Euphoria

I have to say something about that overspend comment. If you overspend its just going to create problems in years to come when you\'ll have to settle for players who are worth or not worth league min. 8-8 will be something we could only aspire to instead of playoffs. I think we are fine in the secondary. I only support bringing in someone who is better but for the right price.

JKool

You\'re right Billy, I was just getting a bit cheezed.

Of course, T-buck\'s tackling needs to improve, but how much is not clear to me. Also, it depends on the scheme how good a tackler your Safety needs to be. SS - tackle or get off the team. FS - make a play on the ball G-d Damn-it, that is why you are so far downfield (it is not clear that this guy hast to be in the top 5 tacklers on the D). If you play with Bi-lateral Safeties (which the Saints did with Kinight and Bellamy, then both need to be able to tackle); but that isn\'t what we did last year - we played more of a traditional FS/SS design.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

no_cloning

JKool: Generally I agree that a FS has to have the following qualities (especially in a classic FS/SS setup):
1. Able to make plays in space and take away the deep passes
2. Be a decent tackler
The problem in this special (Jones) case is that he was anything but decent. I said before that I believe that he helped our secondary - often away from the TV cameras - and he didn\'t get enough credit for that, but it\'s a good thing he has to take some mandatory tackling classes.

Euphoria: Teams are getting used to working with the salary cap. Apparently Loomis is a specialist in this regard. The Saints won\'t wind up in cap hell if they overspend on one corner. I wouldn\'t know where to get comparisons, but when you look at next year\'s cap numbers for all teams and how many players will be under contract I think the Saints would be sitting pretty.

JKool

Excellent work guys. I think I\'ll have to revise my view a bit.

Here is something that gets confounded all too often - bad tackling and having to make really tough tackles. It seems to me (and this may be independent of Jones) that FS shouldn\'t have to be the best tacklers on the team - SS and LB are supposed to do that. In the system I played in for a long time, the FS was used primarily to take away the deep ball or give the corner the opportunity to play the ball (while the FS played him over the top). We all know that it isn\'t that hard to tackle a guy who is busy making a catch. Thus, our FSs were no where near as good at tackling as the rest of us slogs.

Perhaps the rigors of the NFL make it the case that your FS must be the most athletic, the smartest, and the toughest player on the defense (not to mention the fastest), but I doubt it. Maybe all I\'m saying is that I would list tackling around the 4th or 5th skill for a FS, whereas it would be 1st for Mike (ILB) and 1st or 2nd for SS.

I may have to grant that Jones is an exceptionally poor tackler, but I think I\'m going to stick with my view that tackling is not one of the top skills required for a FS (at least for now).

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

JKool

Also, if Jones is as bad a tackler as everyone claims, that just makes my earlier idea that he should play the dime spot with Bellamy and Mitchell over the top all the more plausible. In that system, Jones would be able to use his exceptional athletics and not get exposed for poor tackling.