Three Current Camp Concerns

Good talking points across the board, SS. My feelings on both concern 1 and 3 are that we’ve got so much depth at both positions now, that neither player will be missed immediately. In the long term, though, I fear for the Saints relationship with both of those players.

  Arrington STILL hasn’t gotten past speculation on his “potential”, so who’s to say how much better he can be than what we’ve got going now. I’m of the opinion that Henderson has nothing to offer the WR corps that he hasn’t already, and that Meachem will take his place in the roster at some point this season, probably early. Moore may be just an overhyped journeyman, and Colston may just be an overachiever, but, honestly, how much better could ANY receiver do than these guys have done for us so far? Our TE’s are respectable passing options,as are any of our backs, Evans now included. Unless Jhari Evans starts playing as an eligible receiver, I don’t know how much more we can hope for in terms of passing. I’m currently more concerned with the possibility of a severe dropoff in passing production without the development of a bread-and-butter running game.

  As far as Jenkins is concerned, I’m starting to worry that his relationship with the organization will be soured before he even touches the practice field. Hopefully his agent will get the blame, but if it really is Loomis lowballing him out of training camp, he may not be that excited about suiting up in the black and gold when(if) the time comes. While it seems like we may not need him this year, it sure would be nice to have a real up and comer in the Saints secondary for a change, and injuries could always create a necessity sooner rather than later. Because of last years’ and this years’ star-crossed offseason transactions, most of our ‘09 draft-class eggs have ended up in his basket, so why start nitpicking over half a million now? I don’t think ANY player who hasn’t so much as sniffed a professional locker room should be worth the GDP of Chad (the country, not the longsnapper), but you have to go with the flow. The Saints are saving money elsewhere( training camp in Metairie, Arnoux on IR), just get the deal done, and let’s move on.

  The WLB concern is what it is. They tried and failed twice this offseason to address it, and now the party line is,“we’re happy with what we have.” Didn’t seem that way in the spring, but if you say so, PayLoo. The linebacker corps will do exactly what they did last year. Maybe different coaching will unlock Shanle’s and Fujita’s hidden wells of talent that they didn’t even know about. More realistically, maybe the changes in front of and behind the linebackers will mask that mediocrity better. That’s all us fans really have to hope for.

  I’d personally like to add one more concern of mine to this list, to which I already alluded earlier: no change in the Saints’ running strategy. The O-line hasn’t changed, the RB starters haven’t changed(so far as we can see at this point). 3rd and 2 will still happen in ‘09. I love PT and Bush to death(well, maybe not THAT much, but anyway), but they could not get it done last year. Are the chips just going to fall their way this year? That hasn’t historically been the case for this organization. Mike Bell is not a bruiser. Hamilton, Donaldson, and Hill aren’t making any headlines so far. Evans and improved play from Shockey in run blocking are the only tangible things to hope for improvement in. Or(gulp), a more true-to-form “West Coast” passing strategy that produces short-yardage gains consistently, and keeps the clock moving.

i’m not superstitious…but i am a little stitious

everyone’s concerns make a lot of sense. But if we didn’t have Meachem, AA’s struggles would be a bigger deal. As it is, this will probably give Meachem a big chance and we will find out if he will have that breakoput season, I think he will. Moore is a true pro- probably best hands on the team. Every QB wants a guy like him. has good speed, not great spped, but it doesn’t matter. With Drew’s accuracy, Moore will be a go to guy. He also runs routes well. shockey is a phenomenal TE, evem though he is controversial. He will excel and he will ignite the offense at times. He really didn’t have a bad season last year when he was not out with an injury. I know he didn’t score tds. but everyone else did. TDs were not our problem on offense last year, first downs/short yardage were.
I think Shockey will be fine, but jusr remember we have 6 or 7 good receivers, so don;t expect him to catch 100 passes- Colston, Reggie, Moore, Meachem- how many guys can get the ball all the time??

Jenkins will sign eventually and the deal should really be done already, but I am on the side of the NFL management on this stuff- the rookies are overpaid (high draft picks that is) accomplish something first before you get rich and lazy. Butg I think we can be good with Porter, Greer, Gay and David if there is a pass ruch. If there is no pass rush, then it doesn’t matter anyway.
 
And the running game will be better because now we know it was our one identifiable weakness and these guys are pros- they will get it right and the coaching/play calling will be oriented towards getting it straight.

who likes Shanle, I think the problems with the defense have not been Shanle’s fault. I also would like to see Simoneau get a little time at WLB to see how he does there.

I’m worried about MJ’s holdout. I’d like him in and practicing and getting tight with his teammates. I don’t think their will be hard feelings unless it turns into a JaMarcus Russell type thing.

Revis, whom we all seem to be benchmarking in this case held out 21 days and he still played in 15 games and had 4 picks for the Jets. But who knows what he’d have done had he been in place all of camp? Maybe he would have been hurt on Day 7 and missed his whole rookie season. Maybe he would have picked off 9 passes in the season and be halfway to the HOF right now. But I’d definitely rather have MJ in camp.

I wonder about how our LBs will do since we haven’t really brought in any new players – we’ll have to watch early in the preseason games to get a taste of this, I guess, although preseason does not really show much of what a team will do in the regular season.

I want to hear more about the DL and how they look. I think that will be of primo importance – new coach, new players (BJ, Coleman, Hargrove, Spicer, and what seems to be an amped up BMcCray wanting to take over this DEFENSE), CG and WS suspensions, etc.

Hopefully Payton’s not just thinking up more trickeration for short-yardage plays to improve our 3rd and short conversions. That could be a disaster.

It’s a bit sad that he’s not healthier, because like you Dave I was hoping he’d make us soooo good and deep at WR that we’d either be the first team to go 16-0 with 4 receivers going over 1000 yards and 10 tds each (and then eventually trade 2 of them for Troy polamalu and Vince wilfork), but like the Dan Morgan sit’n, he wasn’t on our team and contributing, and now gone, so that’s not as big a concern for me.