JKool

Shrume,

While I somewhat agree with you, I think we differ on the details.

Also, we won\'t be able to trade Howard unless we resign him, which I don\'t think we will.

WhoDat

Oh, and to answer your other question:

1. Fire the coaching staff and Loomis (or at least move him back to business operations).

2. Hire a coordinator from the Patties as HC and true personnel guru at GM - I\'m not sure who would be best here.

3. Sign LBs, DTs, and CBs IN FREE AGENCY, not through the draft.

4. At least examine the idea of a QB competition and bring someone in to compete... at least.

5. Use the draft to bolster other needs - T and O-line geerally, S, depth on D, a possession WR.

That\'s what I do, broadly.

OH - sign Deuce to a LONG term deal, restructure Joe Horn\'s contract, get rid of D howard and Sullivan... or sign/restructure both to small contracts.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

JKool

Who,

I know you\'re a big fan of the \"leadership argument\", and I see where you\'re coming from on this. Farve is a leader, there is no question. I do question how really important that is to winning games (and you and I, and others, have discussed this at length). For the sake of this post, I will agree with you that Farve is and Brooks isn\'t.

However, I\'m not sure what that has to do with addressing current needs and winning games next season. I think that we can do it with a repaired defense and Brooks. Do you?

I agree that last game AB cost us. In fact, I\'m willing to assert that there are probably two to four games a year that AB has made very difficult to impossible to win. I\'m willing to bet that our defense will continue to make it impossible to win four to eight games a year.

I just don\'t see how we can be down by 20 and still think we have a chance AND simultaneously think that anyone on the offense is the biggest problem (i.e. over half of the problem, or something to that effect).

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

shadowdrinker_x

Whats odd to me is,.Next year.., If we obtain new personel...A few GOOD SIGNINGS..and the stadium deal is worked out..4-6 will look pretty darn good

JKool

Who, I thought BnB was my long lost brother...

I couldn\'t agree with you more on your offseason plan.

I think though what gets dealt with in FA versus the draft depends on what is availabe and the asking price (as you do too, I\'m sure). Though, I\'m fairly certain that we agree that the draft is not the place to fill needs as frequently as FA is.

blake6900

All this talk about \"if the defense was better, we\'d win\" is driving me nuts. Look, the Saints had the ball just as many times as the Broncos did. Yet the offense was only able to muster up 13 points. If that doesn\'t convince some of you the offense-which starts with the QB-isn\'t problematic, nothing will.


I reiterate what I said before. The only people who think Brooks is worth a damn are some of the Saints fans and the coaching staff. If Brooks were available tomorrow to be signed as a starting QB, no teams would be interested. That\'s reality. The negatives regarding AB outweigh the positives. The rest of the football world understands this.


Let\'s face it...the QB with the pretty long ball and the slow delivery just isn\'t cutting it. People can say \"yeah, but!\" till they\'re blue in the face but the fact that no other team wants your QB is a pretty good indicator that he\'s never gonna get the job done.


Brooks is no Plunkett. He\'s not gonna get any better than he is right now. The sooner the Saints deal with it the sooner they\'ll be on the road to recovery.

SycoSurfer

St. Shrume and J Kool. I appreciate the feed back and discussion about this topic. I hate when ppl just come on here and start name calling and being childish...

I see all the points you are bringing across and know what yall think about my arguments where they lack in some areas... Here is the thing. I know the D is horrible. Should we do sumthing to improve it yes. That will help this team greatly, but you guys seem to forget that the last 3 years we have had better Defenses and for some reason we have collapsed at the end of the year. Im not gonna say it was Brooks fault, but he was one person who didnt close the deal. When a team continually fails to live up to expectations you can point fingers and blame lots of guys, but usually it comes down to the leaders. That is usually the Head coach and supposed to be the QB. However, Brooks has never stepped up to try and take control of this team.

I just think that even with a better D this team would still struggle cause AB while he is a decent QB has no mental grasp or leadership for this team. You ever see him trying to fire up the D? You ever see him trying to fire up the O or trying to tell them we need to go get a score to keep this game close? No he just seems to have no heart for this game and a QB that doesnt care pisses me off. I really actually like Brooks. He has a ton of talent. While I know we cannot go out and find someone with the physical skills he has it might not be a bad idea to start looking for at least someone to develop. Brooks has a big contract for the next 4 or 5 years Im not sure. So I expect him to be around. I just hope that he can improve or he will be dealt with. We constantly blast Sullivan for not caring about being benched cause he picks up a pay check and just doesnt care. Since Brooks got his big pay check he has stopped caring and while he still plays solid he just doesnt care and still gets paid.

If I were running this team I would Hope DJ Johnson from Texas is there when we pick in the mid - early part of the first round... If we have to trade up then do it. He is a no brainer and we have a few guys we can move that we wouldnt miss...

As for the QB situation I think we can wait till the 3rd or 4th round cause we all know Brooks will be the starter unless we sign a FA to come in and challenge for the job. I really like Stefan Lefors from Louisville... He is a Louisiana boy with a ton of heart and some great skills. I wouldnt mind seeing us go after him in the mid rounds say 3rd round or so. I think he can be a special guy.

OL is another place we need help. Munoz would be a great pickup. Im not a giant scout and since I usually work lots of nights and weekends I miss alot of the early games on Saturday and just havent seen much college ball this year.

BuckWheat was impressive Sunday and Im excited about that. Watson looked decent early in the year pre injury, and DJ Williams... I would be happy with that line up.

Im not gonna say its to early to give up on Sully, but I think he either comes in to camp and shows us something or he will be gone. I however think we will look to FA to fill this hole again. B. Young has played great despite the lack of help. I think with an upgrade at the 2nd DT spot and our LBs with a little more experience we can be a little better. CBs are a different story. We have all known that we NEED to address this for years and we havent. Blame the scouts or gm or coaches whatever... F. Thomas got a big contract and he doesnt deserve it. SO he MIGHT be gone. Ambrose should have been gone last year. He is a smart fellow, but smarts makes you more useful on the sidelines as a coach or sumthing. Fakhir has played decent for it being his first starts, but he is nothing specail and Mike McKenzie has been less than stellar since we got him. Not to mention he is 28 and wants a big new contract. So I think we will finally go after DBs in the draft. Our safeties arent great, and are both aging. Mel Mitchell is ready to step in and we need to look for someone to be right along side of him.

Maybe we can trade Brooks to Washington for Shaun Taylor... Might be worth a shot if Ramsey doesnt show them anything... maybe even trade him to the Cowboys for Roy Williams. Trade him ONLY if we get a Drew Brees or someone we are confident can take over as a starting QB. I dont want to have a Miami situation.

Any feed back and or discussion is very much appreciated...

JKool

Offenses down by 20 points become pretty one dimensional, wouldn\'t you say?

It is a well known strategy on defense to try and take away one aspect of the other team\'s game and get them back on their heals. I.e. make the other team one dimensional, and defense will become much easier!

In our case, the other team\'s defense doesn\'t need to do that against us, since our defense takes away our running game for them - by allowing us to be down by a large number of points.

I KNOW IN THE LAST GAME SOME OF THE POINTS WERE BROOKS FAULT, BUT THAT DOESN\'T NEGATE WHAT I JUST SAID!

I am no Brooks fan, but I am a Saints fan. I want us to win games, and I think wasting our efforts on a replacement for Brooks who will just ALSO be asked to shoot it out with another team is rather unproductive. Only the VERY BEST QB\'s could thrive under the conditions here, and I promise you there won\'t be any of those available to us in FA or the draft.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

JKool

Syco,

Now we\'re talkin\' football. Nice post.

I\'m going to have to leave the leadership question behind for now. Let me say this: most here agree that he isn\'t a leader. I still maintain that how bad this is is an open question, but we can talk about that some other time.

I agree, if we can find a reasonable replacement, then we can consider dealing Brooks. Some time ago I became convinced that he had reached his best under Haz, and I am moderately convinced that he may have missed his development window as a QB. I don\'t think he\'ll be getting much better.

My current position is that if we don\'t focus on fixing the defense, it won\'t matter who our QB is next year. Furthermore, just to tick off Blake6900, I think with an improved defense we can have a winning record and make the playoffs with Brooks.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

St.Shrume

Blake6900, you said:

\"If Brooks were available tomorrow to be signed as a starting QB, no teams would be interested. That\'s reality. \"

Do you watch other NFL games, or just Saints games? Bro, watch Miami, watch the Ravens, watch Oakland, the list can go on. I truly don\'t understand how you can say no team will be interested.

I am tired of defending Brooks. Not that I think he is that great, but he gets way too much crap. I guess we all have to have our scapegoat. I would choose Venturi

WhoDat thanks for posting what you think we should do, although it was broad, as you said. But see, even you had the QB position lower than #1 on the list of issues.

So let\'s discuss LB\'s, DT\'s and more LB\'s. Let\'s discuss OL, new coaches...

Syco, thanks man. You have us going in the right direction in our discussion, and you make some good points.

I wish we could have Haz fired now, so we can get a new coach to start scouting the team and picking his weapons from now. Use the remainder games to test new guys....


Thanks for the good discussion guys.