Excellent post as always Hagan.

I don't blame the coaches for what's happening right now. But I do have some serious doubts about Joe Vitt and Bill Johnson. In my opinion, our defensive line and linebackers haven't lived up to the draft picks spent on them. And it's hard to remember a time when they've played a complete game as a unit. Even when they've played well, which isn't often, they still manage to give up a big play, sometimes costing the game.

And how Greg McMahon still has a job just baffles me. Our special teams are always in the bottom half of the league and sometimes it's downright embarrassing. The only thing I can figure is that he's still living off "The Ambush".

As far as the cap space goes, we've known for a decade that Loomis was kicking the can down the road, to pay the piper some other time. Most of us have gotten pretty excited about some of the big name free agents he's been able to sign after hearing all offseason that the Saints were in Cap Hell. AsylumGumbo's posts about the cap are correct as long as player restructure they can keep moving the money down the road. After Drew's restructure, the team even has $7million to spend. They could get a stud if there were one available. Unfortunately, instead of getting the deal done during the offseason, when they could've put that money to good use, it didn't get done until after anybody worthy of that money was already signed by someone else.

Do you have any FA in mind for the available money next season?

LOL. I love the blogging going on around here!

See this is a key issue that has Washington as a whole all upset. The list goes on and on. Washington is out to not stop the trump train as much as protecting their gravy train. The national media will not be fair because the idea that reinstating the laws making news agency libel for half truths scares them to death.

Thanks Hagan.

I do not know if I know but I do presume to act like I do know. I may not be be overly excited by the first few rounds but when you get day 2 and day 3 there are some nice prospects to consider. The one I go gaga over is Stanly early. After that it is our zone blocking and screen game that kills some of these early rounders IMO. You have to be able to move and hit your targets at the second level when playing for SP.

Hagen, you know a lot more about this stuff than I do. Last year was considered a "down year" for interior O-linemen, this year doesn't seem to be any better. Any standouts expected in next years draft? Will it be a good draft for guards and centers?

Nice!

I say Treadwell at 12 and his teammate Nmdyche in the 2nd. Nmdyche next to Fairley, Laurinitis solidifying and leading LBs Kikaha and Anthony and the defense could be shaping up. Of course we could add a great DE or CB if possible.

If the RB back from LA TECH is available in the 4th RD we gotta take him. 87 TDs in college. Most by a RB in FBS history.

I paid 3.99 recently in The woodlands.

That's absolutely insane...

I'd rather have boiled shrimp or prime rib at that price....

Brace yourself ... $8.99 a lb in Dallas.

Just about... YES!

Wow! This is great. I'll keep my eyes on these beefy boys. Baby got back.lol

I like it, though I'd prefer the DTs to have more height...but Robinson & Johnson are 2 really good prospects.

I'd prefer to draft 32nd & 64th, though.

As for your comment about people who focus on being rich usually not being so. That's only true if you're talking about someone who's just dreaming of being rich. Some people have a plan. Which brings me back to my confusion of why you think it's better to dream than to have a plan. I think the reality is that it takes both. You gotta have the ambition, the drive, and then you have to know what you're doing as much as why. One is nothing without the other.

What hurts some people (again, this is not necessarily about the Saints) is that when they have reached a certain point, they continue to focus on the riches, and they lose interest in the hard work and dedication it took to get there. The pride comes before the fall. That is a true statement that comes to fruition in many different ways.

Man, I think you are trying to be entirely too philosophical with this one. You are going the long way of essentially answering your own question. And the answer is what I said above. A person, organization or business that appears to have a lack of direction (or not knowing the why, as you like to put it) have just exactly that... A lack of direction.

People are not pulling from the same end of the rope. It's coaches with different visions, scouting and personnel departments with differing philosophies from what the head coach is looking for. Things of that nature. It isn't that they don't know why, in my opinion. It's that they can't agree. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't have the same goal. They have different ideas of getting there, and you either find a way to make it fit together, or you have to bring in somebody else.

Not every success comes from people being in perfect harmony. A collection of ideas can be a good thing, as long as they are good ideas, and there are no ego's blocking the way. In the case of the Saints, I think it's simply that they can't get it right. Not in recent years, anyway.

When I gave my reply above, I was trying to sift through what you seem to be implying, and I gave a response targeted specifically at people who just aren't into it, to put it simply. People who are just there to collect a paycheck.

But while I can point to a few members of the organization who seem like they may be doing that, I don't think it's a lack of knowing "why" that is this team's problem. They just haven't been good. Bad scouting, bad playcalling at times, and bad play on the field. I don't think the Saints brass went from winning a Superbowl, to suddenly forgetting why they do this. They've just failed to consistently identify talent, and to adjust to a league that is constantly changing. Some people are good at adapting... Others, not so much.

By the way, Martin Luther King's dream came from a faith he had. He spoke what he believed, but his words would have meant nothing without the actions of others. It took a lot of people working together to change the society from what it was. Not that it's exactly awesome these days. That's a vastly different thing than having a plan for a football team.

This is not even close to being the same thing. The dream, in this case, is to even be in that position. And the plan is to do whatever you've done to get there, and hopefully improve upon it. I'm not sure what your definition of a plan is. This is football. You put together a team, you have a system, you run the system. You adjust as necessary.... Again, the latter being something the Saints haven't done well.

Of course motivation will be different from person to person. The problem is, there are too many conflicting motivations in the Saints' organization, and no unifying vision of why.

People who focus on being rich, usually aren't. If you can't answer the question "Why am I doing what I'm doing" and be able to have buy-in from others, there will be no success.

Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream".

He didn't say, "I have a plan."

Massive difference. The dream can be personalized. The plan cannot. If you don't buy into the plan, you have chaos. If we resonate with the why, we get the commitment to give what endowment we have to the vision. We can agree to a plan because we can arrive at a common goal.

If you look at the most persistently successful companies, they all know why they do things, and the people working at them buy in. Apple, Facebook, Boeing, Monsanto, The New England Patriots.

Everyone wants to be successful, so what.

They know how. Learn from them.

That all sounds nice, but the truth is that the motivation of "why" is different for some people. An ethical person can have an almost unlimited amount of reasons for doing things.

When you're talking about professional athletes, for some (not all) it's all about fame and fortune. Same goes for any kind of celebrity, really. Others genuinely have something to prove, want to win, want to use their money for a lot of good causes, etc.

If you're trying to figure out why some players or coaches seem like they don't have any direction in what they're doing, it's probably because they don't have any and don't feel like they need it. They're millionaires. That's WHY they do what they do. Everyone starts with some kind of higher purpose to get where they are. But some people, when they get there, feel like they've arrived and their priorities change. Now it's about creating and maintaining a superficial image. It's not that they don't have a motivation, at all. It's that they don't have the RIGHT motivation for the team's sake.

I think I'm like the overwhelming majority in the Nola market who do not watch channel 26 for news, or the "News with a Twist" show. I find them amateur at best compared to the big 3 here (4, 6, and 8) and their ratings say as much.