WhoDat

Hey JOE - I hear what you\'re saying and I can\'t disagree with you. The guys we drafted to play OL may be able to come in and play right away (a la LeCharles Bentley - last year\'s second round pick who may have been the best rookie we had last year).

HOWEVER, defense was the need coming into free agency. I\'m not saying that we should have ignored the offense... actually ignoring the defense was how we got ourselves in this situation. Still, I believe that the Saints could have done more to improve the defense. Whether it be through free agency, the draft, suiting Jim Haslett up at linebacker... whatever. My point is that the key to the Saints\' success in \'03, at least in my mind, is how much the defense can improve.

That being said, you can\'t look at our moves thus far and be happy. Well, maybe you can, but I\'m not. Sullivan - good player who we may have overvalued. Tebucky Jones - good player who hasn\'t quite proven to be consistent yet, that we may have overvalued. Don\'t get me wrong, I like both of those moves. Ruff seems like a bust to me. Granted, I haven\'t seen him play. Hopefully the coaches are right... but the fact that he was beaten out for a starting spot last year, and his best numbers EVER are worse than Clemons\' numbers last year at MLB make me very nervous. As for our corners... well, we\'ll see. I am doubtful that Dale Carter will ever return to form. He\'s the perfect second corner, playing behind a true shutdown guy in the mold of Woodson, or McAllister, etc. Thomas and Ambrose should do OK, but neither will ever be better than average in the NFL again. Craver is a total wildcard, but what else is new, our whole defense is wild cards. I just hope the inexperienced guys like Mitchell, Allen, Hodge, Sullivan can play well... and the new guys - Ruff, Jones, Ambrose - can play to potential.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

JOESAM2002

On defense we all hope the new guys will produce in a manner that will make the Saints Super Bowl contenders. You are right Whodat, we do need help on defense, I\'ll never argue that point. I think we have gotten some help thus far. The big question I have still is, We only have so many picks in the draft with only so much money to spend. It\'s hard to go out and find an all star defense in this league. Free agency can only help so far, let\'s face it other teams got rid of these guys for some reason. A few were because of the hit to the salary cap but i dare to say that some were because they just didn\'t fit into the system they were in. If that\'s not the case how did the Raiders get so good. They took a few old veterans,and I mean old, threw in some people no one else wanted and last but certainly not least a few draft choices. It got them to the Super Bowl. The thing is Al Davis has been doing this for years. This is not something new to the Raiders. They were operating like this when I was a kid. Somehow they just keep plugging guys into their system and keep going.
Sure I\'m disappointed in the Saints not picking people I thought would be the last pieces in the puzzle but i\'m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater either. Offense got us wins last year and with the exception of a few new pieces on defense it looks like we may have to depend on them again this year.
We could start blaming everybody from Benson right down to the towel boy for the short comings of this team. In the end though I think the players have to take most of the blame for our full out crashes in the later part of the last 2 seasons. The coachs sureley don\'t come up with a bad plan on purpose. These guys sit for hours on end putting plans together to get them where they and we (as fans)want to be. I\'m fairly certain that they don\'t sit in the draft war room saying \"this guy looks like he\'ll flop for us\". The coachs and scouts spend countless hours evaluating players both free agents and draftees seeing who SHOULD fit in our system. Any one who has ever achieved anything will tell you it takes the right people, the right preperation and good ole fashioned luck to make everything come together.
I guess Jim Rome says it about as good as can be said about the draft. He said\" the only thing for sure about the draft is that the Jet fans won\'t like who they choose.\"
I just hope that as Saints fans we never get that tag put on us.
We can always agree to disagree. Let\'s see how the season goes before we ridicule everyone in the Saints organization.
GO SAINTS!!!!
P.S. Whodat that last statement wasn\'t meant to target you by the way.

[Edited on 27/4/2003 by JOESAM2002]

Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot, than to open it and remove all doubt!!!!!

"Every time you think, you weaken the nation!" Moe Howard...The Three Stooges.

nocloning

Not necessarily. Sounds to me he disagreed with the trade and wanted to stay put to draft two players that can help the team (immediately) instead of one. A player vs. players.

JOESAM2002

Lest we forget. Loomis has never been a personnel man, he\'s a bean counter. His forte is making money and salary cap. I know I don\'t want a short order cook fixing a gourmet meal for the President. Well maybe?

LordOfEntropy

For what it\'s worth, I\'ve got to agree with JoeSam on this one. Please don\'t flame, but JoeSam and Gator have been taking a lot of flack on this. Since I\'ve been thinking along similar lines to what they\'ve been saying, I felt I should chime in and show a little friendly support.

I was pretty damn negative at first (Boss Bailey/Stinchcomb, in particular the Bradie James skip, etc) - I was yelling around the house at one point, threatening doom and damnation to Haz and crew. But I\'ve settled down since then. And the more I\'ve recovered from shock, the more I\'ve actually started reading up on the picks and thinking about things, the more I believe the team did a decent job in this draft.

Regardless, time will tell soon enough. If we end up 32nd in defense this year, then I know that I was wrong. But if we can end up somewhere around the middle of the pack, but still dominate on offense, then I\'m right. We\'ll see.

June 1st is still lurking out there, let\'s see what happens...

can anyone help me id this tune? it goes thwap thwap boom tch boom tch boom tch.

Qui a laissez sortir les chiens!

JOESAM2002

Three things that will happen:
1. time will tell
2. farts will smell.
3. water will seek it\'s level.
I guess time will tell us if this draft (fart) will smell And this season will seek its level.

LordOfEntropy

I had no idea you were so eloquent, oh noble Shakespeare?!

Or perhaps - \'if if\'s and but\'s were all candies and nuts, we\'d all have a merry Christmas\'.

Or even better - \'there once was a maiden from Mit, who dined.......\'

Aw, nevermind.

JOESAM2002

Or we\'d have burnt ashes.
As far as limricks are concerned I have a few. LOL

LordOfEntropy

We\'ll have to share a few of those sometime, oh learned colleague. Though I doubt this message board would be the most appropriate place for sharing such specialized wisdom.

JOESAM2002

On this too, you might be right. LOL