Here's my take:

1) Drew is pressing. This, first and foremost, is the reason for the bad play. He feels the need to carry the entire team because that's his nature and his nature is over-amplified because of SP being gone, because he feels the need to justify his contract, and because he feels like we need big leads with our questionable D.

2) Only slightly behind #1, our receivers are a disaster area. Look at the passes that have been dropped this year that wouldn't have been in previous years. Look at Graham not fighting for the ball consistently when last year he would have seemingly taken someone's head off if it was between him and the ball. If our receivers catch half of the EXTREMELY catchable balls they've been dropping, we're talking about 7-10 point victories in most of the games where we've had close losses.

3) The O-Line has not been good. You can't (IMO) look at the plays where Drew throws the picks and say "well, he had protection on that play" when he's been getting the crap knocked out of him the rest of the season. That fouls up timing, confidence, etc.

4) I don't know why we're not running more. We start every game balanced, then after 20 plays we seem to be saying "Oh, my god! We're not up by 30! Throw the ball!" This is making us predictable and one-dimensional. I think a lot of those picks are coming because defenders who should be on the look out for the run are able to spy Drew and jump routes.

5) And this is sort of the basket that's carrying 1-4, we don't have our coach. SP is the one who would be able to get Drew to relax. SP would get the play calling straightened out (although, I do think he called too many pass plays as well, but I think he would at least get the timing of when to call which play more reasonably timed). I don't know what he would do about the O-Line, but I bet if Kromer was working with them all year instead of having to worry about being interim coach they would have gelled a lot sooner than week 12 (ish).

I don't know. This season has been brutal. To have our guys do so poorly and have teams I hate (Niners, Pats, Packers, Falcons) do so well...I really am trying to look on the bright side, that our issues are fixable in the offseason. Hopefully SP will sign soon and the biggest distraction we'll have in the offseason will be Graham's contract situation...although, the way he's played this year, I can't see him having too much leverage at this point.

What a horrible waste of money he was. I have seen countless players fall off the map after getting paid but I did not think it would happen with Brees. How much of a cap hit will we have to take if we got rid of him?