Random Thoughts While My Blood Pressure Slowly Recovers

Lots of argument about how unimportant defense is in the modern NFL over at Bucsnation. The team with the best defense won so it is what it is. I still think a solid defense is important especially in the playoffs. I wouldn’t worry too much you guys are still the best in the NFC south, and you’ll be in the playoffs again next year.

I worry about the Free Agency problem as well. There are so many key players with contracts up.

Gregg has possibly already made his decision about leaving.

I have to disagree about the turnovers. In our current model of the saints, Williams defense is never supposed to preserve the chance of coming back. We got lucky that we were still in it at the half and they didn’t turn those 4 turnovers into 28 points. I hate to say it but the Offense failed the defense and the special teams unit failed everybody, muffing kick returns is busch league. You can almost be guaranteed that if the saints had won that large of a turnover margin that the score wouldn’t have been anywhere close. One could even say that if we had only lost the 3 on offense and none on special teams, other posters have mentioned this, the score would have been different as well.

Obviously we will re-sign Brees (if we don’t…mother of god….), Nicks, and possibly Colston. But we could easily be looking at Porter and Meachem being gone. It’s not gonna be very fun.

1. Greg Romeus should be healthy next season. We’ll get to see what he can do. Dude was a 1st round talent taken in the 7th round due to injury.
2. Martez Wilson came on strong towards the end of the season. He’s got starter potential.
3. Ingramania will be back
4. A full off-season can’t hurt. OTA’s and mini camps can only help.

Gotta start looking ahead, stop looking back

1. Thick Beer and Sweet Rum, we ain’t 20 anymore. LOL

thanks for sharing them

I saw one TUSK!! running play off to the left where the area between Tackle and Guard was clogged, and he tried to bust through it, and the split second before he cut right into the wall of bodies, I noticed that the edge was sealed and I screamed, “turn it out-” I couldn’t even get the whole word “outside” out before he was stuffed and the play was over.

The whole closing window, elevator door, or whatever metaphor you picture is HUGE – this team has been good for 3 years, and may have used up all the time with this nucleus…we’ll see – they hit offseason veteran player acquisition gold in 2008-9 (Vilma, Greer, Sharper), and then whiffed the last two years, so are they due for a good 2012?

and 2 yesterday. I hate the 3 man rush- that’s what happened last play of the game. Still though, Harper should have been 2 feet up closer and he could have made the play. Even Pass Interference would have been better.

but then it looked like they didn’t even mark off any yards?

I don’t mean any offense just wanted the opinion from Saints fans

As you may know, there were zero penalties called on the Saints yesterday. My question is, do you believe the Saints committed no penalties for the entire game?

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think it would be very interesting to compare our DEs or even our front four as far as pass rushing stats or pass rushing ability , to the other 11 playoff teams or even the playoff teams and then the next 10 pass rushing teams. I think we are at the bottom of that heap.

if I were Sean Payton, I’d be massively pissed off right now.

Oh, you betcha. Did you see his face as last few seconds ticked off? I’ll bet he was thinking that you can’t let the only explosive receiver on the other team beat you in that situation. Twice.

and there was this line of dudes all waiting to buy the same thing… lol

I figured i would let all emotions cool off slightly before i headed over here. I just wanted to say the Saints played a great, great game. That offense…whew…good as advertised. I loved how the refs let both teams play. Best game of the year, in my opinion, and the Niners have been in down to the wire games all year long. It’ll be an instant classic, I am just happy my team came out on top. It was the of the best final 6 minutes of football I’ve ever seen, and i’ll admit, my heart dropped when Graham caught that TD pass. I was really worried when Alex scored the rushing td, because Brees had two time outs, the two minute warning, and one of the best offenses in History! Turns out, he made the same mistake Alex made and scored too quickly.

I’ve always been an Alex fan, and i always thought it was the fact he had no help. He had no support from coaches (See: Nolan questioning his toughness because he didn’t go back into the game with a grade 3 seperated shoulder, or Singletary shouting him down and benching him after a bad play) or fans (See fans booing him at home, and chanting WE WANT CARR!…Carr for Smith, no thank you! Now that he has a great head coach, and a system for more than 2 years, i think there is nowhere to go but up.

Sorry, didn’t mean to come rant about Smith…especially to a team that has one of the best quarterbacks to ever play,

Great game guys, and both your players and fans are as classy as you can be. Stay classy, Louisiana, and you’ll get your revenge game in the Mercedes Benz Dome next year. Good luck for both your teams, and your persons.

Niner. Fan.

1. Steve Spagnoulo
2. Mike Nolan
3. Wade Phillips

Nolan and Phillips would bring the 3-4, something I think would really help our defense, with the talent we have. Spagnuolo could hopefully bring some stability to the defense, and put a scheme in place to stop giving up so many godamn yards.

So devastated to lose this way and squander the best Saints team ever, one of the greatest offenses of all time.
Completely agree with M-E that this was the most painful loss in Saints history. Despite all the turnovers we had the game won. Breesus pulled a rabbit out of his ass twice only to see the defense completely choke. No excuse for big blitzing with under a minute to go allowing for a big play instead of just playing coverage. I kept seeing jimmy’s amazing score immediately followed by vernon Davis inexcusable big play over and over again in my fitful sleep last night. I imagine it’s going to haunt me for a long time.

that blitzing (ala Davis 47 yd reception to put SF into FG position with only minutes/eseconds left was a problem: and also the last play where we rushed 3, played zone, and Alex Smith threaded a pass past Shanle and in front of Harper – at the goal line where Harper put on a monster hit and Davis held on)- well it was meant to be. GW did everything he could – blitz, coverage, zone/man what we needed was a pass rush. A pass rush whereand KNEW they were NOT going to run the ball so they should have done better but thy were tired and it was our weakness.. WE have no pass rush. That’s not Harper’s fault or Jenkins fault. It’s Payloos fault thinking Romeus / Jordan were going to give us sacks. If not them, who?

but this guy was a beast- kinda like Graham a few seconds earlier (against 2 defenders)

Didn’t want Dave to have to ban me. Hmmm, maybe a few others should have followed my example. Good write up for a one eyed fat drunk man MntEx.

Just want to comment on #6 …

6. I wonder if our window is closed. With so many free agents next year, including The Big One, I don’t see how there’s enough money to restock talent. And since most of the talent is on the offensive side, that means even less money for the defense…unless they want to allow the offense to deteriorate while they try to fix the defensive side.

It’s obvious we are going to lose some guys on Offense. The Salary cap almost guarantees it. I don’t think the window is closed however. Why? Well we will still have Drew Bressssss. Drew will make who ever is playing WR look better than they may actually be. The real danger would be letting Nicks go, IMHO, as we need to keep Drew’s protection in tack, at the very least, at the current level. Defensively, this may turn out to be another good year in the draft. Yes, we lost/gave up our 1st round pick, but it wouldn’t have been a high round pick anyway. We need major upgrades in the LBing core, as well as we need to draft a good NT.

Drew is the #1 priority signing in the off season, and we can get by with the tag on him if we have to. I would hope they can get a deal done there, and save the tag for either Colston or Nicks. Devery or Meacheam, and I’m leaning Meacham, would be expendable, to make some cap room. Porter, is also done, IMO. Vilma should be able to get healthy in the off season, and maybe some type of restructuring can be done there. Dunlap was a dependable replacement when he was down. PT’s contract doesn’t hurt us enough to make getting rid of him without some major compensation. I believe, most of his big money would be incentive based, and does not directly affect the cap, if I understand correctly.

So I don’t think the window is closed, however Loomis will have his work cut out for him in the off season.

Guess I’d better stop here or should just do a separate post.

Nice to know somebody can keep their head and still think.

I am amazed at the restraint of this site. Why I didn’t get blocked I’ll never know…

I’d love to stick around and discuss, I just can’t thrash through the off-season flotsam.

Next year…

WHODAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!