Rent A Defense

The Saints are a lease to own defense. How else can I put it? Look at the unit as a whole. What do we have? Bits and pieces added to the core left over from the Haz administration.

DE - Will Smith and Charles Grant, even at 29, are two solid DE to build around.
FS - Keith Bullocks who is still learning the position and has yet to play a year with same SS and Jay Belemy at 35 years young.
CB - Fred Thomas, Mike McKinzie and Jason Craft. All of them over 31 years of age
DT – Brian Young 30 but serviceable
That about sums it up for the starters left over from the Haz erea and players that have time on the field together to gel.

Now In 2006 we had Reggie Bush drop into our laps. While the addition of bush put even more electricity into the air in New Orleans it also put a big damper on Defensive rebuilding. As we all have read if Bush was not there at #2, AJ Hawk would be wearing Black and Gold. I really do believe that change of luck in the draft has altered our course in the draft for the past two years. With the big bucks going into the saints backfield, Duce, Brees and now Bush. The team had no choice but to concentrate on offense improvements. As we all know the defense has been basically ignored and this year draft left us with a less than favorable opinion of the choices. To cut a young CB go from the sixth round only to have him claimed by a team we scrimmaged, just added salt to the wounds. The Bengal’s saw something. Then to see a serious lack of effort to add some talent from others club when they made their cuts, only deepened those feelings. Back to the topic. The philosophy employed by the Saints is on of a bargain shopper at the end of the year sale. Not that the players are bad or anything they are just leftovers. Let’s see what we have added in the past 2 years.

Over 30: Age alone cancel out the idea of building around them. They are finishing their own personal retirement plans.
Renaldo Wynn, Hollis Thomas, Mark Simoneau, Brian Simmons, and Kevin Kaesviharn,

27 to 29 Good solid 3 to 5 years left in there legs till the retire bug hits them.
Kendrick Clancy, Antwan Lake, Troy Evans, Scott Fujita, Scott Shanle

The rest I have to lump together because they can be around for 5 or more years.
Jason David, Usama Young, Alfred Fincher, Chris Ries, Roman Harper, Josh Copper

That’s it gang. Add in the leftovers from the Haz era that could be around and give us 5+ solid years and something to build on. Lets see what we have

S - Harper, Bullocks and Ries
CB – David and Young
LB – Alfred Fincher
DT – Joseh Cooper
DE – Will Smith

That’s a count of 5 solid starters. I have to believe there are 5. There has to be 5 or I will REALLY BEGIN TO PANIC. There is no denying it. The defense is in major need of youth or the older players like Grant at 29 will never make it 5 years. We have good players that we have picked up like Scott and others, but most are nothing more than stop gap players. Like I said they are good players and football smart but age will only let them do so much. As each year passes it catches up with all of us. The fans know it. The coaches know it. The front office knows it. They know it too. 1-3 year contracts prove it.
Next up Buy an Offense