SmashMouth

For two years, since they were selected 11th and 24th in the first round of the 2011 draft, combo-platter defensive ends J.J. Watt of Houston and Cameron Jordan of New Orleans had a large gulf between them. Watt was the record-breaker, the pass-deflector and sack machine, the 2012 Defensive Player of the Year. Jordan was a nice defensive end, but miscast in the Saints’ futile 4-3 scheme.

At 6-4 and 287 pounds, Jordan needed to be a Watt, a 3-4 end who moved inside and played some 3-technique depending on the down and distance. That’s how Watt got his 20.5 sacks and 16 pass deflections in 2012. It was one of the best seasons a defensive lineman ever had.

Someone saw. Someone knew the impact Jordan could make playing as a 3-4 end on running downs and playing inside against the pass. Veteran defensive coach Rob Ryan knew, and when Sean Payton replaced coordinator Steve Spagnuolo—a 4-3 guy—with malleable 3-4 maven Ryan after the Saints’ disastrous defensive season in 2012, Ryan pushed Jordan to his more natural spot. And Ryan essentially told him to go get the quarterback and forget everything else on passing downs. It was perfect for Jordan. Watch him play, and you see a Tasmanian devil, a powerful and slippery twister-and-turner with 17 quarterback disruptions (sacks, pressures and knockdowns) through three games. Watt has 14.
Cameron Jordan helps New Orleans Saints to 3-0 start; Peter King mail | The MMQB with Peter King

TheOak

Next week Pete will tell us how Jimmy graham is a rising star.

Barry from MS

Awww, ain't that sweet? Petey recognizes a Saint other than Brees. I smell Pulitzer with all that intensive research and hard work. Big risk, Petey, snooping around the Dirty South to ignore the NFC East and AFC East; you might just lose your job for that one.

King is a tool.

dueceloose

He's just confirming our intelligence sometimes you don't know a star unless it dunks in your face.

homerj07

I can't wait for him to catch on to how good Drew Bree's is.

ChrisXVI

I hate these analysts so much. These are the same people who said we don't have the personnel to play in a 3-4 defense and that Rob Ryan wouldn't be able to improve the defense much with this group of players. It's hard to be a sports fan sometimes when the people who get paid to talk about sports are absolute morons.

QBREES9

Peter King. What, has he been on IR for the past two years.

Jack Vegas

this x10,000

What really sucks is, people buy completely into their "analysis".

I got into a huge argument/trollfest on another board I frequent (mixed fans) early in preseason because I simply said the Saints had the talent and setup to be a top 12 or 15 type defense. they couldn't believe it, called me a homer and delusional and basically said I was stupid.

I am not going to blame every sports fan for not watching every single game but when you only get your info from Peter King types you are not going to know jack squat.

Let's just say I have had a fun time going back and bumping those threads the last few weeks.

RailBoss

Bottom line is he is picking up a fat paycheck, and for what!

Barry from MS

Kinda like meteorologists, except folks don't usually get struck by lightning when he's wrong.

Speaking of dillweed analysts, found this on NFL.com, September 3rd:
"Saints #18
The climbing Saints simply look better than the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Diego Chargers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, mostly because they've figured out how to pick up a first down by throwing the football. Drew Brees looks like he's going to pass for 5,300 yards and 37 touchdowns this season. Still, losing Will Smith hurts this club tremendously."

Astonishing insight, Nostradamus. Pundits know diddly-poo.