The 2013 Saints season
 

No matter how you feel about our draft, our free agency, who we have kept and who is gone. Keep one thing in mind.

Our head coach Sean Payton spent an entire season designing this season. He sat through 16 tortuous games just like most of us, except I believe those 16 experiences were worse for him. He was not on the field but he had ownership in what was put on the field at many levels.

He has seen all of the dropped passes, the interceptions, the misses tackles.... Every yard gained against our defense, missed field goals, missed opportunities .. At LEAST a 1/2 dozen times.
In the tape room and in his sleep.

If your concerned or cautious about Rob Ryan, know Sean Payton is too. He does not want what happened last year to happen twice on his watch.

I don't expect 2013 to look like any previous Saints season when it is all said and done. I suspect that only Sean and a stack of notebooks, know what it is supposed to look like.


A person gains an entirely new perspective on a situation that they have been involved in on a day to day basis when they take time to watch it from the outside.

Rebuilt? No..... Transformation or transition to a new level? Yes!

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

Lets hope so. Too many people become complacent after big contracts

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

I feel too many people are relying on history to support their view.

Defense
With a brand new DC, a new to New Orleans scheme, plenty of new talent, there is no correlation between 2013 and 2012, same is repeated for 2011 back.

Offense
The biggest item here is that if this collective group of arm chair QBs can see how predictable our offense was in 2012... Sean Payton has to know also, I suspect he is going to focus on how unpredictable we can become. Besides winning and losing, he owes it to Ingram to let him run with out the defense expecting it for a season to de what he has.

A lot of people that were not 100% healthy will be healthy this season.

Graham
Vilma
Its a long list....

If the draft didn't make sense, maybe we don't completely understand the plan.

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

It made sense to me. We got a playmaker in the secondary, a future stud LT, that giant NT in the middle, a speedy WR who slipped a round, and a late round small school project player with 1st round measurables, then we scored two more middle-rounder in UDFA.

I certainly like this draft much better than last year's class.

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

I think that some of us do not appreciate how we were hamstrung by the salary cap and lack of a second rd pick. My hat is off to Loomis and the front office for the job they have done moving on from the bounty scandal and the disaster of last season. Kudos

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

With the new coordinator, new scheme, free agent additions and the draft, I can't think of a single unit on defense that didn't significantly improve, some improved drastically.

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

change in philosophy alone will make the defense better. this defense was built for attacking and not sitting back on their heels. big mistake last year by spags. 34 switch will take time but using players to their strong suites is a step in the right direction. return to a mid or upper 20's rank defense should be a piece of cake with just this change alone. we had the personnel already. Coaching will have nothing to do with it.

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

That's the spirit!

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

Great summation by all. Can't discount the lessons learned by everyone on this team - including Ryan in Dallas...

I don't care what is said publicly. There won't be a bigger chip on any coach's, player's or fans shoulders in the NFL.

Re: The 2013 Saints season
 

This is the exact reason that I am excited to see how this defense performs this year. The personnel for the switch to 3-4 was already there for the most part with just a few more pieces that needed to be added. We got those pieces in free agency (Butler, Lewis), the draft (Vaccaro, Jenkins, Johnson), and in UDFA (Thomas, Martin, Reddick, Sweeting, Shipman). Past loyalty be damned. Let all these guys duke it out in training camp and may the best man win to put the best possible product on the field. I cannot wait to see opposing QB's lying flat on their backs.