blacksaint

TURNING AROUND

Sunday, September 30, 2007
By Mike Triplett

Here's your silver lining, Saints fans: The Saints have an outstanding opportunity to save their season.

Up next after this bye week is a home game with rival Carolina, the most talented team in the NFC South. If the Saints can win that game, they'll be right back in the division race.

A week later is a trip to Seattle, a nationally televised Sunday night game against the 2005 NFC champs. Win that one, and the Saints prove they can hang with almost anyone in the conference.

Redemption is just two games away.

Of course, there is one small problem with that theory. The Saints haven't given any indication so far that they can come close to beating the Panthers or Seahawks.

These are two of the most difficult matchups remaining on the Saints' schedule. Carolina and Seattle have two of the most balanced offenses in the NFC. And Panthers receiver Steve Smith, in particular, terrorizes the Saints.

In their past five meetings, Smith has caught 40 passes for 495 yards and scored six touchdowns (one rushing). The way the Saints' secondary has struggled this season against deep passes, Smith might score six more next Sunday.

The Panthers are equally menacing across the defensive line, led by dynamic pass rusher Julius Peppers.

That's just one of several reasons the Saints' offensive line needs to find whatever it has been missing in a big hurry.

They also need to give quarterback Drew Brees a chance to get comfortable in the pocket, so he can start playing like a league MVP candidate again. And they need to start opening holes in the run game -- especially now that tailback Deuce McAllister is out for the season because of knee surgery.

I personally don't buy into the theory that Reggie Bush can't be an "every-down" back. He's just a lot more dangerous when he gets to the outside or gets matched up against linebackers in open space.

Someone asked me this week why he can't be like Pittsburgh's Willie Parker, who is roughly the same size, with roughly the same speed and quickness. I think Bush can be like that in smaller doses, as long as the offensive line is opening holes for him. He did it last December against the 49ers and the Giants.

But all of the Saints' problems this season are tied together -- one big, ugly chain reaction of mediocrity.

When the Saints' offense is rolling, they can burn opponents with short and deep passes. They can set up passes with the run, and they can set up the run with passes. Coach Sean Payton can dig deeper into his bag of tricks, and Bush becomes especially dangerous in his versatile role -- running out of the backfield, catching passes and taking handoffs on end-arounds, not to mention serving as a decoy on play-action passes.

When the Saints' offense is rolling, the defense looks an awful lot better, too.

Imagine if the other team was forced to play catch-up for a change. Maybe then the Saints could get their first sack of the season and start winning the field-position battle.

So how do they fix the offense? It's simple.

The line needs to block better, Brees needs to be more accurate, receivers need to stop dropping passes, Bush needs to run with more authority, Payton needs to do a better job with the play-calling, they need to stop turning the ball over, they need to convert more third-and-shorts, and they need to take advantage when they get in the red zone.

OK . . . so maybe they can't get everything fixed overnight.

But with Carolina coming into the Superdome a week from today, they'd certainly better try.

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