in case you missed it

LKelley67 · 02-10-2005, 11:05 AM

tp writer john deshazier had a great article on the pats tuesday. here is the beautifully written crux for saints fans...

...the NFL in particular -- so shamelessly pursue mediocrity and boast about it, celebrating "parity" as if it's the best thing that ever has happened.

A pack of average teams hovering around .500 until the regular-season finale, harboring realistic playoff hopes all the while, isn't a good thing. It's a sham at worst, the worst kind of false hope at best. Because many middling teams adopt foolish stances after their mediocre season is complete, and worse, use that misguided optimism to prey on gullible fans. The upshot is it simply enables the franchise to sell a bill of goods to folks who desperately want to believe an 8-8 team really is a Super Bowl contender.

Those packs of average teams love to preach that, but for a bad bounce here and a bad call there and one or two ill-timed penalties and injuries, they'd have been New England.

They say it over and over and over, even after the stretch loses elasticity, because the dynasty, New England, keeps winning over and over and over.

It'd be better for fans to use dynasties to unmask their hometown franchises, to weed out the excuses, to give them a target of what their franchise could and should look like for several years if it spends its time and money as wisely as do the Patriots.

sure we all throw some stones now n then, but by n large it is devoted fans in this forum that only want to see those excuses weeded out.

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 11:10 AM

Holy crap. That is the crux of what I have been saying forever. Many, many fans of this team have settled for mediocrity and drunk the kool-aid that is being spewed. We don\'t need leaders, we don\'t need team players, so on and so forth. Well, New England is the anti-thesis of that argument and THEY ARE WINNERS, consistently, over and over, and now over again. Why teams don\'t follow the blue-print of a winning org and settle for mediocrity on the false hope a middling team can do the impossible is beyond me. Very nice find Kelley.

GumboBC · 02-10-2005, 11:23 AM

New England has done something that no one thought was possible. They built a \"dynasty\" in the free-agent era.

Now there are folks who are wondering what the hell is wrong with the rest of the NFL teams. They say why not just follow the blue-print layed out by the Pats.

Well, that\'s a nice thought. But if only it were that easy.

First ... How many Bill Belichicks are out there?
Second ... Is it possible to clone Tom Brady?

Third... You can go from 8-8 to the super bowl. Which, somehow, the author of this article says is \"false\" hope.

In the past few years, I\'ve watched Carolina, Oakland, St. Louis, and Atlanta all go from 8-8, or worse, to the super bowl.

IMO, it isn\'t wise to think your team is going to duplicate New Englands success.

As far as the Saints goes ... No one is happy with mediocrity. But, I don\'t think anyone is thinking we can duplicate the Patriots either...

Danno · 02-10-2005, 12:21 PM

...the NFL in particular -- so shamelessly pursue mediocrity and boast about it, celebrating \"parity\" as if it\'s the best thing that ever has happened.

Complete Biillshut. Its not mediocrity, its competitiveness. What exactly is mediocre about spreading out talent among all the teams. Yea, how about we let 3 or 4 teams draft 7 rounds 1st, then let everyone else get the scraps. Boy, you\'d have 4 really great teams huh?
Parity IS the best thing to ever happen to the NFL. It makes the games extremely competitive and entertaining to watch. I find his comment assinine.

A pack of average teams hovering around .500 until the regular-season finale, harboring realistic playoff hopes all the while, isn\'t a good thing. It\'s a sham at worst, the worst kind of false hope at best.

Idiotic. A sham? How? I guess we should just let the 4 best teams play in the play-offs and if its only 2 really good teams we\'ll just skip the playoffs and go straight to the superbowl. Is there anything more exciting than an upstart cinderella team knocking off a contender in the playoffs. Atlanta over Green Bay, Carolina over Philly. New England over Oakland.
Lets just go back to 4 playoff teams. That\'ll eliminate this 9-7, 10-6 non-sense.

Because many middling teams adopt foolish stances after their mediocre season is complete, and worse, use that misguided optimism to prey on gullible fans. The upshot is it simply enables the franchise to sell a bill of goods to folks who desperately want to believe an 8-8 team really is a Super Bowl contender.

Yea, the 2003 Carolina fans must feel like complete morons. And the 2002 Falcon fans. And the 2001 New England fans. This guy is selling misery and the typical defeatist Saints fan is lappin it up with a side of gravy.

Those packs of average teams love to preach that, but for a bad bounce here and a bad call there and one or two ill-timed penalties and injuries, they\'d have been New England.

They say it over and over and over, even after the stretch loses elasticity, because the dynasty, New England, keeps winning over and over and over.

I don\'t recall anyone preaching \"over and over\" that a bounce or two would turn them into New England. Who the hell is he talking about? Oh thats right, \"they\" doesn\'t really exist, except in the mind of the uninformed. Oh, but wait a minute, I thought dynasties were dead in his awful world of \"mediocrity\". What an bunch of self pity BS. At least he\'s targeting the right fan-base.

Lets look at what this guy calls a bunch of 8-8 mediocrity.
Great teams, 13 - 16 wins (3 Teams)
Good teams, 10-12 wins (6 teams)
Average teams, 7-9 wins (11 teams, 4 finished 8-8)
Bad teams, 4 to 6 wins (11 teams)
Horrible teams, 3 wins or less (1 team)

So what it boils down to is...

Above average teams - 9
Average teams - 11
Below average teams -12

Uhh, how are these results much different from the glorious dynasty era? Kinda looks like 1/3 are good, 1/3 are average, and 1/3 are bad. You\'d think by his comments that we had 2 great teams, 2 bad teams and 28 average teams. Oh yeah, I forgot...Woe is me, I\'m a miserable Saints fan and its all parity\'s fault. Boooo Fricking Hooooo. Cry me a flipping black and gold river, loser!

JKool · 02-10-2005, 12:32 PM

I\'m going to have to go with Danno on this one.

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 12:38 PM

Anger much? It seems like SOMEONE is always being called an idiot in your posts Danno. I don\'t know if you haven\'t noticed, but we are the EXACT mediocre team that has been fed this EXACT mediocre BS over and over and over. How many times in this \"parity\" gotten us into the playoffs? Or Detroit? Or Arizona? Or the Bengals? Or the Dolphins? Or on and on and on? You see the same teams in the playoffs yearly and there may be one expection here or there. Now I for one do not long for the old days of a few teams owning everything, but like you said, does it seem much different?

What he is saying is mediocre teams, like us, who don\'t really wanna make changes to actually get better, like us, can lay on parity as a reason to make minor instead of major changes? Did we fire Haslett?did we fire Venturi? Did we get a new OC? Have we ever done jackity crap but look like fools in free agency? These are the exact changes he is talking about mediocre teams making and selling the fans, look at Atlanta, look at Carolina, look at Tampa Bay, but Tampa Bay has been to the NFC champ game not too long before their SB victory. Atlanta went to a Superbowl late 90s. Carolina was in an NFC champ game their second year out the block. Patriots went to a Superbowl under Parcells and were already becoming winners. For teams who have not enjoyed success, parity is the boot on their neck by the owners keeping fans in line while doing nothing. I see it has already been bought into too. Nice marketing NFL. No wonder you are the best and most successful sport in the world.

JKool · 02-10-2005, 01:08 PM

What he is saying is mediocre teams, like us, who don\'t really wanna make changes to actually get better, like us, can lay on parity as a reason to make minor instead of major changes?

I don\'t get this. Why do people keep saying that people don\'t want to make changes to get better? I don\'t really see it. If you owned a team, would you want it to be a winner? Hell, yeah. Are NFL owners so unlike you and I in their mentality? I\'d doubt it. They want to win too.

Here is another way of view the lack of \"big changes\": due to parity, each team is really only 2-5 guys from going to the big dance each year. If you can get those guys cheap for long periods of time, you can keep going to the big dance (prime example, the Patriots). Thus, what you should do is make small changes that have big payoffs (we just haven\'t had any of our gambles pay off). Why make big changes that could be quite expensive, giving you one, maybe two shots, then back to the drawing board?

The problem isn\'t people not wanting to win. The problem is people being convinced that they are not too far away and wanting to be there as often as possible.

Ok, it is just a theory, but it doesn\'t sound stupid to me.

Cassady37 · 02-10-2005, 01:18 PM

I must say, I kind of miss those good \'ole days before free agency watered down the NFL. In theory, it sounded like a great idea, but what has it really gotten us? The dynasty teams eventually gave way to other teams. How did those teams hoarde all those great players? Who picked them, who made them work? C\'mon, basically what free agency did was insure the quality of players and coaches were going to decline. Everyone is now living by the \"show me the money\" philosophy and if you don\'t win today, you\'re gone tomorrow. And now players coming out of college are insured a bundle of money a team can scarecly afford to part with and the return is MAYBE a player lives up to the hype.. At least in the old days consistency was the norm. Can you say the same for today\'s NFL? I guess you can label me \'Old School\' . Don\'t get me wrong, free agency is a good thing as long as there are ways to ensure teams aren\'t decimated year after year. And yes, we have been sold a bill of goods by Benson and company, but I, like so many, am not buying the goods because I believe the BS . It is because I am a Saint\'s fan, it\'s in my blood, it\'s a part of my being. It will be a part of my son\'s heritage and it will be in his blood. So, no matter what, I\'ll always be rooting with the now infamous battle cry of the Saints, \"just wait \'till next year!\" But don\'t insult my intelligence, Mr. Benson, because I know for a fact, my football knowledge is far greater than what you\'ll ever hope to achieve. So please, run this team like you want a championship and not like you are trying to sell cars. Ahhhh....I feel much better now...

saintswhodi · 02-10-2005, 01:18 PM

I dig whay you are saying Kool, but I think that is the exact point of the article. You and prob many other fans probably feel we are one or two moves away from being Cinderella, and that\'s what the org and the revenue sharing NFL want you to believe because it keeps fans in the stands whether their team is terrible, mediocre or great. Owners sit back fat and happy. I am never of the opinion an owner doesn\'t WANNA win, but if you make money regardless, why spend more? Find me if you can 3 other teams in the league that haven\'t been to the playoffs the last 4 years and kept their coaches, and 3 teams that had the worst defenses in the league and kept their defensive coordinators. That is us. But parity has a lot of people believing we are this free agent or this draft pick from winning it all. Not likely.

GumboBC · 02-10-2005, 01:26 PM

There was very little thought put in to that aricle, IMO.

First, while the Pats have won 3 super bowls in the past 4 years. They are not that much better than a lot of other teams.

In the days when dynasties ruled, teams like the Cowboy\'s and 49\'ers were blowing teams out. The Pats, while they find a way to win just about every week, are not blowing teams out. In other words, they aren\'t head above heels better than a bunch of teams.

In fact, it is parity itself that has allowed the Pats to become a dynasty.

If the Pats lost a couple of \"key\" players, like Tom Brady, they would probably quickly sink to the level of mediocrity themselves.

So, if the Pats are only a couple of players away from mediocrity ... Why can\'t teams be a couple of players away from contneding?

Team do it all the time. They might not stay there like the Pats. But they get there just the same.

[Edited on 10/2/2005 by GumboBC]

02-10-2005, 11:05 AM	#1
LKelley67 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: baton rouge Posts: 2,540	in case you missed it tp writer john deshazier had a great article on the pats tuesday. here is the beautifully written crux for saints fans... ...the NFL in particular -- so shamelessly pursue mediocrity and boast about it, celebrating "parity" as if it's the best thing that ever has happened. A pack of average teams hovering around .500 until the regular-season finale, harboring realistic playoff hopes all the while, isn't a good thing. It's a sham at worst, the worst kind of false hope at best. Because many middling teams adopt foolish stances after their mediocre season is complete, and worse, use that misguided optimism to prey on gullible fans. The upshot is it simply enables the franchise to sell a bill of goods to folks who desperately want to believe an 8-8 team really is a Super Bowl contender. Those packs of average teams love to preach that, but for a bad bounce here and a bad call there and one or two ill-timed penalties and injuries, they'd have been New England. They say it over and over and over, even after the stretch loses elasticity, because the dynasty, New England, keeps winning over and over and over. It'd be better for fans to use dynasties to unmask their hometown franchises, to weed out the excuses, to give them a target of what their franchise could and should look like for several years if it spends its time and money as wisely as do the Patriots. sure we all throw some stones now n then, but by n large it is devoted fans in this forum that only want to see those excuses weeded out.

02-10-2005, 11:10 AM	#2
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it Holy crap. That is the crux of what I have been saying forever. Many, many fans of this team have settled for mediocrity and drunk the kool-aid that is being spewed. We don\'t need leaders, we don\'t need team players, so on and so forth. Well, New England is the anti-thesis of that argument and THEY ARE WINNERS, consistently, over and over, and now over again. Why teams don\'t follow the blue-print of a winning org and settle for mediocrity on the false hope a middling team can do the impossible is beyond me. Very nice find Kelley.

02-10-2005, 11:23 AM	#3
GumboBC Banned Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,616	in case you missed it New England has done something that no one thought was possible. They built a \"dynasty\" in the free-agent era. Now there are folks who are wondering what the hell is wrong with the rest of the NFL teams. They say why not just follow the blue-print layed out by the Pats. Well, that\'s a nice thought. But if only it were that easy. First ... How many Bill Belichicks are out there? Second ... Is it possible to clone Tom Brady? Third... You can go from 8-8 to the super bowl. Which, somehow, the author of this article says is \"false\" hope. In the past few years, I\'ve watched Carolina, Oakland, St. Louis, and Atlanta all go from 8-8, or worse, to the super bowl. IMO, it isn\'t wise to think your team is going to duplicate New Englands success. As far as the Saints goes ... No one is happy with mediocrity. But, I don\'t think anyone is thinking we can duplicate the Patriots either...
GumboBC Banned Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,616

02-10-2005, 12:21 PM	#4
Danno Truth Addict Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Spanish Fort, AL (via NO and B/R) Posts: 24,725	in case you missed it ...the NFL in particular -- so shamelessly pursue mediocrity and boast about it, celebrating \"parity\" as if it\'s the best thing that ever has happened. Complete Biillshut. Its not mediocrity, its competitiveness. What exactly is mediocre about spreading out talent among all the teams. Yea, how about we let 3 or 4 teams draft 7 rounds 1st, then let everyone else get the scraps. Boy, you\'d have 4 really great teams huh? Parity IS the best thing to ever happen to the NFL. It makes the games extremely competitive and entertaining to watch. I find his comment assinine. A pack of average teams hovering around .500 until the regular-season finale, harboring realistic playoff hopes all the while, isn\'t a good thing. It\'s a sham at worst, the worst kind of false hope at best. Idiotic. A sham? How? I guess we should just let the 4 best teams play in the play-offs and if its only 2 really good teams we\'ll just skip the playoffs and go straight to the superbowl. Is there anything more exciting than an upstart cinderella team knocking off a contender in the playoffs. Atlanta over Green Bay, Carolina over Philly. New England over Oakland. Lets just go back to 4 playoff teams. That\'ll eliminate this 9-7, 10-6 non-sense. Because many middling teams adopt foolish stances after their mediocre season is complete, and worse, use that misguided optimism to prey on gullible fans. The upshot is it simply enables the franchise to sell a bill of goods to folks who desperately want to believe an 8-8 team really is a Super Bowl contender. Yea, the 2003 Carolina fans must feel like complete morons. And the 2002 Falcon fans. And the 2001 New England fans. This guy is selling misery and the typical defeatist Saints fan is lappin it up with a side of gravy. Those packs of average teams love to preach that, but for a bad bounce here and a bad call there and one or two ill-timed penalties and injuries, they\'d have been New England. They say it over and over and over, even after the stretch loses elasticity, because the dynasty, New England, keeps winning over and over and over. I don\'t recall anyone preaching \"over and over\" that a bounce or two would turn them into New England. Who the hell is he talking about? Oh thats right, \"they\" doesn\'t really exist, except in the mind of the uninformed. Oh, but wait a minute, I thought dynasties were dead in his awful world of \"mediocrity\". What an bunch of self pity BS. At least he\'s targeting the right fan-base. Lets look at what this guy calls a bunch of 8-8 mediocrity. Great teams, 13 - 16 wins (3 Teams) Good teams, 10-12 wins (6 teams) Average teams, 7-9 wins (11 teams, 4 finished 8-8) Bad teams, 4 to 6 wins (11 teams) Horrible teams, 3 wins or less (1 team) So what it boils down to is... Above average teams - 9 Average teams - 11 Below average teams -12 Uhh, how are these results much different from the glorious dynasty era? Kinda looks like 1/3 are good, 1/3 are average, and 1/3 are bad. You\'d think by his comments that we had 2 great teams, 2 bad teams and 28 average teams. Oh yeah, I forgot...Woe is me, I\'m a miserable Saints fan and its all parity\'s fault. Boooo Fricking Hooooo. Cry me a flipping black and gold river, loser!

02-10-2005, 12:32 PM	#5
JKool 1000 Posts + Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 2,423	in case you missed it I\'m going to have to go with Danno on this one.

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02-10-2005, 12:38 PM	#6
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it Anger much? It seems like SOMEONE is always being called an idiot in your posts Danno. I don\'t know if you haven\'t noticed, but we are the EXACT mediocre team that has been fed this EXACT mediocre BS over and over and over. How many times in this \"parity\" gotten us into the playoffs? Or Detroit? Or Arizona? Or the Bengals? Or the Dolphins? Or on and on and on? You see the same teams in the playoffs yearly and there may be one expection here or there. Now I for one do not long for the old days of a few teams owning everything, but like you said, does it seem much different? What he is saying is mediocre teams, like us, who don\'t really wanna make changes to actually get better, like us, can lay on parity as a reason to make minor instead of major changes? Did we fire Haslett?did we fire Venturi? Did we get a new OC? Have we ever done jackity crap but look like fools in free agency? These are the exact changes he is talking about mediocre teams making and selling the fans, look at Atlanta, look at Carolina, look at Tampa Bay, but Tampa Bay has been to the NFC champ game not too long before their SB victory. Atlanta went to a Superbowl late 90s. Carolina was in an NFC champ game their second year out the block. Patriots went to a Superbowl under Parcells and were already becoming winners. For teams who have not enjoyed success, parity is the boot on their neck by the owners keeping fans in line while doing nothing. I see it has already been bought into too. Nice marketing NFL. No wonder you are the best and most successful sport in the world.

02-10-2005, 01:08 PM	#7
JKool 1000 Posts + Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 2,423	in case you missed it What he is saying is mediocre teams, like us, who don\'t really wanna make changes to actually get better, like us, can lay on parity as a reason to make minor instead of major changes? I don\'t get this. Why do people keep saying that people don\'t want to make changes to get better? I don\'t really see it. If you owned a team, would you want it to be a winner? Hell, yeah. Are NFL owners so unlike you and I in their mentality? I\'d doubt it. They want to win too. Here is another way of view the lack of \"big changes\": due to parity, each team is really only 2-5 guys from going to the big dance each year. If you can get those guys cheap for long periods of time, you can keep going to the big dance (prime example, the Patriots). Thus, what you should do is make small changes that have big payoffs (we just haven\'t had any of our gambles pay off). Why make big changes that could be quite expensive, giving you one, maybe two shots, then back to the drawing board? The problem isn\'t people not wanting to win. The problem is people being convinced that they are not too far away and wanting to be there as often as possible. Ok, it is just a theory, but it doesn\'t sound stupid to me.
	"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

02-10-2005, 01:18 PM	#8
Cassady37 100th Post Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Kilgore, Texas Posts: 337	in case you missed it I must say, I kind of miss those good \'ole days before free agency watered down the NFL. In theory, it sounded like a great idea, but what has it really gotten us? The dynasty teams eventually gave way to other teams. How did those teams hoarde all those great players? Who picked them, who made them work? C\'mon, basically what free agency did was insure the quality of players and coaches were going to decline. Everyone is now living by the \"show me the money\" philosophy and if you don\'t win today, you\'re gone tomorrow. And now players coming out of college are insured a bundle of money a team can scarecly afford to part with and the return is MAYBE a player lives up to the hype.. At least in the old days consistency was the norm. Can you say the same for today\'s NFL? I guess you can label me \'Old School\' . Don\'t get me wrong, free agency is a good thing as long as there are ways to ensure teams aren\'t decimated year after year. And yes, we have been sold a bill of goods by Benson and company, but I, like so many, am not buying the goods because I believe the BS . It is because I am a Saint\'s fan, it\'s in my blood, it\'s a part of my being. It will be a part of my son\'s heritage and it will be in his blood. So, no matter what, I\'ll always be rooting with the now infamous battle cry of the Saints, \"just wait \'till next year!\" But don\'t insult my intelligence, Mr. Benson, because I know for a fact, my football knowledge is far greater than what you\'ll ever hope to achieve. So please, run this team like you want a championship and not like you are trying to sell cars. Ahhhh....I feel much better now...

02-10-2005, 01:18 PM	#9
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	in case you missed it I dig whay you are saying Kool, but I think that is the exact point of the article. You and prob many other fans probably feel we are one or two moves away from being Cinderella, and that\'s what the org and the revenue sharing NFL want you to believe because it keeps fans in the stands whether their team is terrible, mediocre or great. Owners sit back fat and happy. I am never of the opinion an owner doesn\'t WANNA win, but if you make money regardless, why spend more? Find me if you can 3 other teams in the league that haven\'t been to the playoffs the last 4 years and kept their coaches, and 3 teams that had the worst defenses in the league and kept their defensive coordinators. That is us. But parity has a lot of people believing we are this free agent or this draft pick from winning it all. Not likely.

02-10-2005, 01:26 PM	#10
GumboBC Banned Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,616	in case you missed it There was very little thought put in to that aricle, IMO. First, while the Pats have won 3 super bowls in the past 4 years. They are not that much better than a lot of other teams. In the days when dynasties ruled, teams like the Cowboy\'s and 49\'ers were blowing teams out. The Pats, while they find a way to win just about every week, are not blowing teams out. In other words, they aren\'t head above heels better than a bunch of teams. In fact, it is parity itself that has allowed the Pats to become a dynasty. If the Pats lost a couple of \"key\" players, like Tom Brady, they would probably quickly sink to the level of mediocrity themselves. So, if the Pats are only a couple of players away from mediocrity ... Why can\'t teams be a couple of players away from contneding? Team do it all the time. They might not stay there like the Pats. But they get there just the same. [Edited on 10/2/2005 by GumboBC]
GumboBC Banned Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,616