are healthy is a low estimate

Remember that DA was finding ways to lose games in historical fashion. He was like a curse walking on our sidelines. I wouldn’t chalk up any game as a potential win with him. I can’t bc he never showed me that he could actually lead completely

 

[SweetT]

You can be the best conditioned team in the league and injuries can and will happen that you have no control over like TH and Adebo's injuries. And you can go above and beyond to prevent soft tissue injuries but they still happen. That " Next Man Up" is really a motivational phrase. Anyone that thinks the backup will perform just as well as the starter is just off base.

As far as depth , no team is going to pay starter $ to a guy that could start on a good team thinking " We better do this because we know we're going to be decimated by injury" , The draft is where your depth comes from and eventually your starters.

My point is that I agree with CKM and the staff that without all the injuries we would have been a good team, not great. And health and better coaching ( which I think we have now ) we are not far from the playoffs. And contrary to what some believe playoffs is where you start

Actually, sometimes a backup, who is cheaper, plays well, and ends up becoming the eventual starter. Happens on every team.

 

[StudioSaint]

You can be the best conditioned team in the league and injuries can and will happen that you have no control over like TH and Adebo's injuries. And you can go above and beyond to prevent soft tissue injuries but they still happen. That " Next Man Up" is really a motivational phrase. Anyone that thinks the backup will perform just as well as the starter is just off base.

I don't think it's about a backup playing as well as the starter. I think what matters is that when you plug a backup in to replace and injured starter, can they play well enough that the unit can maintain the same level of play as a unit. That's why a couple of injuries can be managed, but when you've got multiple starters missing in a unit it becomes a negative force multiplier that drags the entire unit down.

For instance, the offensive has four basic moving parts. There's the line, the QB, the backfield and the eligible receivers on the line. If you're just missing one lineman, you can work with that. If you're also missing one eligible receiver, it's more difficult. If you lose another receiver and another lineman and the QB and a backfield player, it's going to be nearly impossible to have the four moving parts all work in proper sync consistently.

When you have multiple starters out on one unit, it increases the likelihood of error and one error is all it takes to kill a play. It takes exceptional coaching to work around that. I don't know if the current staff will be exceptional, but I know last years wasn't. They had some really good coaches, but the coaching staff as a whole unit was less than exceptional. It wasn't less than zero, (hey...red), but it wasn't exceptional.

 

[treeduck]

If they just thought it was injuries then why dd they fire DA?

 

[VolSaint]

Ok so I'm trying to be open mined with you because we but heads all the time. How can the injury claim be lame? Every yr a good team does not live up to their potential due to injuries. Yes all teams deal with injuries but not to the level that we did last yr. You mention the Lions, their injuries did not start at the beginning of the yr like ours did they were like 6-7 -0 before it started with their D. Also their D was not the strength of their team, their O was and they had hardly any injuries
Philly beat the Rams by 17 how is that their closest game, and the Rams were getting healthy by then

I just think ( and apparently so does CKM and his staff) that injuries were a big factor for the way the team performed last yr. This mindset that injuries are downplayed at the level we had last yr and it really does not matter to be absurd. Please enlighten me

I think it's mainly bc there's no evidence suggesting that even if the team was fully healthy that'd we'd be serious contenders. Our major weaknesses are run defense, oline, and receivers. Lines had next to no injuries and were still subpar, while we're one concussion away from Shaheed being our WR1. I think we've seen the team healthy in 2023 and there's really no evidence that we'd be much better than that going into 2025. Maybe an 11 win ceiling if literally everything goes our way. Then our team would have to start playing actual teams in the playoffs, which seems grim since we've beat next to no .500 teams in the past couple years.

Additionally, it's worth saying that injuries will be a fundamental problem even heading into the season. With how old so many of our stars are, the risk of injury is going to be very high and thus we need to factor that in when realistically accessing the team.

For some of the truthers, I really would encourage as a thought exercise to rank the Saints when compared to other teams. Saints can seem like they're pretty good when viewed in isolation, but soooo many teams look so much better when in comparison. It all just seems really grim.

 

[dutar76]

Our starting 22 weren’t the problem. It’s the other 31+.

We legit had no WR3 or WR4 at all. Our offensive and defensive lines were thin as paper.

If this was Madden and we could flip injuries off then I’d bet we’d have a fighting chance at playoffs last year.

I also think too much stock was placed in our 2-0 start. Bryce was still in a bad mindset and the Cowboys were nothing more than hot air.

I can ride with you on most of that, but the 2-0 start wasnt a fluke. Yeah, we werent gonna do that to all 17 teams on our schedule, but we would've been legit competitors.

We started the season with an OL and skill players that complimented Carr. And the defense wasn't left on the field for 2/3 of the game. Losing McCoy followed by Carr followed by Olave, etc... no team is gonna look good after that.

The difference between a winning team and the worst team in the NFL is miniscule. Being down your starting QB is enough to de-rail most teams. Being down a starting QB and half the team probably skews how we look at the talent on our roster. Im guilty of this too. We are not as bad as we looked last year. We're not good, but we arent THAT bad.

 

[9thwardvet]

Nick's article today on NOF was one of his best. I encourage everyone to read it. I can't post it because it's a pay site but the gist of what we wrote is that he thought for sure that there would be come cap clearing and getting rid of some older players and some shifting towards rebuilding. But they were not listening, because the Saints had been saying for months that they didn't think the roster was that big of a problem. They think that injuries cut their legs out.

He also wrote that they had a lot of access to the coaching staff recently and when asked what they thought about the team and they referred to the injuries, saying the team " Looked good until" or " Once the QB went down "

He wrote that most of the coaching staff that were here wk 3 wearing green thought that the roster as legitimately good and then pieces started falling away.

He also said that you could look at the team and say "Oh damn, Mccoy, Taysom,Carr, Olave,Shaheed and AK and the other players that got hurt are pretty good at football and the Saints are probably a little better than their record showed. And that's been the feedback from all the guys that took jobs here. He says that what those guys have been saying is logical . Injuries matter. What a shocking take

This part was not in Nick's article
In a way the injury riddled season may be a blessing in disguise. Had we been much more healthy we would probably have won 9-10 games and maybe the NFCS and DA would still be the HC, something we all knew had to change

If that's how CKM and his staff see our team as looking pretty good until the injury bug hit and obviously felt good about it to take the jobs why should they not be trusted? Since they know far better than any of us or anyone in the media.

This is something that bothers me that I believe no one has touched on. I see all the talking heads and a few of you guys saying let’s rebuild, we are in cap hell blah, blah, blah.
What should we do? Eat the money and tank blah, blah, blah. I listen to all the relative talking heads even Matt Mascona.

Here’s my problem especially Matt because I know he played. If anyone of you have ever played football in your life sure you can do a rebuild but what signal does that give to Demario Davis, Cam Jordan and all the other 53 you need to buy in to give blood, sweat and tears to have a true roster that would be willing to want to compete. Footballl practice is a committed grind guys at any level. Playing is the prize. I know these guys are millionaires but they care. If u truly want to blow it up let them guys go and let’s play a tank team.

Real football players would NEVER tank. You can’t give half effort that’s how u get hurt.

We all work. Think about if your job gave you minimum resources to be successful. Sure if you are good you might can fight thru but why if nobody seems to care. Almost makes u want to just as much as the laziest person at the job.

At first I was like let’s rebuild but the reality I stated above hit. I can’t blame gum smacking Loomis with his approach lol. If and a big if we hit on this draft we can win it all or be close like 2017. Carr is capable. Run the ball effectively and Shut down the run…we are capable. Weak schedule capable.

Lastly the Saint brand is smart…. Put out a no name tank team or try to compete. Hmmm all season ticket holders is going to see what they do. Sorry for the long post but again from a former player I feel a type of way.

 

[VolSaint]

This is something that bothers me that I believe no one has touched on. I see all the talking heads and a few of you guys saying let’s rebuild, we are in cap hell blah, blah, blah.
What should we do? Eat the money and tank blah, blah, blah. I listen to all the relative talking heads even Matt Mascona.

Here’s my problem especially Matt because I know he played. If anyone of you have ever played football in your life sure you can do a rebuild but what signal does that give to Demario Davis, Cam Jordan and all the other 53 you need to buy in to give blood, sweat and tears to have a true roster that would be willing to want to compete. Footballl practice is a committed grind guys at any level. Playing is the prize. I know these guys are millionaires but they care. If u truly want to blow it up let them guys go and let’s play a tank team.

Real football players would NEVER tank. You can’t give half effort that’s how u get hurt.

We all work. Think about if your job gave you minimum resources to be successful. Sure if you are good you might can fight thru but why if nobody seems to care. Almost makes u want to just as much as the laziest person at the job.

At first I was like let’s rebuild but the reality I stated above hit. I can’t blame gum smacking Loomis with his approach lol. If and a big if we hit on this draft we can win it all or be close like 2017. Carr is capable. Run the ball effectively and Shut down the run…we are capable. Weak schedule capable.

Lastly the Saint brand is smart…. Put out a no name tank team or try to compete. Hmmm all season ticket holders is going to see what they do. Sorry for the long post but again from a former player I feel a type of way.

I don't think you have to tank to rebuild. There's a middle area from trying to get the first overall draft pick and soft rebuilding like we are now, and I think most of the detractors from what the Saints are doing now are in that middle area.

 

[StudioSaint]

Do older players tend to get injured more frequently?

I think it's more affected by the individual player than a player's age. Also, a lot of injuries from collisions/contact would happen to any player of any age. Off the top of my head, I think most of Kamara's and Hill's injuries have been from collisions/contact and aren't so much age related.

Healing time is more of an issue with aging and that also has more to do with the individual than their age. Our healing rate slows down at different rates and different ages. Kamara still heals up pretty quick, so I'm not worried about his age. What I'm looking for with Hill is how long his full rehab takes. So far, he has finished rehab at or before the average minimal time. If he does that again, then no worries for me about his age.

I think the Saints are going to wait until there's a strong indication that his rehab is or isn't going well before they make a decision about him. I think if they are confident in his recovery they'll keep him and take it year by year with him. There's several things I can see them doing if his recovery is going less than great.

 

[StudioSaint]

I’m going to pause on the roster (as a whole until I see results), but I’ve always said that we still have talent in our starting group. Need to give those guys a system to believe in and help them to regain their confidence. They have endured too much losing, that it has become part of them. Have to flip the script. I do believe KM will help with that.

I wish the like feature included a fingers crossed emoji.

 

[StudioSaint]

It's not possible to instantly be great. You have to be good at some point and build on that. I don't know where we got this idea that you can skip good on the way to being great.

I guess it depends on how you define great. The Redskins in 2023 went 4-13, then in 2024 went 12-5 and made it to the NFC Championship. The Saints did the same in their 2005 and 2006 seasons.

I know some think it was just because of the QB's, but it wasn't. That's an oversimplification in my opinion. Both teams had the most important change a team can have, they both turned things around when they got much better coaching staff than the previous year. There are several other examples of how upgrading has lead to a big, year one turn around for a team.

Fingers crossed that Moore and his staff are about to do the same for the Saints. I'll consider year one a success if they have a winning record, because that would be at least a four game improvement over last year. That would be a nearly 100% improvement and something really good to build on.

 

[dvdman]

I agree with most of what Underhill is supposedly saying per the Saints……too many injuries to KEY players were a huge part but of course many will disagree for whatever reason.

 

[StudioSaint]

If they just thought it was injuries then why dd they fire DA?

Because the injuries weren't the only problem. Coaching was a problem too. Moore believes in himself, so he believes the coaching problem is fixed. He seems to think that he can get the injury rate down and that the roster just needs some repairing, instead of a complete tear down.

 

[NatureBoy]

Here's what we know about last season. The Saints performed at a very high level until mass injuries occured. The Saints didn't have good enough depth. The coach was held accountable. Now the team was good enough and it wasn't the coach or depth, just the injuries? Which is it?

I like Nick but this just sounds like the Saints marketing 2025 tickets. No matter why one might think the Saints lack quality depth, I don't think the reality that we do is arguable, unless its time for season ticket renewals.

 

[DSnfla]

Actually, sometimes a backup, who is cheaper, plays well, and ends up becoming the eventual starter. Happens on every team.

But it's very rare