I agree that injuries can be a reason for poor performance. For example, possibly DA and Loomis were dropped as babies, or their moms fell down the stairs when pregnant, and they had blood to the brain, and sustained a fair degree of mental retardation.

As for the Saints, all backups are not created equally. Many teams backups are proven commodities they were able to sign to reasonable contracts because they managed their money carefully, or recent middle round picks with promising attributes that could develop into starters. For the Saints, that is not the casing. The Saints go all in on trading up to the first round for a few select mega-projects and spending all their cash to keep aging veteran starters so they can all have a proper 5 year retirement send off, while trading away most of their mid round picks and less most of their solid backups walk away in free agency because Cam and Kamara's kids need to eat. Our depth and backups are the worst in the league, and worse than that, we started the season with 2 backups starting on our oline. Penning and Patrick are the type of guys who would come off the bench for other teams, and though they have performed admirably for us, we would have been much better off if we had 5 solid starters and then guys like that to come in when they got hurt.

Backups who are solid proven steady backups, or who are mid round picks with true potential, compared to backups who are old or journeyman dumped by other teams due to injury concerns or undrafted, are likely to both perform better if given the opportunity, and likely to stay healthier. Good insurance costs money and draft picks, and the Saints have instead opted for the most heavily discounted insurance available.

The Chiefs have had many injuries and are undefeated. The Packers have many and are 5-2. The Saints are a joke.

There is also a reason the Saints have many injuries on offense. We switched offensive systems to a drastically different offense without the the cash or financial flexibility to bring in players suited to the system. A 34yo Taysom Hill is supposed to play the role of a much larger and 3 years younger George Kittle. Chris Olave and Rasheed Shaheed, two speed/finesse receivers, are supposed to play the role of the much more physical and taller and heavier Samuel and Aiyuk who are both over 200 pounds to their 180's. Alvin Kamara is supposed to go from years of lower workload to an every down power back. And there is no depth behind any of them. It should be no surprise they have all been injured.