OK Let's Do it!
 

Who thinks we will win the South and spawn a playoff birth?
(going to Vegas tomorrow) :?:

RE: OK Let
 

I think it's as iffy as ever. We have decent talent and should contend for the South. We've had that for a couple years now. It didn't help then. Maybe it'll be different now.

RE: OK Let
 

One can only hope...

I think we have the talent to, but can we work together as a team?

We've had one of the most talented teams for the past four years AFSGT, and we're still waiting for the second part to happen. :P

The Saints have as much of a chance to win their division as any other team in the NFC South. Its going to be another interesting year.

Just got back from Vegas..(me and wifey killed the craps tables)..
The Venetian got us at 115 to 1 winning the Dance...
I had to.....

it a good question my answer = YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH

115 to 1?

Can't blame ya. That's tempting...

I live about an hour south of Vegas and I will be going there this weekend if I can get 115 to 1. I could only get 40 to 1 at Harrah's in Laughlin.

I made the bet Sunday...at the VENETIAN.........


46 to one for NFC championship.........(i bet em all)
I think Cesars had us 80 to 1...

I made the bet Sunday...at the VENETIAN.........


46 to one for NFC championship.........(i bet em all)
I think Cesars had us 80 to 1...

I would loved to know what the St. Louis Rams's chances were in the 1999 season...

Seriously, if somebody bet on that, I bet they made a freakin' killin.

I picked up "Football 2005" yesterday, by a kid named Andy Benoit (19 years old). Really nice layout for anyone looking for a good preview (14.95). Heard him on the radio and he basically said that the Saints have fooled him in the past and he's not buying it.
He has a really good write up on the Saints with lots on New Orleans references and what not. Has us finishing 3rd...that's the bad part.

Worst offseason move for the South according to him? Saints retaining Haslett. He blames all the erratic play over the years on a coach with no control....hard to tell him he's wrong on that one.

He also calls the promotion of Sheppard to be inexplicable and gives us a C+ at QB and a D for coaching.

He does name Will Smith as the South breakout player of the year and gives props to LeCharles and Deuce. Says that Fakhir will get picked on and the LBs are weak.

All of his opinions on the Saints were pretty realistic, whatever your take.



Personally, I like the Saints this year. I think that the Panthers may be a bit better, but I like us to grab a wildcard behind them at maybe 9-7. I would love to say emphatically that we will win the South, but you just have to expect more blunders over the course of 16 games. The Panthers have better coaching than we do, in my opinion and that could make the difference. I look for the Falcons to come back to earth (7-9) and the Bucs to go about 6-10, maybe even 4-12, dependin on how much the D falls off and how much Griese sucks.

I think worst case, we're 7-9, best case we're 10-6 depending on how the ball bounces.

One thing we have going for us.....nobody is picking us. As we all know, tell this team they're good and they get worse, tell them they suck and they step up. The key is telling them they suck for 16 games while they're winning

I picked up "Football 2005" yesterday, by a kid named Andy Benoit (19 years old). Really nice layout for anyone looking for a good preview (14.95). Heard him on the radio and he basically said that the Saints have fooled him in the past and he's not buying it.
He has a really good write up on the Saints with lots on New Orleans references and what not. Has us finishing 3rd...that's the bad part.

Worst offseason move for the South according to him? Saints retaining Haslett. He blames all the erratic play over the years on a coach with no control....hard to tell him he's wrong on that one.

He also calls the promotion of Sheppard to be inexplicable and gives us a C+ at QB and a D for coaching.

He does name Will Smith as the South breakout player of the year and gives props to LeCharles and Deuce. Says that Fakhir will get picked on and the LBs are weak.

All of his opinions on the Saints were pretty realistic, whatever your take.



Personally, I like the Saints this year. I think that the Panthers may be a bit better, but I like us to grab a wildcard behind them at maybe 9-7. I would love to say emphatically that we will win the South, but you just have to expect more blunders over the course of 16 games. The Panthers have better coaching than we do, in my opinion and that could make the difference. I look for the Falcons to come back to earth (7-9) and the Bucs to go about 6-10, maybe even 4-12, dependin on how much the D falls off and how much Griese sucks.

I think worst case, we're 7-9, best case we're 10-6 depending on how the ball bounces.

One thing we have going for us.....nobody is picking us. As we all know, tell this team they're good and they get worse, tell them they suck and they step up. The key is telling them they suck for 16 games while they're winning

Nice isnight Yas. Hard to disagree with what he said. In fact, I struggled with disbelief when we kept Haz, and almost puked when I heard he was getting an extension. Good call by this guy on that one. It was a coward move to keep Haslett, as we will be out-coached in almost any game we play. That means we must rely on our players to overcome this. And we have inconsistent players. Hard to win like that.

I agree with him on Will Smith as well. I was all for trading Howard off once I saw Smith's playmaking ability. With the lack of depth at DT, now I am okay that we kept Howard, but he should not get a long term deal. Smith and Grant are more than capable of handling the end positions.

I am not as sold as everyone on Fakhir either. He's athletic enough, and physical enough, but his awareness got exposed badly by NE, although it's just preseason. but he does not seem to have a knack for locating the ball in flight. I also remember how badly he got beat in that Oakland game last year when Jerry Porter went right by him for a TD on an endzone slant. Maybe Dwight Smith provides better help for him, but then that arrests his playmaking ability cause he is watching Fakhir's back. I think Fakhir is okay, but I still wish we would draft a top corner. Fakhir isn't. But man, if he gains the ability to track the ball, or to read receivers to break up passes, he could be something. I mean, on most plays, he is right there. And he is a good tackler.

Promoting Sheppard, like keeping Venturi, is a confidence booster for Haz. If you bring in someone who is better than Haz, he knows he will be out sooner than later. Say you bring in a good D-coordinator, and our defense jumps into a top 15 defense, then Haz looks like a fool for keeping Venturi as long as he did. Say you bring in a new OC, and we all get the offense we were expecting, or God forbid the new OC says we can;t win with Brooks(just an example, not an intentional shot at Brooks), or anything else, that exposes Haz' incompetence, so he has to keep guys who are in line with him, and are no threat to his job. Of course this holds the team back, but maybe we only have one more season to worry about thaat.

I'm not sure myself, man. I'll say that getting on him for the Dwight catch (like many did) was kinda unfair. He had really good coverage on him and Dwight made a play. The Flutie throw was rough, but again, Fakhir was there and didn't make the play. (And it was a rookie he was covering....so that sucked.)

I don't think the guy is bad or great. I commend us for playing hardball with him and making him prove that he's a player before throwing money at him. (This team had a few moments of organizational clarity this offseason.....astounding.) I think the Patriots threw compliments to Mike by avoiding him. That's good news for us, cuz it really frees up a guy like Smith to make plays. As long as Bellamy isn't a liability in coverage, I like our DBs better than I have in years.

Seriously though, if you're in a bookstore, the book is called "Touchdown 2005" and it is a really nice spread. Heard the kid on 790 the zone and he really has a good football brain. Only 19 years old. Said when he was 11 his mom told him to stop talking about football and start writing....put out a book every summer as a hobby and now he's published by Ballantine.

Imagine that. When we were all trying to figure out what school we were going to or whatever, this kid is 19 with a life of covering the league ahead of him. What a bastard......

I think I'm gonna go take a bathroom break and read about the Chiefs secondary :lol: I like them this year...Sammy Knight...Patrick Surtain, and that linebacker we coulda had ;)

C'mon. That's just illogical all around. Haslett isn't hiring the best coaches he can find b/c he's scared that they might expose his previous poor decisions and that may get him fired when the team improves in the present tense? That's kind of retarded Whodi. Like Haslett is saying, I'd rather remain 8-8 with coaches that think I'm great than be 11-5 with coaches that think I'm an idiot. 8-8 with a staff that believes in me really helps my job security more.


BUT, I agree that the decisions to keep Venturi around and to promote Sheppard were both bad decisions. The Sheppard move may turn out to be beneficial, but I still question whether it was the right or best decision at the time. For a team that desperately needed a new identity and to break out of its rut of inconsistency, I cannot understand how hiring from within of a guy who coached maybe the most inconsistent player on the team to promote a very similar offensive philosohpy was a good idea. Then again, maybe it was - Sheppard knows more about Brooks than any of the rest of us and his first decision was to give Deuce the ball more. Maybe Brooks really was a McCarthy decision and Sheppard is just stuck now b/c Bouman blows and all other viable options have been traded away.

All that said, I think the retention of Haslett shows the ineptitude of the FO and Benson's concerns with money before all else. Haslett's decisions don't demonstrate any fear of having past screw ups revealed - they already have been. Haslett's decisions demonstrate that he just isn't a good coach and can't evaluate much of anything, from player talent to coaching talent.

I don't think that Hazlett is a great coach...probably still a bit too hotheaded and stuck in his LB mindset from his playing days. He's just erratic....I mean the steroid thing...what the hell was that? Who sells our former players like that? I just didn't get it.

I think that his teams could have been better with a little better coordinator help. I mean, 1st time HC, 1st time OC, and Venturi, who seems intelligent, but doesn't know how to put a scheme together to save his life. Some experienced, competent coordinators could have made Haz look alot better over the last couple of years.

The Sheppard thing is just further evidence that they can't buck the status quo. Keeping Venturi, AB staying cozy in his job, Haz doing the same, letting McCarthy leave for another job rather than torching him, and then moving in the QB coach who has been there the whole time AB has been so inconsistent. I was bummed by that move because I felt like it was just promoting someone who was in the middle of the recent issues.

I was happy to hear on Thursday that some of the players had badmouthed McCarthy. You kinda want to know what went on there....because I think the guy is a bozo. Enjoy those play calls Alex Smith. The departure of the lead blocker to get the TE involved and the complete failure of that was really a distraction for the Offense last year. I put some of that on HAz because you have to step up and realize what's best for the team. That was clearly a BAD idea.

The one thing I like about Jim is that he has the same stupified look on his face that I do during a Saints game. I feel like we're drinking beer together and cheering for the same team 8) Having said that....maybe that's not a quality I want from my HC.

What's illogical and retarded about it? If we hired a coordinator that lit up his assigned unit, who do you think will get more respect from the players, that coach or Jim Haslett? In my mind, that coach. If that coordinator goes to Benson and says Haslett is holding this team back, and his unit achieved results not seen here, who do you think will be the new coach? Haslett is obviously not even interested in looking outside this team for help, so what if Benson and Loomis decided an outside OC was the answer, hired one, and they did well? Who's out? Haslett. He's not a fool. Would he like to see 11-5? Hell yeah. Would he like to see it at the risk of his job? No. He has more than enough time to prove himself, and hasn't. Why help bring in his successor?

I feel fairly confident that if a coordinator spoke out of school in this organization he would be fired.

I also think that a coordinator who faired well wouldn't dislike Haslett, b/c I think Haslett would shut up and listen. I still maintain that virtually all of the Saints' early successes under Haslett were a result of Ron Zook - who Haslett did listen to and who was more respected by the players.

... Zook as well as Bunting. Our defense started to decline when Bunting left for North Carolina. Haslett, Zook, and Bunting was a good team... too bad we're stuck with Venturi. :|

That's just it. Any coordinator who isn't happy to just have a job WOULD speak up. Why would Haslett bring in someone like that when he can just keep the guys he knows aren't going anywhere until he goes, and are under his toe? To bring in someone from the outside to lead a unit, means the things you have been doing here weren't working. If that unit turns around, as long as Haslett has been here already, you don't think there would still be calls for his head? Headlines: Why didn't he do this years ago? Why couldn't Haz see the problem? What did this new coordinator bring from OUTSIDE the org that Haz couldn't find inside? Could this new coordinator effect the whole team should he take over as head coach? And that would be mid-season. Etc, etc. Haz has had 5 years with his people to get it right. Why would he ever bring in someone from outside who actually may get it right, and be a slap right in his face? Now you may be right that Haslett may shetup and listen, but that still won't stop, fans and the media from calling Haz out for the 4 years of failure we have had to endure. Plus, Haz obviously would rather stick with the guys he knows, rather than go a new route with someone he doesn't.

I think alot of it stems from Loomis possibly deferring to Haslett. Loomis is the cap guy and he consults Haz on football decisions. Therefore, Haz creates his own environment. The GM is almost a two headed monster of an accountant and a LB :)
I really felt like outside help on the OC side was necessary to light a fire under AB's butt. Now it's just like...what's up shep? Like they have this familiarity with one another and AB will continue to play the same.

I think if the Saints win the South this year, it's in spite of the coaching in alot of ways. But, a playoff berth will buy Haz 5 more years. You can count on that.

I agree with you yas. If nothing else, an outside coordinator should have been brought in for the offense. I knew once the Minnesota game was over, and we gave up 600 something yards of offense, and Haz PRAISED Venturi after the game for his defensive coahcing, I knew Venturi wasn't going anywhere. The four game win streak, which I wished never happened at the end of the season, solidified his and Haz jobs. And you are right. If we make the playoffs, which will be despite coaching, Haz will get to sit fat for several more years. Sad but true.

Whodi is turning into 08. Conspiracy theories abound!

:monkey:

Naw, I just wanted to propose that one. :wink:

Also, I wanted to tell you you were right about that Joe Horn contract thing. After the first three years, we can cut him with minimal loss as the end of his deal is tied up with a high base salary which we can get rid of by cutting him. Been meaning to tell you that. Now if he starts declining within the next 3 years, we have to still keep him until the 4th before being able to cut him with minimal penalty.

He's worth it for the next few years.

I have a ticket from NY/NY from June 17th thats 35/1 for the saints to win the NFC Championship...

I guess we're looking worse to vegas now than we were during the off season...

Well, we will definitely have the chance to find out.

When he is - I want you to say, I'm sorry WhoDat. You were right. I was wrong. You're smarter and more handsome than me. LOL

:dance:

Well, I said the you were right about his contract part, but the rest of that, you prob have never heard in your life so I see how it would be a big deal for some guy on the internet to tell you that. :pink:

Dude, my dancing guy is better than yours!

:broccoli:

Yeah, but mine was pink, and more in line with the mood I thought you were trying to convey. :hump:

:moon:

:dance2:

Hmpf. I don't need no stinking badges.