Originally Posted by BooBirdSaint

I think that things are a little different between the Haz and Payton eras. People forget that Haz came in after the 99 Ditka season where we went 3 - 13 and didn't have a Hurricane to blame! Haz took almost the exact same team to the playoffs the following year! I doubt that Payton will have as much sucess. From then on anything less was a hugh letdown and Haz suffered b/c of that. Now I'm not a big fan of the Haz era but you gotta look at things in perspective. I'm sure that Haz would have loved to explode the team after 99 the way Payton has been allowed too. And as much as we want to blame the coach for every player move we can't b/c the FO has as much if not more say in those player moves. You really think that the Texans coaching staff passed on Bush? BS that was totally FO/Owner making that call. And I doubt that D. Stallworth would have been traded if he would have been in the middle of his contract instead of the end regardless of Paytons opnion of him. I guess my point is that the perception that Haz let things get this bad (team need to be exploded) are all his fault is just a little misleading. I blame the Saints Organization for the lowly postion we maintain in the NFL. Only a top to bottom change will get us to were we desire to go...

Originally Posted by thib82

We made the playoffs with Ditkas team. Ditka put he team together and Haz took them to the playoffs. We got worse every year after that. We had really bad drafts under haz also, so now payton has come in, and has to clean up the mess left behind. I'd give payton 1 or two years before I start bashing him for cutting and trading certain players.