Rugby Saint II

The record alone should be some kind of indicator. Their young defense is good and Stafford is very good as well. They are a play off team. We are not. There are multiple reasons for that.

No depth due to poor drafting. We are a team built with low round picks.
We are trending up however with new faces inside the organization making an impact. Ireland has proven that he's the real deal and the shake up a couple of years back is starting to show dividends.

No depth due to poor decisions to trade up for an above average but not great player. Ingram and Cooks are good but are they worthy of two high draft picks? I don't think so. I don't mind packaging low picks to move up for a player like Davison or Onyamata. What I hate is throwing in a third rounder for example because there are numerous starters to be found in the third every year. Whether it's an O-lineman or another less sexy pick.

Poor coaching has hurt this team consistently since we won the Super bowl. Any good candidates were poached and left. We are getting a couple of our young coaches back who failed in another organization but remain competitive and in our system The new O-line coach, wide receivers coach have helped the offense. Dennis Allen and Glenn have taken our young defense to a new performance to a new level.


Poor special teams play has lost at least three games this year.(back to coaching I guess) I don't think Sean will replace his college room mate McMahon until after the season. I hope he has his college resume out already. His replacement may already be on board. We brought in another special teams assistant coach recently. Whoever we get doesn't matter to me as long as they are fundamentally sound and can implement their system. Whoever is up next needs to be able to work with our young talented kicker and fix his technique. Lutz has talent and the Baltimore coach said his kicking improved with a real kicking coach. He's only been to one kicking camp in college I believe.

Poor clock management....'nuff said.

Sean Payton has lost his emotional edge. He's not arrogant and full of himself which gives him that gamblers mentality. Godhell won. More on that later. Benson needs someone to manage the organization and let Loomis only make decisions in regards to the cap management and have no influence over player acquisitions. Sean Payton needs the reigns taken away from him and let him refocus on our offense while he gets reenergized and creative again.

Dome field advantage is mostly gone. Not scoring early and getting the Dome field advantage rocking with false starts against visiting teams while letting the opposition score first has hurt us. It is not that difficult to quieten the Dome. Simply score first or cause the Saints to punt. This team matches the Dome intensity. We just haven't given them much to cheer about outside of the Rams whooping.

We are a young team, which it's hard to win with people who are lost on the field because they don't understand the scheme. On the bright side we are a young developing team with a defense that is forcing field goals rather than allowing TD's.

Injuries. And injuries early on cost us a possible strong start to the season. Did I mention that injuries have devastated us? We have played better with Rankins, Breaux and Ellerbe back in the line up and the defense is trending up. Not only that it looks like next years roster should be laden with gems that are currently on IR.(back to the depth issue)

We never recovered from the witch hunt called bounty gate. Godhell wanted to hurt this team and he did. But with the concussion issues looming he knew as a lawyer to redirect attention elsewhere. Enter the New Orleans small market team with a cocky coach that just beat the beloved Payton Manning.