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This demonstrates exactly what I and a few other posters were trying to say. Defense certainly not good enough, ST not good enough, but the offense had it a hand in losing this year too.


"Drew Brees and Co. produced 234 points in the six games against teams with losing records, a 39-point per game average. But the offense came back down to earth against most of the schedule. The Saints scored 235 points in the 10 games against teams finishing with winning records, a 23.5-point per game average. That's essentially middle of the pack in the NFL."

Saints were stuck in neutral, and no one can escape blame | NOLA.com

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Said it a thousand times and I will say it again

No matter how good your game plan is or how good your offense is, the best laid game plan will always goes to awry if the entire game, from opening kick off to the final gun is spent playing keep up.

A team is behind the 8 ball if they feel they must put up points on the board on every drive.

It is the recipe for self destruction.

Football is more a mental game than most realize.

Time to get back to dictating the the pace of the game and making teams one dimensional yet again.

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certainly, but that simply wasn't the case the entire season. There were just games the offense completely **** the bed. They actually f'd the defense. Put them in absolutely horrid spots repeatedly with turnovers and/ or couldn't produce points.

Again, we all recognize the defense and ST as the main culprit, but offense holds a good 25-30% of the blame and simply is not due to forcing it in those instances. There were games that forcing it and trying to do too much was certainly part of the issue and then there were games where the offense just didn't do enough or turned the ball over 2-4 times. Many of the turnovers were fumbles and not a result of forcing, just poor play.

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It was indeed a very well written article, not just the comments on the offense..

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Ok. I see your point here. And it's a good point. And I agree that the offense needs to shoulder some blame as well. Some.

But wouldn't it be kind of obvious that a team will score less against a better team? I mean we can probably pull up that stat for other teams too. Good teams. And they wouldn't score as much against other good teams right? Just playing devil's advocate here.

While i agree the offense had a couple of really ****ty games and essentially **** the bed, as you put it, ST and defense were atrocious.

My point is, there's room for improvement everywhere. But that defense suuuuuucks.

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well that really depends, how much less are we talking, 11 points, 13 points, 20 points. I mean those are just terrible outputs especially when you couple it with multiple turnovers.

In '09 we played a 5-0 giants team and lit the score board up. We played the Patties with 3/4 of our secondary injured and lit the scoreboard up. No I just think our offense, although pretty good this year, and certainly better than the defense most of the time, they're certainly shouldering some blame this year. There were games, and more than just a couple where they put the defense in absolutely horrid positions and they did it multiple times. So yeah defense bigger holes, and ST bigger holes, but offense has some too.

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They're not comments sir, they're called facts. Something you only seem to enjoy paying attention to when they assist your argument. If the offense averaged less than 24 points a game in 2/3 of the games and 40 points a game in 1/3 and those 1/3 came against crappy competition we can certainly see that the offense was not truly as balanced throughout the entire year as thought. Simply cherry picking stats that take performances that are an outlier and skew the overall numbers does not really represent the entire picture as accurately. There are certainly less holes on the offense, but there are holes, have no doubts, there are holes.

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Sigh. Y'all are really arguing a rather useless point. Name one championship team ever that didn't need its weaker side to step up once in a while. Even a number one offense or defense is going to have its down days. Whatever be the factor -weather, motivation, the opposing coach figuring out an in, poor game plan.... whatever, it happens.

Was our O perfect? No, but they did have some sense of awesome about them. However, would they have played every better if they didn't feel like they had to shoulder the entire burden? Would Drew have forced as many throws if he knew he could give getting a first down knowing the ST would pin the opponent deep and the D would get the ball back for him? Would the play caller feel as desperate if he felt the same thing?

I think it was the ST that should be getting most of the middle fingers pointed their way. We easily had a winning record without their constant ****ups. Again, how well would everyone else played if they knew there was a good chance in making a field goal, pinning the other guys deep and even in making and keenly extra point?

Oh yeah, there should still be a large number of other fingers still pointing at the D.

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"A team is behind the 8 ball if they feel they must put up points on the board on every drive."

I prefer the mentality that if your team is UP by 21 points play like you are DOWN 21 points!

The Saints have never had the mentality of putting their foot on a team's throat.

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If some of you desire some sort of confirmation, here you go

Blame for 7-9

Defense 40%
Special Teams 40%
Offense 20%

That sounds about right to me.

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Sounds right to me. Can we finally put this whole topic to rest?

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Yes they have. They just haven't had it lately, like the last 3 years.

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so essentially our record is exactly what it says we are...

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Man that is the absolute truest thing ever, great post!

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I think they're just looking for their shoe...

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No, we were what our record says we were. Big difference.

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Two words. Contingency plan!!! We look good on paper(not so much getting off the bus). When we lost half our team to IR our teams back ups weren't good enough because we had no depth due to poor drafting. We should have taken a look at our entire organization better than our year end review done in house by the same folks year after year. No one was prepared with a different and creative plan when things went south. We needed at least four contingency plans for any scenario like the military. We need to be better prepared.

We've gotten stale and stubborn in our old ways. Cutting Vitt and McMahon was a good start at getting some fresh air in the stale war room. We need some youthful energy and a fresh perspective on Airline Drive. We've been hit and miss after other teams raided our coaches since the Super bowl. It seems that most coaches who leave fail at the next level and come back because they are successful in the system. We need critical thinking and attention to detail that some of the older coaches didn't seem to possess. They never seemed to communicate with the younger players. They were fine with vets who came in who already understood the basics.

We need to continue with bringing in better talent through better scouting in the Pro scouting dept. Our free agent signings have not been very good.......we've had a few hits but mostly misses. Especially with the big ticket free agents. The college scouting under Ireland has been good so far but we certainly have room for improvement drafting offensive players.

I am afraid that we are still in the win now mode though and will spend every dollar we can for quick fixes and just try to plug the holes behind them with low level talent hoping we can coach them up. We'll see what happens with that.

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Of course we are in the win now mode. After totally rebuilding the roster since the end of the 2013 season why wouldn't we be. We have the youngest roster that we have had for decades. Couple that with the fact that we still have one of the best QB's in the league on the roster and as some have pointed out, we don't know how many more years we will have him. It may take another 20 years to luck into another QB that can win the whole thing. What other mode than win it now should we be in?

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I'm not worried about the win now mentality. I'm still worried about the plan to turn things around using the same minds that got us here. I'm worried that Loomis will not reign in Payton and his gambling tendencies. The Pro Scouting department worries me because they have been very erratic at finding talent on the open market and usually over pay for the coveted free agents.

Our future looks bright and we seem to be on the right track after the last couple of drafts with some new leadership in house.....but I'm not betting the farm on it.:couch:

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Theres alot to come from some of these players imo.

Id really like to see some specialist coaches to come in to work one on one with some players. Mike Singletary is a defensive assistant for the Rams. Would love to see him working with the Linebackers. Think he would work wonders with Anthony. If not him somebody like Vilma,not as the LB coach but an assistant to work with Anthony one on one. The man has talent but needs to start showing what he can do

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The offense can't make that excuse in the games where they were at their worst. The defense showed up in all the games where the offense went silent.

So while I agree in principle with what you're saying about playing catch up, it didn't necessarily apply to this team. When we only needed a decent performance from the offense, they were terrible. In games when we only needed the defense to have a slight pulse, they didn't have one.

On average, the defense was obviously the bigger problem. But the offense had no excuse in those games where they completely disappeared. Add in the horrid special teams play, and the bottom line is this team couldn't find a way to play together often enough to win. They found ways to lose.

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AMEN

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While the offense had no excuse, with an improved defense and special teams they can easily take us to the Super Bowl. Do you doubt that?

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That wasn't the discussion. There was a specific argument made that the offense failed to show up in certain games, and some make the argument that the defense puts too much pressure on the offense. That is a logical argument in many cases, but my point was simply that it didn't apply to this team. My comment wasn't about how good or bad the offense is, overall.

Are they good enough to win the Super Bowl if the defense and special teams improve? Maybe. That depends on just how much improvement we're talking about. Because the problem with this offense disappearing against some of the better teams on our schedule, is that if we're going to make a run through the playoffs, that can't happen.

We still have to improve guard play, and I would prefer to replace Strief, also. It's an offense that's easily good enough to make the playoffs, but Super Bowl? That's a maybe, but not about to be easy, in my opinion.

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Another solid post

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That pretty much sums it all up. Well said. How much improvement is the key!!

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Why don't you share a room? LOL!

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Let's go camping! :pink:

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Is Drew better off being off the field for too much time. A defense that gets turnovers and scores would maybe make him too rusty on the side lines. Also, I'm not sure a defense that gets turnovers will lead to Brees quickly scoring against real defenses. The defenses in the playoffs can play defense in the redzone. Special teams. This team has been punting often after a 3 and out. Sometimes they get to the 50. So with improved special teams, maybe a drive gets the offense to the 40 yard line which leads to 57+ yard field goals. The saints usually score if they get a couple first downs. So really, some may think the defense tightens up as the drives continue but that's not been the case with us. We have had a lot of three and outs.

I just don't think improving the defense and special teams does more than get us to the playoffs. Detroit, LA, Washington, and Minnesota will put this offense to the test with all of those changes to defense and special teams. And the offense will also be tested at GB and against NE.