TheOak

Offense

The city of New Orleans breathed a sigh of relief on Friday (the 13th, no less), when Drew Brees and the Saints agreed to a long-term deal that will keep him in the Bayou for another five years. That means this team will be dangerous enough offensively to compete in the division. Without Brees in the fold, the Saints could well have become this year's version of the 2011 Colts.

The issue for Brees and the offense now will be overcoming another offseason storyline you may have heard of: Sean Payton's suspension resulting from the Saints bounty scandal. Payton's out for the year, which means Brees will have to put on coaching, coordinating and quarterbacking hats this year.

Fortunately, he has help. Marques Colston, a perfect fit for the New Orleans offense, returns after being re-signed in the offseason. Jimmy Graham is one of the best in the league at his position, and probably the most dangerous tight end, offensively speaking. Darren Sproles is a multi-faceted gamechanger and a perfect for what New Orleans does. If you had to pick one team's QB/RB/WR/TE combo, you would be hard-pressed to find a better skill-position group than the Saints.

There are other weapons too: Devery Henderson needs to be more consistent to replace the departed Robert Meachem. Lance Moore provides another versatile weapon. Mark Ingram needs to improve on his rookie campaign, but combined with Sproles and Pierre Thomas, he should be dangerous. In short, the Saints remain an extremely talented and potent offense, regardless of which administrators got suspended.

Defense

The opposite side of the ball is a different story, however. Obviously, the Saints bounty scandal centers around departed defensive coordinator and exotic-blitz junkie Gregg Williams. He was "not invited back" before the scandal broke, so it's not as if the Saints are making wholesale changes here because they were caught handing out cash for quarterback hits. Instead, Williams left to join Jeff Fisher in St. Louis, and was replaced by the guy Fisher replaced: Steve Spagnuolo. Williams' Super Bowl-winning defense in 2009 wasn't necessarily an "elite" defensive unit: that Saints squad simply generated a ton of turnovers.

And over the past two seasons, that's happened less and less. Spags will attempt to install a more standardized 4-3 defense. The problem is that the Saints still lack a ton of talent on that side of the ball. The pass rush is beyond underwhelming: Will Smith will be suspended for the first four games of the season, Greg Romeus is already out for the year, Cameron Jordan underwhelmed with just one sack in his rookie season (although he was stout against the run and could improve under Spags).

Junior Galette lead all Week 1 returnees with 4.5 sacks last year. Well, on the line anyway -- Roman Harper had 7.5 sacks in 2011, but it's unlikely he'll be coming after quarterbacks as much under Spags. New linebackers Curtis Lofton, David Hawthorne and former Spagnuolo player Chris Chamberlain should should actually equate to an improvement in that area. The secondary should hold up alright, especially if defensive backs aren't spending half their time blitzing the quarterback and leaving their fellow secondary members vulnerable: Jabari Greer and Patrick Robinson are an OK duo at cornerback, and Malcolm Jenkins and Harper are decent safeties.




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