Words from some recent winners (1 Viewer)

Guitarzan

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I'd like to spell out a message that Billy Donovan is telling to his returning National Championship Team that I think might apply to this team and its fans.

paraphrased; "You must feel the need to prove yourself everyday, or else you are already starting to fail."

Tony Romo, "The minute you feel like ... ok I've got this down now, is the minute you start going backwards. You have to want to improve every day."

6-2 means the worst you can do is 6-10. I said that a couple of weeks ago mainly to help folks realize that there is a great deal of time left in this season. What I'm wanting to avoid is a fan mutiny. We all need to hang tough just as we want our team to do. As much of a cliche as it sounds, we really are all in it together. The attitude that is prevalent in here will also be found amongst the players.

Once again. Beat Atlanta... nothing else- for now.
 
I read early in the year that Payton made the game simple for the team ... break the games down by halves and the season down by quarters to achieve their goals. IT was working but I have this gut feeling Payton and the team got a little to greedy, careless, arrogant on offense and lost the play they had ealry in the year.

Kinda fits with the theme here, as soon as you think your better than you are and become greedy you'll eventually pay the price. I hope the saints can go back to playing with that chip on their shoulder.
 
I read early in the year that Payton made the game simple for the team ... break the games down by halves and the season down by quarters to achieve their goals. IT was working but I have this gut feeling Payton and the team got a little to greedy, careless, arrogant on offense and lost the play they had ealry in the year.

Kinda fits with the theme here, as soon as you think your better than you are and become greedy you'll eventually pay the price. I hope the saints can go back to playing with that chip on their shoulder.

I dunno about greedy as much a careless, almost cocky. The Pittsburgh game with all the FOX interviews and the blather was kinda where I began to worry. You prop people up and they seem to buy into it. I much prefer it when this team feels as if it has to prove someone wrong rather than live up to its high praise.

One good example that kinda symbolizes this is: 1st and goal and we throw it without even giving Deuce a couple of shots at it. I think Sean may have wanted to set the tempo and get his guys on a roll. He saw $$ and it might have affected his better judgement. That play kinda killed me because I'm yelling "THIS IS DEUCE THIS IS DEUCE!" and wammo a red zone TO. Coach of the year and MVP talk aside, I like the old school approach -meat and potatoes- kinda stuff more often. I like an exciting play to go with it but caution is warranted. We had a minimum of two field goals in our pocket and threw them away by being a bit too "cute".

Good thing is Sean realized it and is going about adjusting that. So all in all, I'll take the bumps in the road as growing pains but I just hope that dealing with success is a lesson this team learns to be better at WHEN they get on their next roll. Hopefully that begins this weekend.
 
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I don't know, I think this sort of thing can get over-analyzed. If the Saints have accomplished anything this year, it's that they have played better than most people expected already. I don't know that they are now getting too cocky or greedy or whatever assertions can be made -- I think they're a surprisingly above average team that is going to lose some games and on paper, they aren't undeniably better than most teams they face.

Obviously some of the pieces are in place and the team looks to have a bright future. And I expect them to continue to play competitively and challenge for the division title and make the post season. What I don't expect is a 3-13 team a season ago to look like world-beaters every sunday and at this point, they obviously don't. I think that has more to do with some talent deficiencies, particularly on defense, a coach and his players with wrinkles to iron out, and then throw in the fact that even good teams lose games in the NFL that they probably shouldn't have and win a few they could have lost.

I'm not at all dismissing the mental aspect of the game, but I think the losses have had more to do with the Saints not making more plays than the opponent and really nothing to do with the team getting too cocky. In fact, I'd argue that a collective positive team mindset is partly what has them looking ready to play on gameday, almost without exception -- win or lose.
 
I don't know, I think this sort of thing can get over-analyzed. If the Saints have accomplished anything this year, it's that they have played better than most people expected already. I don't know that they are now getting too cocky or greedy or whatever assertions can be made -- I think they're a surprisingly above average team that is going to lose some games and on paper, they aren't undeniably better than most teams they face.

Obviously some of the pieces are in place and the team looks to have a bright future. And I expect them to continue to play competitively and challenge for the division title and make the post season. What I don't expect is a 3-13 team a season ago to look like world-beaters every sunday and at this point, they obviously don't. I think that has more to do with some talent deficiencies, particularly on defense, a coach and his players with wrinkles to iron out, and then throw in the fact that even good teams lose games in the NFL that they probably shouldn't have and win a few they could have lost.

I'm not at all dismissing the mental aspect of the game, but I think the losses have had more to do with the Saints not making more plays than the opponent and really nothing to do with the team getting too cocky. In fact, I'd argue that a collective positive team mindset is partly what has them looking ready to play on gameday, almost without exception -- win or lose.

Good points. I find it difficult to be such a forward thinker with such a history as ours to frame my thoughts.

I definitely don't want to seem as if there hasn't been a respetable effort and coaching scheme and philosophy to get us to here. Still i think that somewhere in there was a bit of failing to deal with success by staying hungry and humble.

I think we'll see that reflected in this weekends game plan.
 
There's no deep underlying meaning as to why the team has lost the last two games.

And if there is, then that deep, underlying meaning is that we're turning the ball over.
Simple as that.

An argument might be made that Payton is going to the air too much. But it's working. We're moving the ball at will on teams. We want to move the ball--we move it.

But we're giving it away. That's why we're losing. Not because of play selection, or cockiness. Simply because last week we turned it over twice inside of the 10-yard line, and the week before we turned it over on our first and last drives--both proving to be crucial, as Pittsburgh scored off the first turnover, and ran out the clock on the second.

It a matter of executing the most simple play in football--holding onto the ball.
 
There's no deep underlying meaning as to why the team has lost the last two games.

And if there is, then that deep, underlying meaning is that we're turning the ball over.
Simple as that.

An argument might be made that Payton is going to the air too much. But it's working. We're moving the ball at will on teams. We want to move the ball--we move it.

But we're giving it away. That's why we're losing. Not because of play selection, or cockiness. Simply because last week we turned it over twice inside of the 10-yard line, and the week before we turned it over on our first and last drives--both proving to be crucial, as Pittsburgh scored off the first turnover, and ran out the clock on the second.

It a matter of executing the most simple play in football--holding onto the ball.

Thanks for your opinion. A bit simple to me but you are entitled to it. When the coach mentions the 1st and goal play that probably was a bit too aggresive and patience would have had us take a shot or two with the RB, then even he maybe see's the deeper issue.
 

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