VegasSaint9

Winning your division at 7-8-1 isnt competettive it just came down to who sucked the least and that happened to be carolina last year.

lee909

Last year yes it was bas around but that was a asterisk on a normal string division. Since 2008 the number of teams with 9 or more wins in the NFC South

2008 3
2009 2
2010 3
2011 2
2012 1
2012 2

Thats a strong competitive division

hagan714

Drew can only do so much.

comparing QB to QB really is just not right

comparing the front offices is a better way of looking at it. In that regard, i have to place the saints dead last against this elite list of front offices.

when i look at the saints i always think elite and the rest of the NFL beneath them have little to do with influencing my opinions. Among established teams at the top, we are not the cream of the crop. To be the cream of the crop among the the turds of the NFL means absolutely nothing.

i hold this team to higher standards than that as long as Drew is at the helm

Our player moves across the board have been very poor compared to teams we want to be compared too.

when the saints are able to win back to back crowns then i can say there is hope.

till then, so sorry charlie, no tickie no laundry.

"We may have lost the game, but you'll be hurting tomorrow." Doug Atkins

SloMotion

In terms of Rodgers playing with a weak(er) defense and making other teams fear them, those defenses always had one or two playmakers, ie Clay Matthews, Charles Woodson, A.J. Hawk, Clinton-Dix types at key positions that were gonna' make key plays at key times.

This seems to apply to most teams but adding an elite QB like Rodgers, Manning, Brady, Brees is what puts the team over the top, IMO. Seems like Brady, Manning & Rodgers always have intact offensive lines, whereas Brees has not of late. Also, in Brees' defense, he hasn't had those key defensive guys either, so I guess what I'm saying is that it's a combination of and elite QB and a few key defensive guys that opponents are fearing. JMO.

aintasinner

The good news is that as awful as some of the Saints' play has been, they've been able to beat teams led by Brady, Manning, and Rodgers. As bad as things were for us last year and as good as they were for Green Bay, we still managed to beat them. I have a feeling the Pats, Broncos, and Green Bay, fear playing us more than any other team on their schedule. Even when we are having a losing season.

SaintsBro

For years it always came down to the first Falcons game of the two, the early one.... Whoever won that game was in the driver's seat, had the advantage, and the other team was limping along playing catchup, spending the rest of the season behind the 8-ball. In the old days Payton used to have Atlanta's number, it was impressive how many times he racked up those solid wins. That was a period of extreme confidence and swagger. In fact, the coach before Mike Smith (forget his name) actually quit or got FIRED, a few days after losing to the Saints.


But despite some people still trash talking, that situation has changed and the most recent versions of the series are more like basically breaking roughly even, .500 either way, give or take. The Falcons have crept back into the rivalry. Whether that's from the Falcons actually getting better or the Saints getting weaker, is hard to say. But the years they win that first matchup of the two, they tend to do better.

(Plus the league has been giving the Faclons scheduling breaks and help, to try and even the series out, giving the Saints short weeks and Atlanta long weeks, Saints road games in prime time but not home games in the Dome, etc., giving the Falcons easy opponents the weeks before to set them up for the Saints while the Saints have to run a gauntlet of a difficult schedule, but all that's another story.)

Now like it or not but Carolina has also added themselves into the mix, and again a lot of people don't like to give them respect or props, but they have found ways to get to Brees and to rattle him.

I remember that one year in Carolina (2012?) where Brees threw a ridiculous bone-headed pick 6, on like his own 8 yard line, early in the game, and the guy (Captain Munnerlin, maybe?) just tiptoed and waltzed in the other direction for the easy cupcake score. And the rest of the game from that moment on, was just basically, it was borderline garbage time -- Brees and the whole team was a mess, it was a trainwreck, playing from behind all day.

The OP is correct, Rodgers, Manning, and Brady have dominated their divisions and won them every year, or close to it. Brees has not. That cannot be denied.

CheramieIII

They've dominated because of the rest of their teams. Our games rely more on Brees then the rest of the team. Brees starts trying to hard and throws INTS into the red or end zone when they could win the game. Receivers need to learn that you have to look back at the QB a lot when you're inside the 20. I can't stand when a CB doesn't look at the QB ever and then they expect to break up a reception. Absolutely Stupid

Beastmode

Not to sound like a crybaby, but Rodgers, Manning, and Brady...they have been in very stable environments. We got Brees as a reject, a destroyed city, and also had to deal with RG's perverted sense of justice on full throttle. Despite all that, we are almost always on the edge of making the playoffs.

ikecomp

The simple answer to this question is that they haven't had to deal with some of the same qb's as us. I dare anybody to name 2 QB's as good as Ryan and Cam in the same division as the other qb's. The closest is probably matthew stafford and jay cutler but both have been widly inconsistent.

Not to mention rodgers lost to the saints qb last year and almost lost to the falcons qb if Julio didn't get injured down the stretch. I'm not a fan of the teams in our division but they have better qb's than every other division that manning, rodgers and brady plays in.

CharityMike

That was 1 year in the Payton era. Can't base the entire argument off 1 year.