I think for myself and have my own belief system. The entire Drew Brees - Matt Ryan era I ragged on Matt Ryan relentlessly and got in fights with other Saints fans who felt Matt Ryan was a great QB, deeply respected him, and would be glad to have Matt Ryan on the Saints if we had to have any other QB but Brees. I felt that Matt Ryan was a mediocre QB whose pretty good enough stats didn't tell the whole story of how he couldn't win close games and couldn't get it done in the playoffs and just padded his stats in the regular season. I celebrated with a round of drinks every time the Falcons signed Matt Ryan to a big extension that made him one of the highest paid QBs in the league and sapped the Falcons salary cap and I truly wanted to see him retire a Falcon for life at 45 so that the Falcons could remain trapped in mediocrity forever. I called Matt Bryant the true leader of the Falcons, because the only times Matt Ryan was ever credited with doing anything clutch in the playoffs it was actually getting Bryant in range for a 55 yard kick. I said I would rather have Matt Bryant for $30 million or whatever than Matt Ryan because at least Bryant does not have negative value as a player who ruins draft position in the regular season then chokes in the big games and playoffs. Many Saints fans were deeply hurt by my criticism of Matt Ryan who they considered a very handsome and hard working young man with admirable virtues and character. I never said he was a bad person, just that he was a loser. My problem is, now, we have a Matt Ryan clone at QB. And my views remain consistent. I don't like excuses. Many great QBs have got to the playoffs with a bottom ranked defense. Brees did. Some have won it all with lousy defenses. And some QBs have made their defenses better by being great leaders on the field who inspire the entire team. Patrick Mahomes just won a ring with possibly the worst wide receiving corps in the league. He won another with the type of ankle injury that caused Cam Jordan to write off an entire $14 million season. Derek Carr is not great. He is good. And the best of that good comes when it matters least, and the least when it matters most. He racked up stats against bad teams and has not beat good teams with the Saints unless there QB was injured or our mathematical odds of making the playoffs were close to zero and it didnt matter. If I insulted Matt Ryan for over a decade and embraced the same qualities in Derek Carr I would be a hypocrite as far as I am concerned. And I have a right to that view and to be consistent in my views.

Super Bowl winners don't rebuild. They reload.

I for one do not think Carr will stink it up. Nor do I think we will struggle. I believe our already solid defense will take yet another step forward and our offense will shock certain fans with its progression.

To me it seems certain fans are hoping for failure because of the desire to replace preconceived personnel failures projected to save their own insecure face. I for one have never and will never hope for any negativity upon my beloved Saints for mine or anyone else's personal needs.

Who Dat!!

I don't know what you are looking at, but Carr has had a pretty solid career to date. He was saddled with historically bad defenses (the best of which was ranked 25!) for his whole Raiders career which resulted in poor records several of those years, but the last I checked NFL teams are made up of 53 roster players, not just one.

And yes, you can say every coin has two sides, but you always seem to be playing with a two tailed one in your philosophizing.

Unfortunately time will tell....some pleased and some pissed at the end of this season. I would challenge each of us to revisit this at the end of the season, to see who has the cohonies to admit they missed. Carr sucked azz or Carr had a great season.

Carr may end up being somewhere in between. Let's say Carr has an average season for an NFL QB. That makes him one of the 15-17 best QB's in the entire world. Elite QB's that can almost singlehandedly carry a team to a championship are few and far between. They are generational. Some teams have never been fortunate enough to ever even have one. We had one in Drew Brees. Just like many other NFL teams we may never be lucky enough to have one again, at least not anytime soon. In the meantime the ONLY way to win another championship is to have one of those "average" QB's coupled with some weapons around him and a great deal of luck.

There is a way to win with an average QB but its not what we are doing. The trick to winning with an average QB is instead of going 'all in' every year, you hold something back some years, don't spend every dollar you can, cut loose some aging players whose days you know are numbered and eat the cap hits immediately. Tell your young guys to play hard, don't tank, but realistically some of the young unproven guys will be good and some will struggle and you will probably lose some games. Then you come out with high draft picks and lots of salary cap space. Then when you go all in again, starting from way under the salary cap, all in means a much bigger spending spree and war chest, coupled with a core of high draft picks, and bam you can even win with an average QB sometimes.

Champions often reload by rebuilding. Before the Bucs signed Tom Brady they were one of the furthest teams under the salary cap so they had a war chest to spend on Brady, Gronk, and other players. That was a rebuild. The best teams rebuild without you even knowing it. The 49ers carried over a ton of unused salary cap from year to year while the Saints max it out and accomplish less.