WhoDat

At this point, I am certainly not panicking – we’re only one game into the season, and let’s not forget that we basically controlled Tampa in the opener last season and look at what they went onto…

However, I have four major concerns.

1. Personnel on D – that’s no big surprise. Thus far, I am not impressed. Here’s my quick breakout:
DT – Average. I haven’t seen anything exceptionally good or bad from this spot. At least we do have good depth there.
DE – Hhhmmm – I though Grant played great yesterday, but now Howard’s gone for the bulk of the season. If these guys are supposed to be the anchors of the defense, then lose one can’t be a good thing.
LB – Smith is playing decent football. No real blunders, no real big plays. Rodgers is certainly a talent and speed upgrade, but the other side is still a big question mark. So far, I can’t tell if this group is any better than last year’s group.
CB – flat bad in my opinion. Slow, old, and can’t tackle well. This is a huge weakness for us.
S – really unimpressive thus far. Losing Mitchell hurt b/c Bellamy is not good. He can’t even tackle. Tebucky is still yet to show me that he’s anything more than average. NE may have pulled a fast one on us with that trade. We’ll see.

2. Player mentality - This is something I hadn’t though about until today, but I think it’s gotta be a major concern now. Those players that have been here a while (namely the offensive ones b/c the defense is almost all new) have been hearing Haslett promise the world for the last two seasons, only to be let down. After a 3 game skid at the end of last season, a 1-3 preseason, and now an 0-1 embarrassing start, I have to wonder if players like Horn and Deuce are beginning to doubt the coaching staff or even Brooks. I can say I have no idea if this is a real problem, but I’m worried about it. Winning is contagious, well so is losing. We’re 1-7 in our last 8, and if the players are beginning to doubt then that’s not likely to change any time soon.

3. Coordinators – It’s no shock that I don’t like Venturi, and continue to believe that our defense isn’t likely to make strides until he is gone. However, I have been behind McCarthy from the start… until now. Well, it’s not that I’m not behind him, I’m just beginning to wonder. The offense really began to falter mid-season last year and was pretty bad there at the end of the season. Everyone so far has said it was due to injuries to Deuce and Brooks… maybe. One other consideration is that McCarthy isn’t good at adapting. We all know in the past that the Saints haven’t been particularly good at changing their game plan in-game. I think that may be true for the long-term as well. I wonder if we’re not running the same plays in the same sequence now that we did game one of last season. Even our opening series of scripted plays looked predictable, and while I think Deuce is THE key to success on offense, 4 straight dives isn’t going to cut it.

4. Execution – this may tie into the coordinators or vice versa. Our O-line looked completely uncoordinated. Our defense looked lost at times. Passes aren’t crisp, holes aren’t big, screens get snuffed out from the start. I think we look very undisciplined. If that doesn’t change I doubt we’ll be able to improve much.

That’s where I stand. Even yesterday after the Miami upset and our terrible loss, I didn’t think for a second that we wouldn’t beat Houston. We’re much more talented, we’re at home, and I expect them to have a let-down game and us to have a bounce-back game.

However, the more I think about that, the more doubt begins to creep back into my mind. We’re bad at home. We play down to teams that we are more talented than… and most importantly, this is an interesting match-up. Houston’s O is probably as bad as our D, but they’re D is good – or at least has a lot of potential to be. Don’t kid yourselves, their secondary has some pretty solid players and with the 3-4 they should be able to attack and stop the run. This one pits strength against strength and weakness against weakness. We shall see. I certainly hope that we can get back on the winning track, I’m just not so sure that’ll happen.