blacksaint

Thursday, September 27, 2007
John DeShazier

The Saints enter their bye week hobbled by injury, sapped by poor play, persistently coughing up footballs (10 turnovers) and games.

Few teams have appeared to be more in need of a break.

"That is the thought here," quarterback Drew Brees said. "We will all take a step back and take a deep breath. I don't think we can feel any worse than we feel right now. So it can only go up from here."

Of course there's no guarantee that getting away from the scene of the accident will be a turning point. There's no bandage big enough right now to cover what ails the Saints, who haven't done anything .500-caliber -- much less playoff-caliber -- while losing their first three games.

But at this point, anything other than getting on a field and playing an opponent has to be considered a positive.

The argument could be made that more than anybody, the Saints need to practice and play, that they should be working 24/7 to right themselves.

After being outscored 103-38, no one gets away without accepting blame, and if they're all accountable, then none should be able to rest comfortably until the problems are solved or at least until all energy is exhausted in the search to solve them.

Today, though, that theory gets shown the door.

The Saints aren't snowballing, they're in a blizzard. Right now, New Orleans is Bill Murray, awakening to the same game day nightmare.

And when a team is beating its helmet against the wall and the wall is winning, taking a break from the pounding is a good idea. It's the Saints' good fortune that the NFL schedule-maker gave them a rest this early in the season.

There was no way to know, way back when, that the Saints would be listed among the biggest disappointments in a topsy-turvy league after three weeks.

If everything had gone according to odds and expectations -- a season-opening loss against the Colts, followed by victories over Tampa Bay and Tennessee -- a break probably would have been about the last thing the Saints would have wanted or needed.

No team wants a bye when it's on a roll.

But so far nothing has gone according to plan, unless the plan was to make punter Steve Weatherford the three-game MVP. The Saints haven't been as bad as some of those teams in the past, but they certainly haven't given themselves or fans anything to celebrate, or thus far, a reason to believe the backtracking is at an end.

Perhaps unfairly, we assumed this season would be an extension of 2006. We just figured that the Saints, who advanced to the NFC championship game, would take the next step and advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history.

And although acknowledgment was given to the fact that opponents probably would play harder against New Orleans, either as an opportunity to knock off a contender or to show they're not half bad themselves, the thought still was that the Saints would be at least as good in the areas that were strong and better in the weakest areas.

And, too, it's important to remember that this season shouldn't yet be buried next to the 2006 accolades, which symbolically were laid to rest at the team's practice facility before the season.

But the numbers aren't encouraging. Since 1990 just three teams have dug out from an 0-3 hole to advance to the playoffs. The Saints, to their credit, don't talk about reaching the playoffs; they only are focused on winning a game, preferably the next one.

They're going to have to wait until Oct. 7 to have a chance to do that, against Carolina at the Superdome. And the way things have developed, that only can be seen as a good thing.

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