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i spose i aint in the best of moods today as i considered the team and the lack of aggressiveness to make improvements. i'm not one much for each person's proclamation that "this is the year donte breaks out big" or "i got a feeling the defense is gonna really gel". gimme some substance or make a case why such should be thought. well, i have one of those feeling things today. the only basis of reasoning is past track record. i hope it aint so, but this it is it...

the need to move howard and create cap space to spend that $8mil on team needs that are much more pressing than keeping 3 starting de's. to me it is like a bright red flashing alarm with a siren wailing. i do not think it is in the front office though. that line they came out with that we can keep him and use 3 defensive ends at a time sucks the hope out of me. i remembered a situation last year that i would not doubt much the same happening here. mackenzie held out in green bay and demanded a trade. the saints were ready to offer a second round pick before the season started (so it seems). they held on for a first since cb's are in such great demand. it never came. near the trade deadline he ends up in nawlins for the same second rounder initially offered plus a throw in 3rd strng qb. it is hard for me to believe there is no offer of a 2nd or 3rd round pick for howard standing. sometimes ya can be too smart or greedy for your own good. move him! those dollars could sign a hartwell and have some left over for other business. i'm just laying on the couch for therapy from my saints fan doctors. tell me my fears that we will be using 3 defensive ends until near the trade deadline then he is moved for a 3rd or 4th round pick are only that. tell me they will not try to outsmart the rest of the league. no, just tell me they will make some sort of prudent move in regard to this. hepp me, hepp me, i dont wanna wear a bag on my head again mommy.

[Edited on 9/3/2005 by LKelley67]

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Here\'s my gut feeling. I think he will be traded at some point in time before the season starts. It wouldn\'t surprise me for it to be Houston. We have what they need and they have what we need. If the money can be worked out I think it will fly. Just my opinion.

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Let\'s say for the sake of argument that the Saints will be playing from behind a lot in 2005. (Given the schedule, that\'s not a stretch assumption.) Let\'s also make the assumption that the offense is only going to be marginally better due to the lack of change in personnel.

The defense will be called upon to put pressure on the opposing offense in order to give the offense more chances. It also implies that the defense will be on the field for long periods of time. As a result, 2 \"all out\" DE\'s will tire out and there will be a repeat of the cry \"we can\'t stop the run\" when the opponent pounds the ball in the 4th quarter. Having 3 superior DE\'s is not a luxury at that point. Exhaustion is a real problem for the D-Line late in games, especially the tight ones. If we can\'t find a good DT, (preferably 2) then keeping Howard makes great sense as he was very effective as a passing down DT. His speed and agility inside was a key factor in his team leading 11 sacks.

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That\'s true xan. So what do we do for linebackers or are you happy with what we have?

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the first thing that strikes me xan is your seeming acceptance of playing from behind a lot. that is my sticking point. i think there is enough talent on this team to not be marginal, 8-8, or just vie for the playoffs. it should have been and still can be much better than that. surely you know this team is widely recognized as the most underperforming in the entire league. shrewd cap management (which i think loomis aint bad at) along with good talent evaluation (no tbucks or sullivans) provides the tools to reach the next level. a difference maker like a hartwell could be had for what cap is allocated to howard with millions to spare and a draft pick to boot i fully understand the strength of depth. tha catch in the cap era is at what price though? as little as it would cost, the patriots could not afford to keep david patten and troy brown. david givens is an unsigned rfa too. having three superior defensive ends is not a luxury. paying three defensive ends starting salary is though. howard openly voiced his displeasure having to play inside when he did also, whether the idea of 3 de\'s at a time is revolutionary or not.

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The Saints D played from behind in 97 of 194 drives or 50%.
They played from behind by greater than 7 points in 45 drives or roughly 25%.
They played from a \"tied\" position in 38 drives. or approximately 20%.
They played with the lead 57 times, or 30% of total drives.
They played with a greater than 7 point lead 18 times (<9%)

From this data, I concluded that they play from behind a lot.

It appears that more depth at linebacker is necessary, not necessarily a god-like starter.
From the last 4 games, if that is going to be an indication of 2005:

24 rushes for 108 yards. (Half the total yards on 4 drives and 58 yds avg. in 2nd half )
18 of 48 passing for 175 yards. (96 yards avg. in the 2nd half)

What seems to be a major problem is starting field position for the Defense. Over the season\'s 194 drives, 36 started within 59 yards of the goal and 26 resulted in scores (15 tds). A full 20 inside Saints territory with 15 resulting in scores (8 tds). That\'s 38% of scoring on less than 17% of all drives. We had the #2 special teams, so the explanation is turnovers and where they occured. The offense has to keep the ball longer and move further down the field or the D gets tired. Having quality depth at linebacker will go a long way here. It doesn\'t appear that the D-Line was the major problem, given the quality and rotations there. Schemes that rely on closing to the ball and gap filling need speed and \"smarts.\" That should be the the goal of either FA or draft. I\'d even play with moving Howard to OLB or a roving LB a la Lawrence Taylor to shore up the LB corps (if he has the smarts or inclination).

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Sharper for Howard... I\'m drooling already. :clap:

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xan, I like your posts cause you do your research and bring it to the table strong. But to just assume we will be playing from behind automatically this year cause such was the case last year doesn\'t seem like a stat you can carry forward. You know I agree the offense needs to do more, we have been there, but no amount of info will suggest we will be playing from behind majority of the time again. We have made a couple of decent changes, got rid of a highly undependable player on O, Riley, and made our secondary deeper(Smith). We don\'t know yet if the players we draft will be studs or duds. We don\'t know if there are a rash of injuries to key players in the off-season like there was last off-season. I just can\'t see how you can sustain that assumption, no matter how intelligent your stats are presented.

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whodi,

I should try to make myself clearer. I read my post and while it said what I wanted to, it still lacked focus on my point.

In planning mode, one should start with the worst case scenario. Since the offense and the defense were arguably the worst they\'ve been in the Haslett era, I was trying to set a baseline to show where improvement would be most needed. I was holding certain factors constant in order to make the competitive disadvantage more evident.

At the moment, the only offensive change is at tackle. There is significant doubt as to whether the change will be an improvement, or possibly regression. This offense is 80% the same as it was 2 years ago, and has gotten worse. Contingency planning forces one to respect the trend line. In order to improve, the basic statistics from last year indicate that RT was an issue. However, there were other significant issues that change at RT will not solve. Properly run routes, accurate passing, defensive reads, better play schematics (like a screen pass that works), and better play calling will each have a positive impact.

The defense has had significant turnover from last year. Based on performance, all things being equal, improving the secondary should be the primary focus. After that, LB. At present, there isn\'t enough data to suggest that DT deficiencies were more of a problem than LB. Clearly, 100% turnover of the LB corps from the start of the season to the end doesn\'t really help the analysis, but the D-Line was regular. Injuries to the LB corps played significantly in the subpar play there. Anecdotal suggestions that LB was a bigger need than secondary are not supported by the statistics.

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I gotcha, and that is much clearer. It was basically this and everything else flowed better. I gotcha now.

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thanks for the follow up. there is merit but i cannot say it turned me out of the predraft blues to gumbo giddiness. i am not overly keen to translating football sabermatically like baseball. they have a place but are not effective in reflecting all aspects of play, ie blown assignments or missed blocks, etc. it is a highly integrated team game that depends on a cohesive and coordinated effort to be successful. the transformation and improvement of the secondary was seen in play and personnel. now with smith only more is expected. improvement was seen among the linebackers but they are all young and learning not proven veterans. allen has the not so bright tag, bock and coutney still need to develop physically as well. my initial complaint was not so much what sort of personnel moves had or had not been made though. my beef is the degree of agressiveness in the market to get readily identified difference making impact players. there is an ebb and flow to talent in the cap environment. it is time to emphasize pushing harder for now than building longterm within this organization imo. i just don\'t see enough of it.

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I wouldn\'t get worked up either way over what has or hasn\'t happened at this point. Like Whodi said earlier, there\'s a lot of dealing to be done before the final roster is set in September. Taking what\'s happened in the first week of FA is like getting upset over the first drive of the saints going 3 and out. Looks bad, but there\'s still 59 minutes left. And I\'ll even venture to say that the O has improved a little while the D has addressed a significant outstanding issue.

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XAN, maybe you meant the Saints going 1ST and out the entire 1st Quarter.

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Trading Howard is a great idea... right up until Will Smith tears a hamstring or blows out an ACL. Scary thought huh?

I actually agree with Haslett (which is rare), when he says that you cannot have enough talent up front.

People - Pease\'s system is one of constant rotation which requires a lot of depth all across the D-line. Personally, I don\'t want to see Howard go anywhere. I want the Saints to sign him to a long-term contract.

Even if the Saints trade Howard, I am not convinced that they will acquire a better or even equal player. Same is true in the draft. I understand people saying that IF the Saints trade Howard and move up in the draft they COULD draft DJ. It\'s just not realistic to me. They COULD HAVE drafted Trufant over Sully too. Look at their \"big-name\" FA signings in the last few years... Conwell? Tebucky Jones? David Sloan? I mean, those aren\'t great moves. Maybe you can say Pathon and McKenzie were good. No argument. Stecker, I think, was a good move. But Gandy, Rodgers, Ruff, Riley, Bouman, Young, Connell, and Ambrose were all of minimal to negative impact.

Likewise, look at their use of first round draft picks. Deuce - Great. Stallworth - average. Grant - good. Sully - terrible. Smith - good. So it\'s not like they\'re knocking the ball out of the park in that arena either.


If people are concerned about the future of the team, I understand. If you\'re looking out and saying - man, Horn, Deuce, Bentley, Stallworth, a new need at WR, TE, Howard, Grant, McKenzie, major needs at LB - how can we possibly sign all these guys and not blow the cap? The answer is - we can\'t. There will be loses. This is why I feel that the Saints may have already missed their window to add the LBs and DTs that they need to be true contenders. They had the YOUNG and INEXPENSIVE talent 3 years ago. All they had to do was sign a few proven vets at key spots and they could have been SB bound. They probably still could be, but 3 years from now this team will look very different IMO. Too much talent, not enough $$.

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And how is this different than now when Howard is generally more hurt than he is on the field? The last two years he has missed 11 FULL games and various parts of others. Is it better to pay him top dollar in the hope he doesn\'t get hurt and can be used IN A ROTATION, or trade him off for value and free that money up? I would rather not tie my money up on a hope of a player who has seen a lot of injuries lately. But that\'s just me.

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i think your thought about the window closing is very true whodat. thus, i think it should be all out this year or bust. they arent gonna do that but i still would like to see as much push for now as possible. whether 12-4 or 4-12 this year i do think there may only be one more year after this before overhaul is necessitated by the cap.

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Not an unfair statement. Then again, despite injuries in 2004, he still lead the team in sacks. What did he have? 11 sacks in as many starts? Just imagine what he could do if healthy and well rested with Smith or Whitehead behind him. :)

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I dodn\'t disagree with that Who. But he will command starter money in a rotation. Now smart for us. As I have asked several times, what happens when Charles Grant is due? Do we franchise him and try to trade Grant? I\'d rather him than Howard. If we pay Howard now, we are buying trouble for later. also, how do we resign Deuce, LeCharles, and Horn and MM if we keep Howard? Can we pay them in Po-Boys? Howard has to go if this team is to move forward. Sad, but reality.

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I can go either way on trading Howard. Howards got the organization by the nads and is taking advantage of the situation and I don\'t think from a buisness stand point anyone can blame him.

There are pro\'s and con\'s on both sides of the fence. Its hard for me to get rid of proven talent and pick up a 3rd rounder whom will not be ready to step onto the field yet, most need time to develop. What I feel is that you have to use your talent the best way you can... you have to put them in positions to make plays. Having a Smith rotate to different positions, creating havoc blitzing seems the way to go at this point, resting LB\'s and DE\'s is choice. The opposing offense more concern with where Smith is lining up at to blitz poses a distraction... distractions are good.

Ideal, the Saints should have gone after him and got him signed to a long term deal. We are going to be forced to either trade him for a 3-4 pick or simply cut him. Trading him after the draft or even closer to June 1 gets us diddelpoop. A pic for next year? Talent another team is willing to part with? Its a waste of good talnet.

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euph, i would say it a little different than you in today\'s nfl. instead of \"...use your talent the best way you can\" better i believe is \"use your money the best way you can\". i love howard and the talent at de. but for 10% of a teams cap i do not think he is enough. that money could be better spent elsewhere. and as who pointed out the squeeze for money isnt gonna get better or easier. the team must act proactively or you end up 5-11 like the titans and mega millions over the cap. i forget the number, dont they have 10-20million of cap money tied up with players no longer on the team? get a second rounder that costs little, spend 4mil on another de if that\'s what ya want and then have some millions left over to deal with other biz or improvements.

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Exactly. I am not trying to be the 49ers or the Titans where I have to cut all my good players cause of sentimental ties in previous years. That\'s not reality in today\'s NFL. Our best bet is to pick up that 2nd rounder he will bring us and sure up other needs. And there is ZERO chance we can resign all the players I mentioned if we keep Howard. He was good as traded once they tagged him. Everything else is irrelevant, what he would cost us is cap prohibtive and just plain dumb to jump on board for in the long run. The question is not WHETHER we should keep him, I think all would agree we want to. The question is how much will it hurt us next year and in the future to keep him? The answer, LOTS. Unless saying bye to Joe, MM, and either Bentley or Deuce is in your immediate plans cause we can\'t resign them.