xan

Quote: (from Saintfan)
________________________________________________________
Haz can\'t coach Pathon into not fumbling that ball yesterday, and by the time you\'re in the NFL you souldn\'t have to be \"coached up\" on the basics of the game.
________________________________________________________

I completely disagree with this concept. I\'ve been a \"professional\" and world class athlete and there\'s no amount of coaching that I couldn\'t use to make me better. Only someone who\'s never been at that level could make this kind of ignorant assumption. Every athlete needs superior coaching, especially on the basics because that\'s the foundation of your talent.

If you can\'t coach the basics, which is an issue with the Saints over the last few years, then you aren\'t a superior coach, and shouldn\'t be coaching at the highest level. This is the crux of what I see as the argument against the incumbent staff, because well coached teams don\'t make the mind boggling and repetitive mistakes that this team does.

Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger."
Hobbes: "Common lament."

RDOX

As a former coach, I agree with you totally. I think that this group of administrators from top to bottom don\'t believe that basics count for anything, therefore you get T-Bucky Jones getting millions of dollars and can\'t wrap up a tackle. What\'s wrong here. He went to \"tackling school\" for God sake, where is the Defensive backfield coach? What does he do for a living, drink milkshakes? I could make T-bucky learn to tackle, I\'ll guarantee you. I\'d take about 2 weeks and he\'d be world class in tackling or dead; one of the two. He\'d be tired of seeing Charles Grant, LeCharles Bentley, Darren Howard, Willie Whitehead, Will Smith, Orlando Ruff, Wayne Gandy, Kendall Jacox, Jamal Nesbitt, Jon Stinchcomb, Riley, and Holland running straight at him for about an hour a day. He\'d tackle or be trampled to death one of the two.

Coaching is leading, teaching, and motivating. This is something that doesn\'t happen from the front office on down. There isn\'t an ounce of leadership here. That\'s why they mill around, and look lost.

WhoDat

Wait a minute? You guys are suggesting that the coaching staff could, even should, be held accountable for the team\'s failures? That they can be disciplined? That the coaching staff aren\'t all just victims of the terrible players on the team which they obviously had no input in acquiring?

Two guys both think that the coaches should be held liable... but where is the searing criticism of those two guys? They obviously hate the team and blame Haslett and Brooks for everything right? LOL.

I guess some people are just happy being losers, and will support a guy to the end no matter how bad he is, or the group he manages is. At some point folks, you have to start holding a guy accountable - whether it\'s his fault or not. What courtesy has Haslett not been extended? Certain members of this board blamed everyone but Haslett and Brooks in 2001, 2002, 2003, and now they\'re doing it in 2004. Some things don\'t change...

But Xan, RDOX, I agree with you guys too.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

xan

At this point in the scheme of things, I\'d be surprised to see a change in any of the leadership roles in the Saints organisation. There\'s too much invested to actually hold anyone accountable, because otherwise one would look to have a 100% turnover, and that\'s not in the cards. To attract a quality coaching staff to assume the reigns, Benson would to have to yield complete control over operations (Saban in particular), and the true idiots at the top will never let that happen. Too much money is being made at the highest level to make them change.

The only way to get an owner\'s attention is not to go to the games, not to buy tickets, not to buy merchandise, and to ridicule each decision mercilessly. The only way to hurt rich people is to make them poor.

However, in (a half-hearted) defense of the current coaching staff, there needs to be a willingness and capacity of the players to actually LEARN the basics. Yet, this team is built around the kind of players the staff has selected and for whom the current team is rallying. Given the evidence, so far, willingness is there for the players. Selection and coaching is the Management\'s responsibility. And they\'ve failed to demonstrate meriting an NFL role.

Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger."
Hobbes: "Common lament."

mutineer10

Very true, and nicely put. The trouble with doing this - in our situation - lies with the remote possibility that the team would be sold or moved (or both). I don\'t know if I trust Benson\'s integrity enough to think he\'d make changes in the face of a boycott. We\'d end up hurting ourselves more in the long run by refusing to support the generic product placed before us.

Looks like a catch 22...

JKool

First, I agree with RDOX. The biggest problem with this team is the front office. I\'ve said this many times, but I keep getting talked out of it - I don\'t know what that says for me or the truth of the statement, but there are arguments that need to get made here that haven\'t.

Second, the next biggest problem is coaching. Saintfan\'s quote of me was with respect to this: when I guy drops the ball or a guy jumps offside, that is his fault. Sure it is the coaches job to correct that, but it isn\'t obvious that it is the coaches\' fault when this happens. When a three guys jump offside for the thirteenth time in four games, that IS a coaching problem (at the very least they\'re not focusing on a critical problem in practice). Now, it is hard to say which coach is at fault, since there is an assistant coach structure. Thus, blame falling on Haz is not obvious, even in these cases. That was my point - people jump to conclusion about somethings entirely too quickly, and with very little evidence. My defense of Haz last year was based on that claim. This year, I think that there is reason to think that his inability to correct his own poor coaching or the poor coaching of his assistants or the mental errors of some of his more prominent players in five years is reason to let him go.

Third, if credentials are needed, I\'ve played, coached, and refereed football at relatively high levels. I certainly believe that coaching matters, BUT it is not all that matters - as RDOX points out the players\' desire to learn, ability to learn, and general climate for learning matter A LOT too.

Fourth, there is no way people can continue to simply say things like \"there is no leadership here\" - this is ambiguous in the worst of ways. There are different kinds of leadership, they show up in different places (from the front office to the water boy), and it has different effects on different people. Try and tell me that Charles Grant isn\'t a leader, that Deuce isn\'t a leader, that Joe Horn isn\'t a leader, that Pease isn\'t a factor in Grant\'s new found fire, etc.

Fifth, don\'t tick off Halo or JoeSam. They work hard in the trenches everyday. All they want is a cool place for people to converse - not a place where people badger each other. People will respond to interesting arguments, there is no need to direct them at each other.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

saintfan

Kool, that is far better said than anything I would have come up with. Very well summed up, and I agree with you 150% is every aspect.

RDOX, I think you might have done well as a coach in the Ditka era, but I\'m not so sure you\'d be very well recieved by today\'s players. Now, of course, I\'ve only played High School Football, so I have no NFL experience, but I know what I see and hear, and what you describe is \"old school\". I\'m not knocking it, but I don\'t think it\'d work either...not today.

C'mon Man...

Puddinhead

Christ.......what a bunch of frigging malcontents. The whole lot, no matter which side of whatever issue you\'re on. I read the threads in this forum, and I can\'t come to any other conclusion than to think that the particular topic--be it Haslett\'s coaching, Jones\' tackling, Loomis\' \"GM-ing\", whatever--is secondary to folks who just want a chance to try to convince everyone else they\'re smarter or more knowledgable than everyone else. It\'s tiresome, man...tiresome. At least I can avoid the threads with either \"Sunshiner\" or \"Moonshiner\" in the title...you can pretty much be forewarned that those are destined to be nothing more than pi$$ing contests between the two blocs. But a guy might have thought that something titled \"No quit in the Saints\" might have been safe.

Now.....please excuse that momentary rant, and go back to your sniping.

GumboBC

I think the question here is:

What makes a successful team?

Is it coaching?

Is it players?

Is it schemes?

Is it luck?

The answer is ............ Yes !! It\'s all of the above.

I don\'t care how good a coach is, coaching alone doesn\'t get it done.

And you can have the most talented players and still not have a winning season.

And you can have good coaching and talented players and still not be a winner. Injuries can derail that. So, it doesn\'t hurt to be a little lucky.

The real question here is: What\'s the problem with the Saints?

Well, IMO, there is no ONE single problem that would magically fix everything.

Most coaches would tell you that players are more responsible for success and failure. They\'d also tell you that coaching does play a big part.

On that note, I\'d say maybe some Saints\' fans have overrated the talent on this team.

Take our receiveres for example. Joe Horn, no doubt, is a hell of a receiver. But after that who have we got? Donte? Sure, he\'s fast as lightening but that doesn\'t make him a great receiver.

Then there\'s our O-line. One of the worst in the league, IMO.

And there\'s more problems in the talent pool than those!!!

Could coaching fix that? Doubtful.

If we did get a proven coach, I\'d image you would see a lot of new faces on the team.

Who do you guys want?

Parcells? Gruden? Vermil, Shannahan? Holmgren?

What kind of seasons are they having?

What\'s responsible for their lack of success? Coaching?

Who cares what they did in the past. I don\'t !!

xan

Quote from Puddinhead:
________________________________________________________
Christ.......what a bunch of frigging malcontents. The whole lot, no matter which side of whatever issue you\'re on. I read the threads in this forum, and I can\'t come to any other conclusion than to think that the particular topic--be it Haslett\'s coaching, Jones\' tackling, Loomis\' \"GM-ing\", whatever--is secondary to folks who just want a chance to try to convince everyone else they\'re smarter or more knowledgable than everyone else. It\'s tiresome, man...tiresome. At least I can avoid the threads with either \"Sunshiner\" or \"Moonshiner\" in the title...you can pretty much be forewarned that those are destined to be nothing more than pi$$ing contests between the two blocs. But a guy might have thought that something titled \"No quit in the Saints\" might have been safe.
________________________________________________________

Fortunately for you, I am trained in abstract thinking, and I will endeavor to break down this complex thread for you...
but before I do unwillingly condescend to respond to your rant, I only know what I know, and look for informed opinions to augment that knowledge, so please don\'t count me in on your \"who\'s genitalia are bigger\" overgeneralizatoin.

The \"No Quit\" concept has been uniformly acknowledged for this team. There are very few examples of quitters, and given this team\'s makeup, those players are obvious. This group are willing and they have great talent and capacity to use that talent. Here\'s where the thread gets complicated...

All oars have to be rowing in concert and in the same direction. \"No quit\" is meaningless if only looked at from the athlete\'s perspective. While there\'s no evidence that the Staff is quitting, their job is to learn from the behaviors and limitations of the team they have and the teams they play against. While it is clear there is every intent to win games, the issue is how this Staff has repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot adjust, they cannot communicate and they cannot teach. They are \"No Quit\" on their baseline assumptions on how to win.

So, to conclude, counterpointing (is that too complex a concept?) is essential to gaining enlightenment, and properly directed \"no quit\" attitude will ultimately gain satisfaction, and thus this thread\'s gentle prodding toward that mission.

Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger."
Hobbes: "Common lament."