Euphoria

Ingram's last year with us if he doesn't do something.

We have to have a run game to win.

|Mitch|

he was our best runner last year; maybe the lack of run game is not his fault... That ever occur to his haters?

Jack Vegas

PT was our best running back last year. Ingram beefed up his stats in that one game against the Cowboys. Take away that one game and his seemingly impressive 4.9 yards per carry goes all the way down to 3.7 yards per carry.

PT didn't have a YPC as good as Ingram's but he was more consistent game to game, he contributes much more in the passing game (77 catches for 513 yards is hard to argue with) and he's a much better blocker. Those three things are much more important in an offense that is based on timing, passing and keeping on schedule when it comes to down and distance.

I want Ingram to succeed as much as anybody here and I'm rooting for him, and I loved seeing him ball out in the playoff games. But let's not pretend he's suddenly our best running back. We've seen decent stretches from him in the past and he never turned it into long-term, sustained success. He's got to be a lot more consistent.

|Mitch|

Seriously?! Let's ignore one game because the stats from that game hurts my argument... Absolutely ridiculous

If you want to do that then we hsve to drop Pierres game against the Bucs where he had 5.8 ypc on 5 carries or his 7.3 ypc Atl game

Jack Vegas

Do you not understand the concept of outliers? I only had one freshman course in statistics, but I know enough to understand how one big number in a series of much smaller numbers can skew the averages.

Ask yourself this question: Other than that Cowboys game, how many games did Ingram really impress. 1 or 2 maybe. He certainly wasn't as consistently productive a member of the team as Thomas was over the course of the season.

But I can play that game with PT too. Take out PT's best game of the season, and his average drops from 3.7 to 3.4. Not nearly as big a drop as 4.9 to 3.7. That alone tells you he's a more consistent player on a game to game basis, not even taking into account the pass blocking and receptions which I think everyone with half a brain on this board would acknowledge is an extremely important part of the Saints offense.

Here are some game logs for comparison. Stats don't tell the whole story, obviously, but it's a pretty good starting point.

Pierre Thomas Game By Game Stats and Performance - New Orleans Saints - ESPN

Mark Ingram Game By Game Stats and Performance - New Orleans Saints - ESPN

|Mitch|

the run game sucked as a whole for most of the season; but keep hating and blame Mark for it all