FanPost

2014 Saints: We Coulda Had Class, We Coulda Been a Contender, We Coulda Been Somebody!

David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

There was a certain swagger from most Saints fans entering the 2014 season; our defense was coming off of a huge turnaround under a new coordinator and we added a premier safety on top of it, along with adding a shiny new toy in Brandin Cooks on offense. Everything was coming up Saints! … then the season started. A season marred by injuries, tough losses, and missed opportunities. The Saints finished 7-9 with 4 losses by less than 3 points, but still finished just a half a game out of first in the NFC south; that means the Saints were pretty much one play in any of 4 respective games away from being a playoff team. So what will it take to get this team over the hump and into the playoffs next year?

Get At Least One More Quality CB
This is quite possibly the biggest need for the team. The New Orleans Saints were miserable against the pass this year, finishing 25th in total passing yards allowed at 4,019. That includes games against Minnesota, San Francisco, and two against Tampa Bay… all teams in the bottom 10 in total passing yards on offense (SF and MIN were both bottom 5). Keenan Lewis, for the most part, is a pretty solid CB, but when your #2 and #3 are Patrick Robinson (who is a FA this year) and Corey White, you have a problem, especially in this pass-happy version of the NFL. Fixing the problem may not be easy, as the team is in a serious salary cap hole, and the prospects in the draft are less than promising, still, the Saints have to do something to improve the pass coverage, or we are in store for another frustrating year.

Generate Some Pass Rush
The team finished 25th in total sacks at 34. 7 of those 34 (over 1/5th for you math whizzes) sacks came in one game. With the already noted problems at CB, a lack of pass rush does nothing to help hide those woes. Here’s a fun fact, our top three pass rushers COMBINED (Junior Galette, Cam Jordan, and David Hawthorne) still would’ve have finished behind the league’s top sack man, Justin Houston. The physical talent seems to be there on paper, but there also seems to be a lack of variety in the ways our players try to get the QB. If you’re going to be a one-trick pony, it better be one hell of a trick; 10 sacks from your leading man is not going to cut it, especially with our secondary. An improved rush would do wonders for our limited secondary, and almost nothing stalls a drive quicker than a 5+ yard loss.

STAY HEALTHY!
This one is out of the team’s control, but would go a long way in making a big turnaround in 2015. If you look at all the best teams, the thing most have in common is keeping their best players on the field. The season started off horribly, with the big money safety Jairus Byrd going down with a season ending injury in just his fourth game in a Saints uniform. By week 12, the Saints had 3 Safeties on the IR (Byrd, Vinnie Sunseri, and Rafael Bush) and ended the year with 12 players on the Injury Reserve list, including their top two DT’s (Broderick Bunkley and John Jenkins), starting DE Akiem Hicks, and starting RB Pierre Thomas. In addition to those on the IR, Mark Ingram (the team’s leading rusher) missed three games, and Jimmy Graham played through a shoulder injury sustained in week 5 that limited his for the remainder of the season. The Saints were rocked by big and piling injuries in 2014. While it’s not something the team can count on, cutting down on key injuries (especially on defense) could very well be the difference between 7 wins and 11.

DON’T BLOW IT!!!!
I mentioned it in the opening section, the Saints lost four games by three or less points; that’s a tough pill to swallow for a team that was just one win away from the playoffs. The first game of the season showed a problem that would remain prevalent throughout the season… untimely turnovers and an inability to finish games. Not only did the Saints have two separate leads in the 4th quarter against the Falcons, but they also got the ball first in overtime. Things were looking good when Brees connected with Colston early in OT, but then it happened… the ball was stripped and the Falcons recovered in Saints territory. The Falcons would go on to kick the game winning field goal shortly after. The Saints held 4th quarter leads in all 4 of those aforementioned losses, all with less than two minutes left in the game. If the Saints could have found a way to come up with just one more stop in each, we are looking at an 11-5 season and not having this discussion. The team needs to get better in crunch time, you simply cannot blow 4 fourth quarter leads and expect to make the playoffs.

If the Saints were able to improve on any one of those four categories this past season, we would be singing a different tune; but they didn’t, and we’re not. The NFC South (and the NFL, in general) is hugely inconsistent and unpredictable from year to year, so it’s hard to say that any one thing will magically make things better… still, we can’t come in with the same thing and expect a different result.

This FanPost was written by a reader and member of Canal Street Chronicles. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CSC and its staff or editors.

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