saintfan

Unfortunately I can\'t argue with that 08 (and forgive -- I posted under the wrong thread originally).

I guess my point is that Dungy hardly has a \"great\" defense in Indy, and what happened to Gruden\'s offense? In my opinion is has to boil down to something more than JUST coaching, or JUST talent for that matter.

I disagree about Haz being clueless. I also think the defense improved last year. IF the needs are addressed in the off season there\'s no reason to think they won\'t improve that much more next year, and a similar imporvement is all this team needs. I agree that they have to actually address the needs, and I am of the opinion that they will. Of course that\'s up for debate until it actually happens.

C'mon Man...

WhoDat

\"Good coaching is getting players to perform,\"

Are we talking about performing in preseason, early in the regular season, or at the end of the season? Those are all different.

What if a coach has bad players? He may get them to perform as well as they are capable of performing and still have a bad team. Right Jkool?

That\'s what I THINK Coughlin MAY HAVE been TRYING to IMPLY by that quote. LMAO.

BillyC

Getting to the Super Bowl takes talent, good coaching, and some luck. Having a GOOD team takes talent and good coaching. Now, let\'s apply that to the Saints. Obviously we aren\'t going to the Super Bowl. So, the question is, are we a good team? I say we were not a good team this year.

Well, why weren\'t we a good team? I said it took talent and good coaching to be a good team. Were we missing one or both of those ingredients? Let\'s look at the talent. As a matter of fact, let\'s break the talent down by offense, defense, and special teams.

1. Offensive talent:

A) QB -- Enough talent to make it to the playoffs.
B) Wide Receivers -- Enough talent to make it to playoffs.
C) Running Back -- Enough talent to make it to playoffs.
D) Tightend -- Enough talent to make it to playoffs.
E) Offensive line -- Enough talent to make it to playoffs.

It\'s obvious that we have enough talent on offense to make it to the playoffs. Yet, this unit is the one that let us down most of all. So, what was the problem? When I look at all the units (A-E), I see one thing all of those have in common!! What\'s that, you ask? Consistency, or rather, LACK OF!! I think if you honesty look at ALL the units on offense you will come to the conclusion that all of \'em were very inconsistent.

Now, I have to ask myself why all of those units were inconsistant. The one thing all of \'em have in common is COACHING!!

So, my conclusion is that COACHING was the problem on offense.


Defense:

D-line -- Enough talent to make the playoffs.
Linebackers -- Not enough talent.
Secondary -- Not enough talent.
Injuries -- Killed by injuries.

This unit does not have the talent to be considered a legit playoff caliber defense. Add all the injuries in and it really was a weak unit.

However, this unit played as well or better than expected. I can\'t fault coaching (Venturi) for the problems here.

Special Teams: Enough talent to go to the playoffs.

Eh, they were average, but still not a real problem area.

After saying all that, I\'ve come to the conclusion that we need more talent on defense and THAT ALONE will be a major improvement. I think adding a couple of players on defesne alone, will put us in the playoffs.

However, I think offense could very well be a big problem again this year. Oh, the talent will be there, but so will McCarthy and he really did some questionable things this year.

The last thing I see as being negitive is Jim Haslett. Is he capible of getting this team over the hump. As much as I want to THINK he can, common sense suggests that he cannot. I hope I\'m wrong!!

WhoDat

So then is it safe to say that over the last 12 or so months when you argued most of the time that Haslett WAS a good coach capable of bringing us to the playoffs, making good personnel decisions, etc. that you were devoid of common sense?

LMAO.