GumboBC

It takes good coaching, talent, and desire to have a successful football team.

But, do the Saints have those ingredients?

1. Talent - Theres no question we have the talent on offense. So, lets talk about the defense. We know there is enough talent on the D-line. The linebackers are suspect but promising. The secondary is suspect but looks promising. Overall, I feel the defense has enough talent to be good. Maybe not great, but good. If some things work out, we could have a very good defense. But at this point, there's simply not enough evidence to suggest we have an upper echelon defense on our hands. Still, we have the talent to be MUCH better than last year. GRADE -B

2. Coaching - McCarthy has been criticised, but he's proven he can put a quality game plan together. My feeling is McCarthy is the least of our worries. Rick Venturi hasn't proven he can get the job done. I don't know how much fault can be placed on Venturi, but he hasn't PROVED anything. This will be a defining year for Venturi. Jim Haslett has done enough to warrant concern. This should be a make or break year for Haslett. Whether that's the case or not, I have no idea. GRADE -D

3. Desire - Even during the losing years in New Orleans, our teams played with heart and emotion. IMO, that's been missing BIG time the last few years. It's hard to figure out why that's been the case. I think a lot has to do with not being able to stop the run. When you can't stop the run, it's really demoralizing!! Whatever the reason, it's been MISSING!! GRADE- F.

TALENT - B
COACHING - D
DESIRE - F

It's clear the problems have less to do with talent and more to do with other factors. It's also clear that those things have to change this year if we are to have a successful season.

It seems Haslett has figured this out too. I must say he's seems to have taken a good approach to fixing the problems. He knows the talent has been there to be better. He knows the core group of players have now been together long enough to make a run.

Haslett appears to also understand HE needed to change. No more BULLS***!! No more Mr. NiceGuy!! According to Haslett, it's all about business.

Grade for Haslett's new approach - A

This year Ventui has received something that might just save his job. No, it's not Will Smith or Courtney Watson. I'm talking about John Pease. Pease seems to be the right man for the job. You just get the feeling the players are going to respond to Pease's coaching style.

Venturi/Pease Grade - B

Desire - We haven't seen any games, but it sure seems like the 2004 Saints have something to prove. Something is different. You get the feeling the Saints are just plain ol' tired of underachieving!! Seems they want to prove to folks just how talented they really are. Something has got to give this year and I'm betting they will fiinally live up to expectations.

New Found Attitude: Grade - B

So, while nothing has been proven (and it's not possible that anything can be proven at this point) everything looks good.

Grade for Haslett's new approach - A
Venturi/Pease Grade - B
New Found Attitude: Grade - B

We all wish we had some proven players at certain positions. But beyond that, you can't ask for much more. Give Haslett some credit for his approach to this season. I'm not sold by any means. Things could go wrong. This might be more "hype" than anything. But, I don't think so.

Call me a sucker. Call me dumb. Call me what you will, but I've tried to talk myself out of believing in this team. But, all the stars seemed to be aligned to make this the best year in Saints history!!

Message for the Moonshiners: Now that I've made up my mind that the Saints are as good as any team in the league, I'm ready to take on ya'lls negative agenda...LOL

whodatsaintsfan26

Ive said this in other post. The DBs are the key to the season. Lets just say that they defense can stop the run. Can they control the passing game. If the D-line doesnt get pressure I say no. I love what they have done with the D-line, but am still so suspect on the DB\'s. I dont see them covering anybody. I have watched every game from last season over the past week and see Ambrose 15 yards off of the recievers and still cant cover anybody. He is the biggest liability on this defense. The linebackers always seem to be out of position to make a play. I think the offense is set to break every record in team history this season, but if the defense cant stop anybody will it matter. I hate being pessimistic, but I cant see the CB\'s stopping anything. This season the division is up for grabs and if the Saints get in to to many shootouts I see the defense shooting blanks.

GumboBC

We have talked about the Saints secondary all offseason. To be perfectly honest, I\'m tired of talking about things folks are posting without ANY facts to back it up. Now we can sit here and dog the secondary out all you want, but bring something to the table beisdes: \"teams didn\'t have to throw the ball last year.\"

Or: \"Ambrose Sucks.\" Yeah, we know he sucks. But we also know he probably won\'t be starting this year too.

The fact of the matter is the Redskins secondary was worse than ours last year and they had 2 SHUT-DOWN cornerbacks. How could that be?

I know I\'m not going to convince some of you guys that our secondary isn\'t as bad as you think it is. And it could be that bad. But we REALLY don\'t know do we?

If you do know it\'s that bad, then present your case with facts. And back it up with good reasoning.

Someone once told me when I first joined this board that I was NOT going to get very far by saying: \"That\'s the way I feel\". And now I\'m telling you guys the samething.



[Edited on 13/8/2004 by GumboBC]

kenpersons

Well. See, the key here is the F in desire and the D in coaching. It\'s the lack of desire and questionable coaching decisions that have used up about two thirds of my liver the last three years.

I keep telling myself, what if Deuce gets hurt? That seems to be a simple \"worst case\" scenario.

I honestly believe we\'ll still win the Super Bowl even if 26 goes on IR. It\'s just our time.

The fourth category is Destiny, and hopefully this year we\'ll get an A in that.

JOESAM2002

You kids play nice!

ScottyRo

First of all BC, why would someone, who is known on this board as \"the King\" of beating the deadhorse, get all upset when other members want to rant on and on about what they see as the weak spot in the D even if it is just because they feel that it is?
Why? I know it\'s not the end all be all of arguments, but it does a good job refuting the \"our passing D was in the top 10 in yards given up per game so they must be good\" argument.
I know many of us feel that Ambrose wont be starting, but I haven\'t read that. In fact, much of what I\'ve read seemed to indicate that the coaches think Ambrose is having a good camp.
How about because there is more than one reason why a passing D might be bad? (And they weren\'t really that much worse than the Saints at #14). I disagree that they had 2 shutdown CBs. I presume you meant Smoot as the other, but I don\'t buy that.
I know what we had last year and I know what we have this year - except for Craft. What worries me is that if the run D improves but the pass rush doesn\'t, then we\'re going to find out exactly what our secondary is made of. Btw, I\'m giving you \"the pass rush wasn\'t as good last year\" argument too although that is probably based on the fact that the sack total went down. My rebuttal to that though is that the QB wasn\'t passing as much so he wasn\'t as available to be sacked because teams we running on us.

JKool

Ok.

What\'s up with everybody raggin\' on Ambrose now? Sure he\'s getting pretty slow, and he\'s old, and he\'s lost a step - but none of that makes him a bad corner. This is especially true on our team where every man and his dog thinks that our \"superior pass rush\" will make our CBs look good. Well if ANY corner on this team is going to benefit from a superior pass rush, it is Ambrose - he\'s smart, he\'s seen a lot of shiznit, and he makes good plays on the ball. Sure, he can only cover for about 12 yards, but in a Cover 2, he can stop the run, make plays in the flats, and even lock up bigger WRs.

Don\'t get me wrong, I think his starting days are behind him, but I haven\'t seen him play this year (in practice or otherwise), and I for one am not going to take how a VETRAN player, who will in all likelihood make the final cuts, works in the offseason as much indication of what he\'ll do once we hit the field.

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

JKool

Also, not to be too annoying, but what the heck is this \"desire\" thingy?

I\'ve been asking this for a while now, but the answer seems to be this: \"c\'mon now, don\'t be so g-d damn philosophical, you know what it is!\" Well, that\'s not going to cut it. While I agree that some years the team seems to be better at playing under pressure and under adverse circumstances (like they don\'t cave when they are down by 14), and so on - however, I\'m not sure what that has to do with desire (as opposed to good coaching, or good practice, good prep, or whatever).

If there is such a thing as \"desire\" as a rating, then the team that made the playoffs (under Haz, no less) had it. Why would we think this team has it? Wow, don\'t they practice so nicely, don\'t they have such a cool new DL coach, look at all the DLmen, wow how many nifty WRs we have? Is that evidence of desire? It doesn\'t sound like it. How about we rank them on desire when they are down by 14 IN A REAL GAME and see what they do?

Wow, that sounded pretty negative. I guess, I haven\'t had my juice yet this morning.

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

ScottyRo

Dude, go rent Rocky III, it\'ll explain everything. :P

GumboBC

ScottyRo -- I don\'t mind someone beating a dead horse. But, how \'bout coming up with some FACTS to support it with.

What is someone suppose to say to someone when all they say is: \"That\'s the way I feel or that\'s the way I see it?

Fact: Our pass defense was passed on just about as much as other teams
Fact: Our pass defense only allowed 56% of passes to be completed.
Fact: We had a bad pass rush defense.
Fact: We were ranked 8th out of 32 teams in pass defense.

Were we truly the 8th best pass defense. No, I don\'t believe that. Were we as bad as some folks are suggesting? Well..... maybe we were, but you don\'t really KNOW do you?

The bottome line is: We can sit here and speclate all day long, but nothing can be proven. I\'m not trying to change the way you or anyone else feels about our pass defense. But, if you tell the REAL truth........That\'s just the way YOU feel.





[Edited on 13/8/2004 by GumboBC]