in case you missed it

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 04:26 PM

There is NO ONE here who doesn\'t want our boys to win. If you guys really buy into this Parity stuff, which you appear to, there is no need to lose in the short run. We should just be able to go out and buy the guys we need to win. If you don\'t buy into parity, then stop complaining about it.

I can see from this Kool you are not understanding the actual complaint about parity. But I will speak for myself. I never said I was for or against parity, I said parity is a useful tool for mediocre owners to sell crap moves and false attempts at getting better to fans, and having them believe it. How is that being for or against it? It is good because in theory, everyone DOES have a chance. In actuality though, it allows owners like Benson not to fire Haslett or require he dump Venturi or to spend in free agency.

The argument of losing in the short run has been made by myself and others several times, before this parity discussion even happened. I don\'t see how they tie in. Those ADVOCATING parity, such as yourself, feel as though at 8-8, we are on the brink, and that\'s cool. Why should those who feel it allows owners to hold teams back not be able to complain about it? That statement was very confusing to me.

So let me summarize. I am not for or against parity, it is both good and bad. Parity has nothing to do with how I feel about losing. You feel where we are at, 8-8 is enough with a few moves, I feel where we are at 8-8 is smoke and mirrors. And parity allows the smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that we have an owner who is basically doing nothing and wanting to sell it to us as steps in the right direction, \"Cause on any given Sunday.....\"

JKool · 02-10-2005, 04:49 PM

Whodi,

The last sentence of my post that you quoted was confusing, even to me. I don\'t know what I meant there. Apologies.

Also, I am familiar with your desire for the team to lose so that we will get better. The other side doesn\'t want us to NOT get better; that side just thinks you CAN get better without losing. I have made that argument many times (just as you have made the counter argument many times).

Here is the argument that I made twice here that you appear to want to address (just ignore that other carp I said):

On the parity and Benson point, it sounds to me like a conspiracy theory (where is 08 when you need him). The idea you guys seem to be pushing is that Benson doesn\'t want to win and he can hide behind parity. Well, I offered a different explanation: he does want to win and for a number of years. Free Agency requires one to make shrewd moves to get good players (pick up guys like Horn, Glover, or Knight) on the cheap who can produce for a long time. Of coruse, when you try to do that sometimes you get Ruffs.

I challenge you to find the evidence that shows the difference between this theory I just made up (want to win + FA) and the current popular view (doesn\'t want to win + Parity). I bet those roughly cover the data the same.

Sure, owners could hide behind parity, but it is not obvious to me how one could be so sure that is what is going on in our case.

I understand how the part I said at the end, which you so nicely quoted, was confusing (apologies for getting off track there). However, it is awfully unkind of you to point out how \"I don\'t understand\", when I understood just fine (see quoted argument).

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 04:58 PM

I didn\'t mean to say you didn\'t understand as you being dumb or anything, which I KNOW is FAR FAR from the truth. I just felt maybe our wires were getting crossed about how I felt. My apologies. As you have now yourself said it was confusing to you also, I can pass it off as a temporary moment of insanity.

But at any rate, it wasn\'t meant as a slight, just a means to kick off my explanation.

I can see your point, but if we are a victim to bad moves over and over and over, how does an owner who does nothing to correct this just stand pat year after year after year? If I worked for Carmax, and the cars I bought from customers were lemons over and over and over and they didn\'t pan out and we couldn\'t sell them, wouldn\'t Carmax fire me? Whoever is making these decisions should have been fired, Haslett shoudl have been fired, Venturi should have been fired, Loomis should have been moved but we got NONE of that. SO as there may be SOME bad luck in free agency, year after year after year? So the owner who does not correct the person making these decisions does not seem like he wants to win to me, and is hiding behind this parity to justify doing nothing.

Danno · 02-10-2005, 05:09 PM

3. I do not see where we have tried to get better year after year. You may have to explain that one to me. Where has this team tried to get better?

OK Whodi, lets see, these are things we\'ve done to TRY and get better. You can easily dismiss them because many didn\'t pan out, but you can\'t say they didn\'t TRY.

Traded 2 picks and Signed Tebuckey Jones to huge contract to TRY and improve the FS position, most think we overpaid to get him..
Signed Wayne Gandy to TRY and improve the O-line, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Dale Carter to TRY and improve CB position, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed David Sloan to TRY to improve the TE position, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Ernie Conwell to TRY and improve the TE position, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Bryan Young to TRY and improve the DT position, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Norman Hand to TRY and improve versus the run, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Grady Jackson to TRY and improve versus the run, most think we overpaid to get him.
Signed Freddy Thomas to huge contract to TRY and keep our talent, most now think we overpaid to keep him.
Traded TWO 1st round picks to TRY and land an answer in the middle.
Released Grady Jackson to TRY and improve team chemistry.
Traded for a high priced CB, Mike McKenzie to TRY and improve our CB\'s.
Traded Rickey Williams for draft picks to TRY and hand the keys to Deuce.
TRIED to trade up this year to land Jonathan Vilma.
TRIED to trade up last year to land Chris Simms.
Signed AB to huge contract after he showed promise his 1st year.
Franchised Darren Howard despite the fact he was proving to be injury prone.
Drafted Deuce McAllister, instead of a popular \"need\" position.
Drafted Will Smith, instead of a popular \"need\" position.
Built a state of the art indoor practice facility to TRY and improve training camp efficiencies.
Hired a proven D-line coach to TRY and help the D-line improve.
Fired and Hired a WR coach to TRY and improve our WR\'s.
Let McCarthy walk to TRY and improve the OC position.

All the things I listed above were done to TRY and improve this team. While the results haven\'t been nearly as successful as we hoped, the effort is definitely there. I think too many are focusing on the few things we haven\'t done. Fire Haz, fire Venturi, sign 6 new LB\'s, etc.

[Edited on 10/2/2005 by Danno the idiot]

[Edited on 10/2/2005 by Danno]

ScottyRo · 02-10-2005, 05:24 PM

Benson makes all personnel moves by proxy through Loomis since Loomis has to run everything by him first.

Parity didn\'t water down the NFL. That was expansion. The same amount of talent exists. It is just spread among more teams.

Also, parity isn\'t the tool the owners are using against the \"gullible\" fans. The tool is free agency. It wouldn\'t matter how close the teams are matched, if a team came through a season and nearly made the playoffs, the owner and staff would say a couple of free agents moves are all that is needed. The gullible fan would buy into it too, but parity makes it more believable because parity makes it more true.

We couldn\'t have free agency without the salary cap or there\'d be no parity at all. The NFL would be more like (although much more interesting) MLB. Parity is good. I bet you\'ll find there have been half as many blowout superbowls since 1995 as there have been in the 10 years previous to \'95. That\'s parity.

I disagree with the author that parity is the problem. We have hope for a better next year because we always have. Maybe some fans are tricked into believing it is more possible by the org, but I think the intelligent fan, of which there are more than the author probably knows, comes to the conclusion that next year can be better because of the realities of the NFL and free agency, plus the draft.

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 05:26 PM

I see your point, but look at mine. The person who is making these decisions that didn\'t work out should have been fired right? You can TRY all you want, but the results are wins right? You are right in the fact that I look at what happened with players who were brought in, and not just the fact we were bringing people in. You also forgot Orlando Ruff.

So here\'s my rebuttal. Of all those you listed, how many have panned out? How many were highly sought free agenct and how many were re-treads and cast offs? Mostly all were the latter. So if more than 70% of your decisions have not panned out, shouldn\'t the person responsible be gone? I highly doubt it was McCarthy. So if you are in a position to continually make bad decisions, and your owner does nothing, how does that show he is trying to win? Seems like he is using parity to say \"Yeah my guys made a bunch of bad decisions, but I am not firing anyone cause we can win like anyone else in the NFL, it has happened to other teams recently.\" Again, see my CarMax example I posted to JKool.

ScottyRo · 02-10-2005, 05:32 PM

Benson wil not fire himself, Whodi. That\'s where the problem is. He is perfectly content with the staff because they cowtail to him. When somebody steps out and makes a move that looking back now was one of the best moves in Saints history (trading Ricky) that person gets fired for not getting Benson\'s stamp of approval.

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 05:40 PM

That\'s my point Scotty. Exactly. Benson doesn\'t care about wins and losses. He cares that the NFL pushing parity will get butts in the seats. He cares that occasionally a team comes from nowhere and does something good, fans here will believe we can be that team next year, or the next year, or the next year. He has a money making machine. If there were NO cinderella stories, and NO teams came out of nowhere to win anything, does anyone honestly believe we would buy into this one or two more guys or let\'s give the coaching staff another year stuff? Hell no. We would be wondering why the hell someone else keeps winning and not us. But our old buddy parity says, \"Hey, don\'t feel like that. You can win like anyone else, no matter how little ownership does to actually improve your team. Everyoen is bad in the NFL, we are all even. There is no difference between you and the Pats that another off-season of new names with little talent can\'t fix. Wanna get high?\"

Danno · 02-10-2005, 05:41 PM

I see your point, but look at mine. The person who is making these decisions that didn\'t work out should have been fired right? You can TRY all you want, but the results are wins right? You are right in the fact that I look at what happened with players who were brought in, and not just the fact we were bringing people in. You also forgot Orlando Ruff. So here\'s my rebuttal. Of all those you listed, how many have panned out? How many were highly sought free agenct and how many were re-treads and cast offs? Mostly all were the latter. So if more than 70% of your decisions have not panned out, shouldn\'t the person responsible be gone? I highly doubt it was McCarthy. So if you are in a position to continually make bad decisions, and your owner does nothing, how does that show he is trying to win? Seems like he is using parity to say \"Yeah my guys made a bunch of bad decisions, but I am not firing anyone cause we can win like anyone else in the NFL, it has happened to other teams recently.\" Again, see my CarMax example I posted to JKool.

Don\'t confuse results with trying. I mentioned that 10 times.
You said we weren\'t trying. We are trying, we just suck at it.

So you\'re basing your comment \"I don\'t see where we tried\" on the fact that Benson hasn\'t fired the GM or Coach, or DC. OK, well you should have said that. I didn\'t read it that way.
Benson did fire Meuller, who was responsible for a lot of those mistakes.
Benson did hire Riprish to help run the draft.
Benson did hire someone to help Lil\' Rickie with his defense.
I\'m not defending their results, I\'m defending their effort, which I believe you were calling out.
Benson wants to win, he just doesn\'t have a clue how to.

JKool · 02-10-2005, 05:43 PM

(1) No one forgot Ruff:

Free Agency requires one to make shrewd moves to get good players (pick up guys like Horn, Glover, or Knight) on the cheap who can produce for a long time. Of coruse, when you try to do that sometimes you get Ruffs.

(2) I will now add this to my \"theory\": Want to win long term + FA + unclear how personnel decisions are made is as good as Don\'t want to win + Parity.

In this case, opinion appears to me to be acceptable, since I don\'t think we can easily distinguish these two accounts of what is going on.

Until an account of how people get hired and fired in this regime gets cleared up (and I doubt it will for us fans anyway), then the Carmax example is unclear as to its success in suggesting which theory is right.

02-10-2005, 04:26 PM	#21
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it There is NO ONE here who doesn\'t want our boys to win. If you guys really buy into this Parity stuff, which you appear to, there is no need to lose in the short run. We should just be able to go out and buy the guys we need to win. If you don\'t buy into parity, then stop complaining about it. I can see from this Kool you are not understanding the actual complaint about parity. But I will speak for myself. I never said I was for or against parity, I said parity is a useful tool for mediocre owners to sell crap moves and false attempts at getting better to fans, and having them believe it. How is that being for or against it? It is good because in theory, everyone DOES have a chance. In actuality though, it allows owners like Benson not to fire Haslett or require he dump Venturi or to spend in free agency. The argument of losing in the short run has been made by myself and others several times, before this parity discussion even happened. I don\'t see how they tie in. Those ADVOCATING parity, such as yourself, feel as though at 8-8, we are on the brink, and that\'s cool. Why should those who feel it allows owners to hold teams back not be able to complain about it? That statement was very confusing to me. So let me summarize. I am not for or against parity, it is both good and bad. Parity has nothing to do with how I feel about losing. You feel where we are at, 8-8 is enough with a few moves, I feel where we are at 8-8 is smoke and mirrors. And parity allows the smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that we have an owner who is basically doing nothing and wanting to sell it to us as steps in the right direction, \"Cause on any given Sunday.....\"

02-10-2005, 04:49 PM	#22
JKool 1000 Posts + Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 2,423	in case you missed it Whodi, The last sentence of my post that you quoted was confusing, even to me. I don\'t know what I meant there. Apologies. Also, I am familiar with your desire for the team to lose so that we will get better. The other side doesn\'t want us to NOT get better; that side just thinks you CAN get better without losing. I have made that argument many times (just as you have made the counter argument many times). Here is the argument that I made twice here that you appear to want to address (just ignore that other carp I said): On the parity and Benson point, it sounds to me like a conspiracy theory (where is 08 when you need him). The idea you guys seem to be pushing is that Benson doesn\'t want to win and he can hide behind parity. Well, I offered a different explanation: he does want to win and for a number of years. Free Agency requires one to make shrewd moves to get good players (pick up guys like Horn, Glover, or Knight) on the cheap who can produce for a long time. Of coruse, when you try to do that sometimes you get Ruffs. I challenge you to find the evidence that shows the difference between this theory I just made up (want to win + FA) and the current popular view (doesn\'t want to win + Parity). I bet those roughly cover the data the same. Sure, owners could hide behind parity, but it is not obvious to me how one could be so sure that is what is going on in our case. I understand how the part I said at the end, which you so nicely quoted, was confusing (apologies for getting off track there). However, it is awfully unkind of you to point out how \"I don\'t understand\", when I understood just fine (see quoted argument).
	"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

02-10-2005, 04:58 PM	#23
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it I didn\'t mean to say you didn\'t understand as you being dumb or anything, which I KNOW is FAR FAR from the truth. I just felt maybe our wires were getting crossed about how I felt. My apologies. As you have now yourself said it was confusing to you also, I can pass it off as a temporary moment of insanity. But at any rate, it wasn\'t meant as a slight, just a means to kick off my explanation. I can see your point, but if we are a victim to bad moves over and over and over, how does an owner who does nothing to correct this just stand pat year after year after year? If I worked for Carmax, and the cars I bought from customers were lemons over and over and over and they didn\'t pan out and we couldn\'t sell them, wouldn\'t Carmax fire me? Whoever is making these decisions should have been fired, Haslett shoudl have been fired, Venturi should have been fired, Loomis should have been moved but we got NONE of that. SO as there may be SOME bad luck in free agency, year after year after year? So the owner who does not correct the person making these decisions does not seem like he wants to win to me, and is hiding behind this parity to justify doing nothing.

02-10-2005, 05:09 PM	#24
Danno Truth Addict Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Spanish Fort, AL (via NO and B/R) Posts: 24,720	in case you missed it 3. I do not see where we have tried to get better year after year. You may have to explain that one to me. Where has this team tried to get better? OK Whodi, lets see, these are things we\'ve done to TRY and get better. You can easily dismiss them because many didn\'t pan out, but you can\'t say they didn\'t TRY. Traded 2 picks and Signed Tebuckey Jones to huge contract to TRY and improve the FS position, most think we overpaid to get him.. Signed Wayne Gandy to TRY and improve the O-line, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Dale Carter to TRY and improve CB position, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed David Sloan to TRY to improve the TE position, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Ernie Conwell to TRY and improve the TE position, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Bryan Young to TRY and improve the DT position, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Norman Hand to TRY and improve versus the run, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Grady Jackson to TRY and improve versus the run, most think we overpaid to get him. Signed Freddy Thomas to huge contract to TRY and keep our talent, most now think we overpaid to keep him. Traded TWO 1st round picks to TRY and land an answer in the middle. Released Grady Jackson to TRY and improve team chemistry. Traded for a high priced CB, Mike McKenzie to TRY and improve our CB\'s. Traded Rickey Williams for draft picks to TRY and hand the keys to Deuce. TRIED to trade up this year to land Jonathan Vilma. TRIED to trade up last year to land Chris Simms. Signed AB to huge contract after he showed promise his 1st year. Franchised Darren Howard despite the fact he was proving to be injury prone. Drafted Deuce McAllister, instead of a popular \"need\" position. Drafted Will Smith, instead of a popular \"need\" position. Built a state of the art indoor practice facility to TRY and improve training camp efficiencies. Hired a proven D-line coach to TRY and help the D-line improve. Fired and Hired a WR coach to TRY and improve our WR\'s. Let McCarthy walk to TRY and improve the OC position. All the things I listed above were done to TRY and improve this team. While the results haven\'t been nearly as successful as we hoped, the effort is definitely there. I think too many are focusing on the few things we haven\'t done. Fire Haz, fire Venturi, sign 6 new LB\'s, etc. [Edited on 10/2/2005 by Danno the idiot] [Edited on 10/2/2005 by Danno]

02-10-2005, 05:24 PM	#25
ScottyRo 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Williamsburg, VA (ugh, the food here) Posts: 1,704	in case you missed it Benson makes all personnel moves by proxy through Loomis since Loomis has to run everything by him first. Parity didn\'t water down the NFL. That was expansion. The same amount of talent exists. It is just spread among more teams. Also, parity isn\'t the tool the owners are using against the \"gullible\" fans. The tool is free agency. It wouldn\'t matter how close the teams are matched, if a team came through a season and nearly made the playoffs, the owner and staff would say a couple of free agents moves are all that is needed. The gullible fan would buy into it too, but parity makes it more believable because parity makes it more true. We couldn\'t have free agency without the salary cap or there\'d be no parity at all. The NFL would be more like (although much more interesting) MLB. Parity is good. I bet you\'ll find there have been half as many blowout superbowls since 1995 as there have been in the 10 years previous to \'95. That\'s parity. I disagree with the author that parity is the problem. We have hope for a better next year because we always have. Maybe some fans are tricked into believing it is more possible by the org, but I think the intelligent fan, of which there are more than the author probably knows, comes to the conclusion that next year can be better because of the realities of the NFL and free agency, plus the draft.

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02-10-2005, 05:26 PM	#26
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it I see your point, but look at mine. The person who is making these decisions that didn\'t work out should have been fired right? You can TRY all you want, but the results are wins right? You are right in the fact that I look at what happened with players who were brought in, and not just the fact we were bringing people in. You also forgot Orlando Ruff. So here\'s my rebuttal. Of all those you listed, how many have panned out? How many were highly sought free agenct and how many were re-treads and cast offs? Mostly all were the latter. So if more than 70% of your decisions have not panned out, shouldn\'t the person responsible be gone? I highly doubt it was McCarthy. So if you are in a position to continually make bad decisions, and your owner does nothing, how does that show he is trying to win? Seems like he is using parity to say \"Yeah my guys made a bunch of bad decisions, but I am not firing anyone cause we can win like anyone else in the NFL, it has happened to other teams recently.\" Again, see my CarMax example I posted to JKool.

02-10-2005, 05:32 PM	#27
ScottyRo 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Williamsburg, VA (ugh, the food here) Posts: 1,704	in case you missed it Benson wil not fire himself, Whodi. That\'s where the problem is. He is perfectly content with the staff because they cowtail to him. When somebody steps out and makes a move that looking back now was one of the best moves in Saints history (trading Ricky) that person gets fired for not getting Benson\'s stamp of approval.

02-10-2005, 05:40 PM	#28
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it That\'s my point Scotty. Exactly. Benson doesn\'t care about wins and losses. He cares that the NFL pushing parity will get butts in the seats. He cares that occasionally a team comes from nowhere and does something good, fans here will believe we can be that team next year, or the next year, or the next year. He has a money making machine. If there were NO cinderella stories, and NO teams came out of nowhere to win anything, does anyone honestly believe we would buy into this one or two more guys or let\'s give the coaching staff another year stuff? Hell no. We would be wondering why the hell someone else keeps winning and not us. But our old buddy parity says, \"Hey, don\'t feel like that. You can win like anyone else, no matter how little ownership does to actually improve your team. Everyoen is bad in the NFL, we are all even. There is no difference between you and the Pats that another off-season of new names with little talent can\'t fix. Wanna get high?\"

02-10-2005, 05:41 PM	#29
Danno Truth Addict Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Spanish Fort, AL (via NO and B/R) Posts: 24,720	in case you missed it I see your point, but look at mine. The person who is making these decisions that didn\'t work out should have been fired right? You can TRY all you want, but the results are wins right? You are right in the fact that I look at what happened with players who were brought in, and not just the fact we were bringing people in. You also forgot Orlando Ruff. So here\'s my rebuttal. Of all those you listed, how many have panned out? How many were highly sought free agenct and how many were re-treads and cast offs? Mostly all were the latter. So if more than 70% of your decisions have not panned out, shouldn\'t the person responsible be gone? I highly doubt it was McCarthy. So if you are in a position to continually make bad decisions, and your owner does nothing, how does that show he is trying to win? Seems like he is using parity to say \"Yeah my guys made a bunch of bad decisions, but I am not firing anyone cause we can win like anyone else in the NFL, it has happened to other teams recently.\" Again, see my CarMax example I posted to JKool. Don\'t confuse results with trying. I mentioned that 10 times. You said we weren\'t trying. We are trying, we just suck at it. So you\'re basing your comment \"I don\'t see where we tried\" on the fact that Benson hasn\'t fired the GM or Coach, or DC. OK, well you should have said that. I didn\'t read it that way. Benson did fire Meuller, who was responsible for a lot of those mistakes. Benson did hire Riprish to help run the draft. Benson did hire someone to help Lil\' Rickie with his defense. I\'m not defending their results, I\'m defending their effort, which I believe you were calling out. Benson wants to win, he just doesn\'t have a clue how to.

02-10-2005, 05:43 PM	#30
JKool 1000 Posts + Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 2,423	in case you missed it (1) No one forgot Ruff: Free Agency requires one to make shrewd moves to get good players (pick up guys like Horn, Glover, or Knight) on the cheap who can produce for a long time. Of coruse, when you try to do that sometimes you get Ruffs. (2) I will now add this to my \"theory\": Want to win long term + FA + unclear how personnel decisions are made is as good as Don\'t want to win + Parity. In this case, opinion appears to me to be acceptable, since I don\'t think we can easily distinguish these two accounts of what is going on. Until an account of how people get hired and fired in this regime gets cleared up (and I doubt it will for us fans anyway), then the Carmax example is unclear as to its success in suggesting which theory is right.
	"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks