WhoDat!656

The 2012 season hadn’t come to a conclusion before discontented rumblings emerged from New Orleans about defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.

Those rumblings and the 454 points that the Saints allowed last season combined to make Spagnuolo’s stay in New Orleans a brief one as he was fired after the season and replaced by Rob Ryan. Ryan’s moving the team to a 3-4 base look, but safety Malcolm Jenkins says that the biggest difference from last year goes beyond the way players are deployed near the line of scrimmage.

“They look different from a cultural standpoint. Last year, our defense was missing the teeth that it usually has. We were known as a defense that flew around, got to the ball, forced turnovers and hit people, but we kind of got away from those basics. So those have been just the key points,” Jenkins said, via the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “The defense, getting that down, that’ll come. It’s a multiple defense; guys can move around, play different positions, get after the quarterback. It’s definitely fun in that aspect but we always got back to the basics: flying to the ball, trying to get turnovers, going for the interception, because that’s how we complement our offense.”

Two things come to mind in regard to Jenkins’ comments. The first is that the defense, while clearly better than it was in 2012, was still the biggest reason for the team’s playoff losses in both 2010 and 2011. The slippage last year might have kept them from even making the playoffs, but there were things that needed fixing in the culture of the defense before Spagnuolo even came to town.

The second is that the Saints still outscored their opponents last season despite those 454 points against. Should the Drew Brees-led offense continue to operate at a high level, they don’t need radical improvement in order to wind up with a winning record in 2013.

Malcolm Jenkins: Saints D looks different from a “cultural standpoint” | ProFootballTalk

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."

ScottyRo

You got to love offseason hype. How in the world can someone say this year's D is clearly better than last year's? This year's D has yet to do diddly poo!

Seer1

Some funny comments after the article.

"Blah bounty blah crying Vikings fans blah crying FalCants fans."

WhoDat!656

What did last year's defense do?

ScottyRo

Last year's D played games already so we could see how bad they were. This year's D has yet to show how bad it can be.

darksoul35

I would almost bet my life that it cant be worse.

biloxi-indian

I know this sounds familiar, but I hope Ryan teaches some basics like tackling and coverage. Just saying!

hagan714

agree 100%

see this is were it falls apart in my book. Issue were simple before hand. Saints drafted and signed FA to infuse youth into the defense in previous years. that was the issue.

Spags tried to make them into something they were not. only messed up the unit developing more.

yet another writer giving RR an open door to take more credit than he will deserve if the defense just plays as it has in the pass.

dizzle88

He means the D in 2010 and 2011 was clearly better than 2012 but still at fault for 2 consecutive playoff failures, he hasn't worded it well but if you read through again you will see it lol

ScottyRo

You can search the entire database of my comments on this siteand not find me say this anywhere...you're right, I read that wrong. I guess I was just expecting that after reading so many comments already this year about how great new players are going to be.