cardboardboxer

Hey forum,

As a long time Saints fan, I impressed how positive many of you still are. After a lifetime of poor football, I guess Saint's fan have learned to weather the worst.

Like yall, I had high hopes this year. But the team is breaking apart at the begining of the season like how they usually break apart at the end. :casstet: But I still see the sunshine!

Under Haslett, the team has grown in talent exponentially. Unfortunatly this increase in talent also brought and increase in win-lose expectation that he didn't provide. But this years draft was pretty good. Watson is probably our best LB, and Willie Smith is a beast. The team is actually pretty talented.

This talent is my sunshine. As I was watching the Vikings (long time arch enemy of New Orleans) play offence as if no defensive players were on the field, I realized that this year is probably the worst in the Haslett term. Not raining on anyone parade, but the team fell apart on defense, penalties, you name it! But this is a good thing. Why?

Because Haslett's former inconsitancy kept him from being fired; every season he showed flashes every now and then of the Saints being an elite (at least on Offence) team. But now Haslett's team is consistantly bad, yet his tallent remains good. A perfect situtation.

If teams with less talent, such as the NY Giants, can win with simply a new coach, imagine where the Saints could be with a new coach! That means every loss (conforming to Haslett's new found consistancy) moves him closer to the door.

The real rain then (once again) becomes Benson. From experiance, we all know he just won't pay for that high dollar coach (maybe Jeff Fisher). He has always been cheap with the Saints. We might get, say, Wannstedt, in Benson's price range, but thats doubtable (the guy has a good D at least).

No, Benson will go for:

A. Somebodies coordinator. I pray to God its one of the Patriots coaches. But since they would come with a large price tag, I imagine it will be somebody with less fame. This is probably our best chance at a good year next year.

B. A college coach. No offense to you LSU boys, but the only college coach I want to come in to coach the Saints is Stoops and he wouldn't do it (why when he can have a higher profile NFL job soon?) Any other coach with have an "adjustment period" where he would suck and squander the good talent we have right now!

C. A washed up coach. These guys come cheap. This might be one of the more likely choices for Benson. But without Parcells (think what he could do with the Saints!) or Gibbs's kind in the market, this might not be the best option. Maybe Benson learned his lesson with the Ditka thing. Maybe.

And so my sunshine belongs to option A. I gleefully watch other teams like a kid in a candy store, dreaming that the (Patriots, Broncos, Eagles) defensive coordinator is coaching my team.

And with every loss this comes closer to fruitation. I'm not saying that I rooting for the Saints to lose, I'm just saying losing hurts less for the first time in a while.

:D