neugey

The 53-man roster is for sure now far, far too small. Injuries are too frequent and players today are too specialized. You now have blocking tight ends and receiving tight-ends. You have receivers that can only play in the slot. Corners who specialize in man to man but can't do much else. In the 70's and 80's it was more 'one size fits all', but today for every position there are two or three implied sub-positions. The players are bigger and faster and more players get hurt. The NFL is worried about concussions and taking concussed players off the field more often for evaluation (and rightly so), yet you can only have 46 players active. A NFL player shouldn't be cut and readded to the team 8 times a season just because of active roster gymnastics. Careers are getting shorter (due to injury and salary cap concerns) and thus the average NFL player is quite a bit younger. More players seeing time on the field are unproven commodities for the purposes of NFL-calibre play. What this means is you have a playing environment that is a little more similar to college football - there is more volatility, more depth chart changes. And yet if you told any NCAA Div 1 coach that they had to cut their active roster to 46 players before they coached their next game, they'd be spitting fire.

The active/inactive roster sizes need to be pushed up from 46/53 to 53/60. More liberal activation and demotion to practice squad should be allowed. And then there's an even more sensible improvement - clone MLB and allow expanded rosters in the last month of the season, or at least the last 2-3 weeks. Make it so the players don't use up their season of FA eligibility for their callup to the expanded roster. The NFL powerhouses get a shot in the arm toward the end of a long, physical season. The cellar-dwellars get to try out marginal players and mine for diamonds in the rough. Not every player will like this idea (and neither would the NFLPA in some regards) but it tremendously helps the game.

If the NFL could get it together, maybe we would see SJB gets some snaps. Because I'm sure most of the reason he was held back was for FA-eligibility reasons. The Saints have been DREADFUL at developing talent for at least the last two years. We continue progressing this way and this team will be a horrible 4-win mess for numerous years to come. But I can't throw Payton under the bus, perhaps just a limb or two, because a lot of it is an NFL problem because of what I've said above.

blackangold

SJB not being active has nothing to do with what you are saying. FFS we had 3 qbs active today and SJB still inactive.

Although I agree the roster needs to be expanded.

Foot Stomper

Not an excuse in my opinion.

We just don't have very good football players or very good coaching right now. Look at the good teams today and they have hard nosed, tough football players. We have slackers for the most part. Good idea on expanding the roster and game day actives. I have made similar post before but I don't think it would have helped this team.

NOLA54

No excuses should be our motto for next year.

vpheughan

Yeah, it's the NFL'S fault. Increasing the roster limit will equal having more marginal players. Did you watch all the "Ex Saint" players today. They were all over the NFL

neugey

Yeah maybe it's not a good excuse. Maybe it's just time for Payton to go. It's a hard realization that the coach who saved team and the city from the depths of hell and then made it freeze over with the SB win a few years later has lost his mojo.

I'd rather this organization make the tough call on this now than a few years later. I'm just afraid we will have a number of 3-4 win seasons and a major rebuilding effort required by the time the organization sees the writing on the wall.

I still think Payton is a good guy, but I also think he and this team have lost their way. We went from being the hungriest team to being the fattest team. We're a team that seems to care more about endorsements, commercials, ticket sales, popularity, fantasy football, statistics, social media and all these things that are just fools gold. It has become a picture of complacency. At least when we had Ditka and Haz we still had players playing hard.

More and more, I don't see a path to get back to where we want to be that includes Payton. Payton has us too far down the wrong approach and none of the players seem to care anymore. We need a guy like Zimmer with the Vikings who is more of a hard-nosed s**tkicker. We may not find the 'right' guy on the first try, but at least we will begin on the next journey and that alone will wake up the team.

vpheughan

Fantasy Football? What other kind of football is there?

QBREES9

No excuses! You get to play 16 games. Show up, and play.

Mr.Riaton

I want to give Sean at least one more season before I can decide if I want him to stay or go. If he approaches next offseason and season like he did this year,and/or he says he's gonna make big changes,but does very little change,then that shows me that he is stubborn and refuses to adapt and does not have the best intentions for this team. If that's the case,then I'll go down there and pack his bags myself. This is not the first time we've gone 7-9 with him and he's fixed things in the past. Not saying it'll happen this time....hell,it might get a lot worse,but I'm having faith he'll pull through until he proves me wrong.

WhoDat!656

IMO the front office crapped in the bed when they judged Harper & Jenkins value more by their cap hit than on their leadership abilities.

Considering how well Harper and Jenkins played their 1st season on new teams it is obvious than that they weren't released/traded because of ability. It is possible that the Saints wanted to keep both of them but they refused to restructure or take a pay cut.