Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Jimmy Graham wants to come back to New Orleans. He’s “old” now though.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Wonder if he still has the hops to dunk over the crossbar ?

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

The points about receiver are legitimate, keep in mind a lot of decisions made was due to a very bad salary cap situation. The Saints currently have very good talent at the receiver position, but as of now they do have issues getting open and may not be the best fit moving forward.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Just searched dropped passes. NBC sports says Saints have had only 2 drops.
Seems to me that blaming receivers is off.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

It seems to me that the o-line and protection issues were the biggest failures in the last game. So I agree with not putting blame on the WRs. But you have to get open in order to have the ball thrown to you. Also have to block well and pick up hot reads. Again, not saying these things were missed, just saying there is more than just dropped passes to look at.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Jimmy has some regrets. That's life. He's spending time now wondering what might have been. Marketing himself as a WR was a large error in judgement on his part. Good luck in life Jimmy. You could have been in the HOF.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

I believe that Payton has built a strong roster minus the problems at receiver. We have been going after players we covet and trading picks to move up. Personally, I think that is how we built such a strong roster. I've always been a fan of quality over quantity. In my fraternity I black balled more pledges each year than everyone else combined.

Payton is smart but I believe that he out thinks himself and has painted us into a corner with UDFA's for receivers. Both in the WR room and the TE room. Part of the problem may be that we've done well in the past with Colston and Lance Moore when Brees was in his prime. That time passed long ago though. Still, I don't have a problem with moving up to get the players that Ireland scouted for us because he has shown that he knows what he is doing.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

It was actually the NFLPA that was marketing him as a WR. They had been looking for an opportunity to challenge the franchise tag rule that gave the team the ability to mandate the position of hybrid type players in the tag process. WR/TE and DE/LB were the two most common scenarios. It just so happened that Graham's situation gave them the first opportunity in 2014. It was NFLPA lawyers that filed the challenge and handled the entire case. They lost and Graham immediately signed an extension at TE numbers. At no point in the entire process did Graham ever personally claim to be a WR or demand to be paid as one. In fact, his twitter bio remained declaring himself as an NFL TE throughout.

A couple of years earlier in 2012 the NFLPA filed a similar challenge stating that the franchise tag assigned to Drew Brees by the Saints was in fact his second given the fact that he was franchised by the Chargers earlier in his career. The Saints and the league office argued that it was only his first tag with his new team and therefore would come at the lower cost threshold. The NFLPA won this one.

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Ireland has been a godsend. It stopped Payton from picking those scrubs on defense in the draft and FA

Re: Si.com/Bob Rose | Saints Shortcomings at Receiver Hampering Offense
 

Our offense was littered with first round picks in our heyday: Henderson, Meachem, Bush, Shockey (Giants pick but still a first rounder.)

The problem was that our defense turned so abysmal that we had to rebuild that with high draft picks.