What I think really happened ...
 

First let me state that some of these are totally up to speculation and I have no inside source within the building.

1. Brees played hurt most of this year. Obliques can be a testy thing , one moment you can throw a 90 mile an hour fastball and feel fine . You sit awkwardly on the couch and boom.

2. Graham significantly injured and kept reinjuring his shoulder. I don't even think he was at 60% this season. He was a decoy for a reason ..

3. We lost the best player on our defense. Byrd didn't look all pro by any means in his first few starts , but a pro of that caliber doesn't stay down. He would've led this secondary along with Warren on a tear. All those 3rd and 30s would be a done deal with him there.

4. We lost our most explosive weapon on offense. Ingram aside , Cooks was the best guy on offense this year.

5. We lost our Muscle in the secondary when bush went down. Regardless of how he covered , nobody dared run a foolish route into the deep middle with bush lurking. See Edelman hit again.

6. Westbank was bothered by a nagging injury. Our best corner #3 in the league by my watch was always hobbling , even shutting down boldin DAMN there crawlings between plays.

7. Ingram was hurt too. We didn't miss all that much of a beat because Robinson is a workhorse, but Ingram undoubtedly opened everyobe up down field. He would've gotten into an even better groove this year.

8. Greer was far more important to this defense than anyone will care to admit. You can say loss of leadership with the big 4 leaving town took an affect , sure to some extent. But Greer shut things down opposite of Westbank which provided Cam and Galette with that much needed extra second to get there.

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I also think that the reason we lost at home and won on the road was obvious too.

Superdome crowd noise is usually a plus but it also has an effect on defense too. The home crowd noise was to our detriment at home. Our young defense couldn't here anything.

Just look at road games in which the defense looked better each game and could better because of road noise levels. On the road, our defense played much better.

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Excellent observations!!!

I agree that Brees was hurting, after the bye week it did appear as if his velocity returned closer to normal.

I get that Graham had a bum shoulder, the issues I have with Graham are numerous. Without getting into it all right now, the biggest issue in my opinion for now is the Saints have not fully replaced Devery Henderson and Lance Moore yet, and now Colston is sliding off big time. Cooks and Stills both look promising, but they are not in the same league as Henderson or Moore yet, give them time, maybe. What that all means is Graham will consistently draw top cover guys on him until someone else becomes the prime threat on the team.

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I agree with everything you said, but I also believe some guys on the defensive side were reading their own press clippings. Thought they could get by on talent alone and forgot about hustle. On the offensive side, fix the line and you'll probably fix everything else.

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Exactly right

Cam Jordan, Akiem Hicks and Junior Galette were guilty of doing that

Galette got embarrassed by a rookie OL after saying "that's my newest victim" when the falcons drafted him.

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We need some real linebackers too

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I offer no excuses for the drop-off, it should always be next man up, we got out coached at times, we were lost at times and were horrible on both sided of the ball most of the time. By the 6th game of the season we should have been tuned in. I thought 11-5 was a pretty safe pick going into the season but watching the O being up and down and the D basically looking like pee-wee football players running around out there. I knew we were in trouble I just didn't know how much, well now I do. Tampa will be ready with all they can give and I don't expect us to come out and just lay down. Either we go 6-10 or 7-9. Our O is no where near the quick-strike O it has been and our D well I would rather not go there. Lots ande lots of flaws to be fixed but 1 thing I will add the kool-aid I drank this year want be drank so fast next season. I'll sip mine.

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Good reasons all. personally I think the main reasons were

1. The D-line regressed significantly, giving opposing QB's all day to throw. I think the coaches thought that would be one area that actually improved over last year, but it failed miserably. No name QB's picked us apart all year.

2. The plan for the #2 CB spot backfired. We though Champ had another year in him, and if not either PRob or White would step up and perform well. It didn't happen. Combine that with reason 1 above and you have the recipe for disaster we saw this year. It was fugly.

3. The O-line was weaker in the middle than we expected. Evans, Goodwin and Grubbs were all worse than they were last year. I don't think the coaches thought they'd decline so fast. Brees is at his best when he can step up and launch. He had to avoid way too much pass rush from all directions.

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For as bad as it has been lets not forget that though we have a record of 6-9, 5(2 in OT) of our loses we lost by a combined 16pts. We couldnt win the close games this year but that is expected with a young team. Freshen up the line and the depth on the front 7 for good rotation and we will be back to 10/11+ win seasons in no time. The loss last week looks bigger on paper than it was,its was 20-14 with 2:40 on the clock with Brees driving for a go ahead TD before the pick.

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While there's some truth to this, there is also truth in the old Parcells quote, "You are who you're record says you are." Your post does lend some optimism for the future, but many underperforming teams could come up with a similar list.

There are some questions that we have to ask, but will not know the answer to until next season:

1. Was Brees playing hurt or is he simply showing the declining abilities that age eventually brings to everyone? He may still throw for 5000 yds this season, so that gives hope, but I think everyone realized something was off with Brees this season. A better Brees is necessary if the Saints want to return to dominance.

2. What is wrong with Graham? Was it the shoulder injury, have teams discovered how to defense him, or did the contract create a fat cat syndrome? Time will tell.

3. Which defense 2013 or 2014 is closest to what to expect for 2015? Byrd needs to be what he was signed to be and Galette is going to have to play to his contract. There just isn't much cap space for new players, so those here will have to play better.

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The Saints have whiffed on the Center position for the last 4 years. Well this season it finally caught up to them. They had 5 chances to draft a Center and they passed on all of them. This time around there are no if's, ands or butts about it, they need to draft a Center. As for the defense, they got their butts handed to them and rightfully so. Some of them ate the cheese and got what they deserved. They need to keep their mouths shut and let their playing do the talking. Could some of the positions be upgraded? Absolutely. Hopefully this season taught them a lesson.

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Our next center is already on the roster, his name is Tim Lelito... Kid can play when given the chance... He starts next year, after Goodwin is shown the door

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That's all well and good but we still need someone to back him up, and the other guy on the roster that's backup center isn't gonna cut it. I forget his name.

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There is no one thing I can put my finger on why this season tanked so badly. Everyone from bng was pretty much spot on about their analysis. I love this thread.:bandg:

It started last season with losing Greer......we never recovered. And going into this season with P Roblem and White competing against Bailey and a raw draft pick for our starting #2 CB position was foolish. We don't develop defensive players well.

In the offseason we over reached with Byrd and Bailey then let veteran leadership go.

There was a pitiful attempt at fixing the center position. No attempt to fix the ILB'ers.....and an obvious bad evaluation of talent across the board.

The draft netted a good player that wound up injured but it cost us an additional third round draft pick. Besides that I have not seen much from this years draft. Too many reaches that didn't pan out.

We started the grueling training camp at the hell hole called Greenbriar. The team started slowly after that.

Drew tore his oblique and he never recovered totally from that. His timing has been off every since(scary thing is the whole team chemistry was off after that too). Even at OTA's we started losing players and then we started losing key players at an alarming rate.

We didn't upgrade the O-line and it showed that we have been draft heavy defensively because of the lack of depth.

No fresh ideas from any coaches.

The locker room died.

Too many people feeling over confident.............including everyone from players to FO.

Hydrate hydrate hydrate but stop drinking the damn Kool-Aid!

More injuries!

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I think for Brees it was that Vikings game when Munnerlyn flipped him on his head. Things were never right after that game.

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We had a major can of woopass poured on us in every game in the trenches!!!!!!!!!! While I agree with your assessment of players playing with injuries, every team came make that claim. That is also another reason Sean doesn't discuss injuries. Every team in the playoffs this year has had to deal injuries. We are not a playoff team for 3 reasons, none have to do with injuries that other teams haven't dealt with. 1) Unable to create take aways. 2) No pressure on opposition QB"s; as a result opposing teams making 3rd and long. 3) Not protecting Drew.

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Excellent observations!

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While I was in Metarie visiting, I decided to attend the early morning training camp which was open to the public however 10 minutes prior to the start we were told it had been cancelled due to weather :blueshock:

It was down hill from there on out.

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Here's something to think about. In the last 3 years we have had 2 loosing seasons and we haven't won the division since 2011. Is the problem deeper than we think?

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whatever the issues are one thing stands out more than anything over the past few years

Drew is getting hammered.

first thing is first fix this issue.

as drew goes so do the saints.

we will never have a defense that will lead the NFL in points allowed. so it goes to the back burner for now. get it to top 25 for now. one maybe two players added could do it.

fix this OL now. draft early and often and stop playing late round games. no ones job is safe! challenge everyone on the OL.

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All part of Benson's Master Plan to move to San Antonio. Let the team slowly go from bad to terrible. Throw in a couple of 7 -9, 6 -10 seasons. Fan apathy kicks in. Presto "No one shows up for games" "Lack of a fan base" Then in the middle of some dark rainy night a string of moving vans is seen heading down Airline towards the west...........

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We have to get through this next season without mortgaging our future. We have been living in cap hell for years because of constantly pushing contracts off. Now we have old guys who aren't worh what they're getting paid. Get through this season with Colston and Evans, and then cut them. If we can trade Evans, let's do it. If not he will have to be here one more year along with Colston, after which we can release them. I do not want to see us keep pushing contracts for these players to later, it is killing us later. We have to live through the pain one more season. In the mean time as Hagan said draft heavy on oline. Get some replacements for what we have that can be groomed to take over after this season.

By the way, I actually feel like our tackle position is fine. Yes, we need to draft a suitable backup and replacement for Strief, but our tackles, I thought, outplayed our interior. Center was awful, Jesus JGood is done. I mean maybe sign him as a back up to Tim. I thought Tim played well, not sure why he couldn't start?

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2012.