What went wrong last season? (1 Viewer)

[Superfan]

Our schedule
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/teams/schedule?team=nor

Our Power rankings.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/teams/ranking?team=nor

In our power ranking 2nd to last week we played the eagles i saw this.

week 17

The loss of Deuce McAllister was never more evident than in the third quarter of Sunday's loss to Philly when the Saints failed to score on three plays from the 1-yard line. Now N.O. must hope for a miracle to make the playoffs.

week 14

Credit Sean Payton for being a stand-up guy. He made a bad decision in calling a gadget play against the Bucs, and he owned up to it. "That's my fault for putting them in that position right at that point of the game," Payton said.

week 10

Expect the Saints to make the playoffs. Why? Not only are they on a roll (four straight wins) but consider their second-half schedule: Five of their eight opponents are either last or tied for last in their respective divisions.

week 3

The Saints have been outscored a combined 72-24 in the first two weeks. But does this mean they've returned to being the Aints? Should fans start wearing bags over their heads again? Of course not. But being throttled by the Bucs is definitely unnerving.

Why did i post all of this? With all this draft hype and need for defense which i am on the defense bandwagon why do we ignore our offense? Did we have the inability to score because we were so bad on defense and we got put in a hole early? Do we actually have running back issues? Ignore the duece going down but why did we even when duece was in have trouble running the ball?So, where did we go wrong last season? Was it since we never got better and teams had all of last season 06 to look at and game plan on? Could it be that payton had the virus? Can we not run block? Is our defense that bad in the passing game?



O.K. i will give you the stats of every game.

1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Colts 10 31 228 150 1
Saints 10 0 192 76 3


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Tampa 21 10 243 79 0
Saints 0 14 260 76 2


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Titans 10 21 186 88 1
Saints 7 7 225 24 5

BYE:
1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Carolina 6 10 162 82 1
Saints 6 7 252 79 2


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Seattle 10 7 362 75 1
Saints 28 0 246 114 2


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Atlanta 13 3 273 66 0
Saints 7 15 219 82 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
49ers 0 10 190 60 1
Saints 24 7 336 99 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Jags 17 7 354 82 3
Saints 24 17 445 96 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Rams 17 20 304 129 0
Saints 7 22 272 43 2


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Texans 17 6 293 96 2
Saints 10 0 290 40 3


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Carolina 6 0 161 41 4
Saints 10 21 260 74 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Tampa 13 14 313 140 1 McCown and trick play game
Saints 14 9 179 80 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Atlanta 7 7 298 30 1
Saints 17 17 328 131 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Arizona 14 10 233 97 2
Saints 21 10 315 115 2


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Eagles 24 14 263 137 1
Saints 17 6 284 71 1


1st half 2nd half Passing Rushing Turnovers
Bears 24 9 199 98 2 Kyle Orton at QB
Saints 17 8 320 105 3

 

[Superfan]

Man my stats didnt work graphicly. i need to make a table can anyone do it for me or show me the html for a table?

Anyways if you can read the stats. we only had 4 games where we ran over 100 yards. 5th game Seattle, 13th Atlanta, 14th Arizona, and 16th Bears. I still want to see who had what defensive rankings as rushing and passing.
we only had 5 games where our opponent had over 1 turnover. jacksonville, houston, carolina, arizona, and chicago We had 9 games with more than 1 turnover and all games had at least one turnover by us. The point is we have major problem running the ball, protection and a defense that can't stop anything. I think we need Offensive help. Perhaps we take BPA in this draft. 7 times we trailed at half time we are (1-6). 7 times we leading we are (6-1). we we go in tied we are (0-2). 5 games we trailed by 7 or more ( 3 games by 7) (1 by 10) the other by 21. our other losses ( 4 by 3 or less) Colts and Carolina tied titans by 3 and tampa by 1. our loses there were half time adjustments.

2 games St. Louis and Tampa week 2 were games we trailed by 10 at St louis and 21 at tampa. Those were hard to make up that difference. So what went wrong for us? We seemed to be in all our games.

I think lack of turnovers from our defense puts us at a major disadvantage as well as the lack of running. I hope Goodwin can do a better job than faine did. I hope we reshuffle the oline. I think i wouldnt be mad if we drafted an O-lineman. It seems we need help all around. If we do get a DT which i hope we do we can cause teams to earn their points more and give the saints more opportunities to get the ball. 12 per game 6 a half. it would be nice to have 7 per half. We had at least one turnover every game thats an average of 11 possessions a game and our opponents 13.

 

[Slim K]

I personally think that the it all comes down on the defense, though the offense can be improved. The reason Deuce was ineffective before his injury was because the defense would allow the other team to score points quickly and easily, forcing us to become one-dimensional.

The first three games put us into a deep hole; getting smashed by every team and Deuce going down. This would've most defitenly disheartened the team, to an extent of course.

Once we did get things rolling, that couldn't last forever. A team would eventually key off on our weaknesses, and bring us crashing down. Shamefully, it was the Rams.

 

[bergeaux]

In the first several games our O-line was not giving Brees much time. Maybe the defenses were playing were better or they just schemed well and it took us a little bit to adjust, but the bottom line is that we just could not block them. It didn't turn into many sacks, but it turned into a lot of INTs as Brees tried to get the ball out.

Later in the year Brees had more time and it showed. (BTW, I thought it seemed to turn around when Goodwin came in after Faine's injury.)

 

[uproar90]

I think it all comes down to a desire to be liked or at least having something to prove... Either something to prove the coach, the rest of the team, or possibly needing to prove something to themselves and/or NFL fans... Remember, many of these guys were backups, let go for one reason or another, coming off of a major injury, not picked first when they thought they would be, playing for something 'more' (the return to the dome season).

Everyone overachieved in 2006...

Including the O and D Lines. On O, obviously that helps the run and pass game

on D however, it helps every aspect of the game... blitz, linebacker play, secondary coverage, etc...

With the D-Line coming in with something to prove as they were, they played their butts off... This made Shanle and Simoneau better since those around you lift you up to a higher level of play. There did not seem to be as much of a need @ LB.

With the front 7 performing at such a high level, the secondary didn't have to provide coverage for nearly as long.

Enter 2007 and a large portion of the team was complacent. This is obvious to me in the threads (read it somewhere here...) that stated Faine was seen in bars downtown every night before home games getting sloshed. He proved himself in 2006 and figured he didn't have much to work on for 2007. Also evident in the condition in which H.Thomas showed up to camp.

Have you seen that NFLN commercial with Braylon Edwards? He more or less says that this is a 12 month sport. You have to continue working year round in order to stay on top of your game and even then it is hard to keep up with the 'elite'.

If our crew thinks they can waltz through the off-season, and then show up for pre-season ill-prepared, then expect to see much of the same for 2008.

However... New blood (Vilma, Morgan, Gay, McCray) brings competition to the table along with a new crew of guys that have something to prove. If Vilma truly takes off and becomes the QB of the defense that we hope he can, then expect a different attitude on that side of the ball and a solid defense like we haven't seen for a long time.

Just my opinion, nothing factual to back it up...

 

[SaintsJunkie]

Teams realized that if they could get to Brees and pressure him our offense didn't have time to develop and run as smoothly.

the year before , Brees was rehabbing the arm and we called short pass plays that gave little time for the defense to pressure anyone even if they weren't blocked.

Dwight Freany started the pressure and started the fall of the saints, Brown couldn't handle him. we looked like the Pats in the super bowl most of the year , too much pressure.


on the other side we gave the opposing teams NONE. the other teams QB looked like Tom Brady every week

also no one was afraid of Reggie Bush the second year. they could blitz and not worry he would outrun everyone to the endzone. so they didn't have to sit on their heals to see what the Saints and bush were going to do. We need to get the fear of our back field back, and they also knew Peyton likes to call the Pass

 

[Kris]

I think Sean Payton deserves some kind of award for keeping his team together after the start they had. I think getting character players has a lot to do with it. The Saint's had some real lows last year that could and probably would have devastated many other teams, but they played hard and stayed positive the whole year. That was impressive.

Deuce going down is the main culprit in the Saint's running last year. While the Saint's O line is not the best in the league at run blocking they are far from the worst. Our defence got smoked so bad that the running game got shelved before Deuce got hurt. After Deuce got hurt it took quite a few games to realize that Reggie Bush is not a full time carry the load RB. ( I love Reggie, but use him at his best). Not to mention that Reggie is involved in SSOOOOOOO many offensive plays that other teams can Key on him. Coach needs to solve this problem and still use him, like a politition, I can say it but I don't know the how of it. I think a lot of the turnovers came from Bree's pressing so hard because he knew the other team was gonna score in droves (see Jason David).
Still this team was not that far off last year. Our expectations were lofty and the odds were that they would not reach that high. The Saint's were not "lucky" last year, most of the "breaks" went against them. Very historical, but People and teams make their own luck. Players that don't quit get "lucky" and are in the right place when the ball pops lose. Character players that didn't quit took last year to 7-9 when it could easily have been much worse, so this team could get "lucky" this year cause they are at least as good as last years record. With some improvements on D it could be lot's of fun. We might even get the Eagles girl on TV again, it wasn't that she was that hot, it was that the timing, attitude, and moment were perfect.
Kris

 

[ndcc]

Good, thoughtful, intriguing post...

 

[geauxboy]

Yin ran out and yang kicked in.

 

[Supafroius]

We only won the turnover battle one game and tied on only a few..... There is nothing else to say.

 

[Scott B]

Good thread. The stat that jumps out at me is turnovers.

Turnover ratio for games lost: -12
Turnover ratio for games won: +3

that's a big difference. And while we can certainly point out that the defense isn't a turnover-creating machine, it appears that our offense at times can be. In four games, the offense had 3 or more turnovers. NFL football teams are not going to win many games turning the ball over that many times.

 

[Randy Jones]

Keep in mind we went 7-5 after the 0-4 start without McAllister. Through the season we suffered losing some starter. Bush got hurt, Young got sick, Campbell got hurt, Mckenzie hurt, and Johnson was hurt. On top of that two FA's did not rally contribute who were expected to, Simmons and David. It is a wonder we finshed 7-9. A team needs a good defense early in the season to keep games close while the offense gels. The offense last year was not in sync for the first few games.

 

[CargoJon]

Speaking of turnovers, we has zero games with zero turnovers if I'm reading that correctly. We had at least one in every game. Offensively that should be the goal this year, zero turnover games. It makes life hard on the defense keeping them on the field, especially with short fields.

The injuries really killed us as well. Losing Deuce was huge.

 

[Deuuuuce]

IMO, the main difference from 06 to 07 was the play of our lines on both sides of the ball. In 06, Grant played well, Smith made the pro bowl, Hollis Thomas was a rock, and Bryan Young was a good addition.

Our O-line was a nice suprise that year as well. Faine played great, Brown made the pro bowl, and Evans proved to be a diamond in the rough.

2007, different story. Our O-line regressed . Brown was banged up, Stinchcomb played poorly and in general our offensive line couldn't protect Brees or open up holes consistantly. On the defensive side, Grant and Smith had down years in 07 and Thomas and Young couldn't stay on the field.

Going in to 08 I'm not too worried about our d-line. I think Grant will come back and play better and so will Smith. Mccray was a solid addition and I believe we will draft a stud DT to come in and give us some energy.

I'm more worried about the O-line. We must protect Brees and Bush and the rest of the guys. We haven't done much to address it yet, but IMO we need to upgrade at RT and LG. I'm not so sure about goodwin as the C, but the coaches seem to like him.

Our O-line and D-line were really the underappreciated keys to our success in 06...Alot of the credit went to Brees, Bush, Colston, and Payton, but guys like Jamal Brown, Will Smith, Charles Grant, Hollis Thomas, Jahri Evans were equally important. I hope they can all rebound and play like they did in 06.

 

[CCL36]

look up the opposing teams QB rating including rookies for last year.