Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

2theadvocate.com | Sports | Mickles: Payton gets head start on evaluations — Baton Rouge, LA

“The first step in this process is evaluating our own players and our own scheme,” Payton said last week. “We’ll spend time looking ‘A to Z’ at our roster — defensively, offensively and the kicking game — and we will set up our areas of needs where we feel like we have to improve.

“There are a number of things we have to look to do to improve our team,” he said. “When you come away from the season it’s easy to point to certain statistics in a good or bad way, but we need to improve our defense. That’s something we’ll look at hard this offseason in regards to how we can help over there.”

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

I think this year was a wake up call for Sean Payton. In his first season, nothing went wrong. Every "cute" play turned into a big gain, every blitz got pressure on the QB, etc. But this year, reality struck, and I think Sean learned alot this year and will move on and become a great leader for many years

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

It going to be very interesting to see what the Saints do with their defense. You can pretty much assume that Jason David will be starting again, along with Usama Young. That pretty much tells me the Saints will need to convert to a true cover 2 style, so they can mask the weakness at the CB position. Dang, there are just so many holes right now, which ones do you try to plug up? The Saints will not get everything plugged in this off-season, but hopefully they can get that defense to be at least alright. Free agency is not looking too promising as teams are already locking up their key players.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

This may be a very good thing. Payton may do a little house cleaning.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

What are the chances that Jason David can come back next season and be on his game? In all sincerity, is this something that he can "fix" during the off-season? If he's going to be starting again in the fall I would really like to think that he can come back and his performance be much improved. (It can't get worse, can it?)

Usama Young doesn't worry me as much...he's still young and impressionable.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

maybe some of his positioning is something he can fix. though if he grew about 4-5 inches in the offseason id be a little happier, i dont think being 5'8 is fixable.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

What would be the cap hit for letting David go?

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

I don't care who you have in the system... the system is broke! You can't just rely on talent you have to have a system that works to the talent/players you have. We have to change scheme and we have to change mentality.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

The problem is that what you saw this season IS David's game. It's only that his ineptitude was masked by the play of some players around him like Freeney and Sanders, not to mention an offense that has steam-rolled opponents the past 3-4 years.

Re: Payton gets head start on evaluations
 

BINGO!

Me and Euph are definately on the same wavelength here and probably have been for quite a few years now in terms of the Saints defense.

I can tell you a net isn't full of holes because of the string itself - it's because some knucklehead is weaving them into it.