SaintsBro

Well, I look back to the worst of the worst, maybe it was the Chiefs or the Packers game, 0-4, or a little bit after that. And Spags had this press conference barely ten minutes after the game ended, where he was clearly fed up with it all, and you could tell he was pulling his hair out over it, he was like, "honestly, I don't know what it all is, it's a bunch of different things, but we're going to figure it out, and we will fix it."

And certain people on here in this forum had a complete COW over that, they took that one little bit of what he said out of context and went ballistic over it -- "he doesn't KNOW what the problem is! He's INCOMPETENT!" and they just threw Spags under the bus like so much hot garbage, four or five weeks in. They demanded he "take responsibility," ignoring the fact that he already DID take responsibility, two sentences earlier at the podium, and he already said it was unacceptable and that he wasn't happy with it. But certain people just wrote the ticket on him, punched it, and that was it.


And then he did fix it. Sort of. Kind of. They got better. A little bit. Well not as much as we'd like, but hey. That Eagles and Buccaneers games were kinda fun to watch on defense. Some of it in the last half of the year was not entirely painful.

I think Spags literally learned what he had to work with, while wearing his hard hat on the job site, with out-dated blueprints and no architect to guide him, and whatever you build under those kind of ridiculous conditions is probably not going to be this enormous towering monumental edifice of impregnable defense, like some people here seem to expect.

We're an OFFENSIVE team with a leaky defense. Not very likely going to have a dominant skull-crushing defense anytime soon, until Payton leaves. You go 10+ wins for a bunch of years, in a row like that, WINNING, it hurts the quality of your draft picks that are on the board when you get to pick in the draft, and that shows. This was a transition year anyway, and with no head coach, it came out worse than expected. Ugh.

RailBoss

Another one is Jim Haslett who had a pretty good D while he was Head Coach here but couldn't get the whole package right. He winds up in Washington and is doing a solid job even with a lot of injuries.

Wilde18

Anything to make the defense work will work. If that means to kick him, go ahead!

Budsdrinker

He did something that 90% of people on this board wanted and benched shanle the last 8 Weeks and the defense didn't improve. Personally I blame the new cba. It's his first year here and he has only so many practices with contact. I believe it took the whole year for him to really evaluate the players we have to work in his system. I'm willing to give him at least half of next year when he has a full coaching staff to see what he can do. Remember vitt is the Lb coach who wasn't able to fully apply himself to that position. If by game 6 of next year the d is still in the cellar then go ahead and can him but I think after all the distractions of 2012 he deserves more time.

hagan714

LOVIE SMITH IS ALL I HAVE TO SCREAM

burningmetal

Spagnuolo took a bad Giants defense, in his FIRST year there, and after a couple bad games to start that season he completely turned it around. Everybody says we don't have the Giants personnel... well, then why did they suck so bad before he took over? I'll concede that we don't have the pass rushers, but we have guys with potential who aren't getting any better (with the exception of Cam Jordan). The fact of the matter is you are expected to improve what you are given. We didn't have to be as good as his Giants defense, but we needed to be better than we were last year, not worse. Especially not MUCH worse. But I'm content with giving him another year, considering I really wanted the Saints to get this guy for years.

Let's see if we CAN get him some better players, and give him another shot.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

darstep

At the pro level, if nothing else, you should demand fundamentals.
GW couldn't get it out of this group and neither could Spagnuolo.
Give him some time to get "some" of the pieces he chooses, then let's judge results.
These guys were slow, couldn't cover, couldn't tackle, couldn't pass rush...
I wish I could buy him a drink.

The Dude

Ill give him a pass this year. I want to see him in a year with our HC and no drama surrounding the team and some better personnel. Gregg Williams did not have to deal with near the amount of **** Spags had to deal with this year.

RaginCajun83

Haslett is like Romeo Carnell and Norv Turner, as cordinators they look like God's gift to football yet they suck as head coaches. Not everyone can be Sean Payton

Vrillon82

The thing about Haslett is, everyone saw this during his tenure here in New Orleans is that he can be a decent coach, but his staff on the other hand sucks, we would of been in the playoffs for years under Haslett if he would of got rid of the excess baggage known as Rick Venturi.