blake6900

It seems to me the bigger question is this: What is it with this team, its\' coaching staff and front office, that it insists on trying to reinvent safeties? Or all of their personnel for that matter? They sign Jay Bellamy and play him out of position as a free safety even though he was a strong safety all his years at Seattle. They let Sammy Knight go and have an open competition for SS between Mel Mitchell and Bellamy, Mitchell gets hurt in preseason, Bellamy starts and does a great job. And the Saints are surprised.


They go buy Tebucky Jones, park him at free safety even though his only claim to fame was nickel back in a Super Bowl and they can\'t understand why A) he can\'t tackle, B) he\'s out of position and C) he can\'t pick off a pass. Keep in mind he was a nickel back in the Super Bowl. He wasn\'t even a starter with the Patriots defense. Keep in mind Blake\'s Law: \"Speed\'s a great thing but the problem with it is it can get you to the wrong place sooner.\"


With all due respect to Jim Haslett, I think Nick Saban probably has a better grasp on how to get the most out of Jones. Jones was an awful open field tackler with the Saints. So what did the Saints coaches do? They left him out there to die. Haslet and Ventura\'s problem is they have a defensive scheme and rather than get players that will fit into that scheme, they get players whose strengths don\'t fit well with it and force them to adapt. Then they wonder why it happened. And then Haslett runs his mouth in the media.


A perfect example is McKenzie. Everybody that knows anything about football knew this guy was a \"man\"coverage corner. So what do the Saints do? They try to turn him into a zone guy. He ends up actually telling them he\'s better at \"man\", they make him a \"man\" corner and he and the defense is immediately better to the point where they win their last four games and make a playoff run.


Why does this happen? Why didn\'t they know this beforehand? Because we\'ve got two pig-headed buffoons in charge of the defense who obviously don\'t have a clue. Their ability to evaluate talent is suspect at best. Sure, they get it right some of the time. The problem is that\'s not good enough to win championships. And I\'m afraid not much is gonna change until they do...or they\'re shown the door. And this kind of nonsense is not just apparent on the defensive side of the ball.


But let\'s not kid ourselves. It\'s doubtful Mickey Loomis said, \"Hey, I wanna trade draft choices to New England for Tebucky Jones.\" No, the decision to persue Jones had to come from Haslett.