What If...

bignic26 · 03-17-2005, 12:25 PM

Remember a few years back at about this time when all the buzz in the Saints nation was about drafting Fred Smoot. That's all you heard when people talked about the draft. It was Smoot this and Smoot that. Freddy Smoot was going to be the missing piece to a Saints Super Bowl dream. Then a funny thing happened on draft day. The old front office did something that nobody saw coming. Instead of trying to fill a need with a nice CB prospect, they selected the best player on their board, a RB from Ole Miss named Deuce. Saints fans were shocked. Although they will never admit it today, most fans hated the pick, just hated it. They said, "What were they thinking, we already have Ricky". They cried out, "What about Smoot, we needed Freddy". They were disgusted by the pick but not me! I loved the it. It's true, I was expecting us to get Smoot and I was shocked when I heard Deuce's name called out, but when that shock wore off a smile came across my face. I started thinking about the future and how much another good RB would help our team. I knew that Deuce would push Ricky and if he could stay healthy maybe even take alot of carries away from that bum. Little did we know the chain of events that would follow would change the course of Saints history forever. We traded Ricky for some nice picks. Deuce stepped in and became the back that Ditka invisioned Ricky to be and more. Ricky had a couple of quality seasons with Miami and then retired to smoke weed and travel. Now we have a potentially lethal offense and Deuce is the centerpiece of our attack. And Smoot? Well Fred has turned out to be a very good, not great, player. He played very well for some very bad Washington teams and earned a big payday for that production from the Vikings. Saints fans have pretty much forgot about Smoot and the fact that we were supposed to draft him. They try to forget how upset they got when we picked Deuce. But what if we would have picked for a need and said to hell with the best player available theory? We would have picked Smoot and God knows what would've transpired after that. This is an example of why we as fans should always trust our FO. Sometimes they stike out ( i.e. Sully ) and sometimes they hit a homerun ( i.e. Deuce ). I know that we have a new regime now with Loomis and that Mueller made the call on not picking Smoot but to me they are pretty much the same. Mueller, Loomis, and Haslett all seem to like athletes with alot of potential more than proven football players who might seem as though they have maxed out their potential. No matter who's in the FO we have got to put our faith in them.

no_cloning · 03-17-2005, 12:44 PM

Yikes.

Paragraphs.

Please.

4saintspirit · 03-17-2005, 12:45 PM

Nobody wanted Smoot as a 1st round pick. I was screaming for them to trade up in the second round to get him -- they actually tried to do that and failed.

blake6900 · 03-17-2005, 12:50 PM

When a team drafts for need they are more times than not reaching. The best available player is rarely a reach because that player is \"the best available player\". While it makes little, if any, sense to sign a free agent because he is \"the best available player\" I believe the draft serves a different purpose. By and large the draft is planning for the future. Frankly there aren\'t that many first year players that have made an immediate impact on the field. Sure there\'s the Randy Mosses and the Deions but there are a larger number of Stallworths and Terrells.

LKelley67 · 03-17-2005, 02:27 PM

greetings and welcome big nic.

i will respond to your post about one word... faith. faith is an assurance or belief from confidence or proven reliability. this front office is not deserving of that. i am a lifelong fan so i\'ll hope (desire with anticipation) forever. their wildly erratic moves have shaken out average at the very best when all is said n done (just like the team play). mueller was the nfl executive of the year, a respected football guy. loomis is a beancounter. for every charles grant or courtney watson pick. there have been more stinchcombs, hendersons, and the alltime saint draft bust sully. for every good dwight smith signing there have been more dale carters and overweight lazy lunch bunches. for a mackenzie trade there is a tebucky.

i love my country. that is why i do not blindly give allegiance to any leader and question policies whether middle east or economics. i want it to stay the best and not fade away as other world powers have.

sorry to bash your offseason party. hope on brutha. just dont put your faith in anything or person(s) not desrving it. do that, then the next thing ya know, you will be satisfied with 8-8 seasons.

bignic26 · 03-17-2005, 04:41 PM

Don\'t get me wrong L Kelley, I wouldn\'t follow the current FO into the fires of Hell. All I\'m saying is that instead of bashing the FO, we should respect them as the leaders of the team. They do the best they can and yes some of their draft and free agent choices have been duds. Show me one GM in the history of the NFL who hasn\'t swung and missed!

I\'m sure Loomis and Haz would be happy if every piece of trash they picked up turned into gold. In the real world things don\'t happen like that. You win some, you lose some. Loomis has lost more than he\'s won though and I\'ll admit that. The FO has done some very stupid things, some things that just don\'t make sense looking back now. But remeber, they were just trying to improve the team and give us fans the best possible chance to watch the Saints win games. We all feel like we could be a better GM than Loomis, and alot of us could be given the chance, but he\'s the man for right now and we have to accept that.

The bottom line is this: The Saints current front office is a powerful, free swinging, home run hitter who\'s hitting about .223. When they swing, they swing hard. When they connect, the ball is outta the park. When they miss, they look very foolish while they\'re falling down.

zachsaints52 · 03-17-2005, 06:01 PM

bignic26 You are correct, even though I wasn\'t a big time Saints fan back then, I still was like ??? when they said Deice\'s name. But I am glad they did that too. I am glad we don\'t have a probl;em with the retirement of Ricky and I am very glad we got those picks, because if not everything would be different right now. Your right about home run hitter, but I think the average is around .100 more than .223

LKelley67 · 03-17-2005, 06:10 PM

that sounds fair nic. the faith thing was getting too sunshiney for my likings. respect i won\'t say much on except that it has to be earned. and if it is not earned then mistrust grows. reel off whatever names ya like... parcells, gibbs, belicheck, cowher... front office guys too, polian, savage, finks... they all earned respect. yes, by winning. but winning that came from running a tight ship. the tight ship didn\'t appear from winning. the erratic performance of the fo and on the field reflected in 4 years of sum total mediocrity doesn\'t command a whole lot of that. i have been hoping for 38 years. if they blow \'n go after this year i will still be here.

Euphoria · 03-17-2005, 08:47 PM

Actually I like the drafting idea of drafting best player available. So what you get two great running backs but you never know what will happend and you can always make the other trade bait for furture picks. I don\'t have a problem with going with best available... I hate to disappoint many on here but I think that is what is going to happen this year...

03-17-2005, 12:25 PM	#1
bignic26 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 122	What If... Remember a few years back at about this time when all the buzz in the Saints nation was about drafting Fred Smoot. That's all you heard when people talked about the draft. It was Smoot this and Smoot that. Freddy Smoot was going to be the missing piece to a Saints Super Bowl dream. Then a funny thing happened on draft day. The old front office did something that nobody saw coming. Instead of trying to fill a need with a nice CB prospect, they selected the best player on their board, a RB from Ole Miss named Deuce. Saints fans were shocked. Although they will never admit it today, most fans hated the pick, just hated it. They said, "What were they thinking, we already have Ricky". They cried out, "What about Smoot, we needed Freddy". They were disgusted by the pick but not me! I loved the it. It's true, I was expecting us to get Smoot and I was shocked when I heard Deuce's name called out, but when that shock wore off a smile came across my face. I started thinking about the future and how much another good RB would help our team. I knew that Deuce would push Ricky and if he could stay healthy maybe even take alot of carries away from that bum. Little did we know the chain of events that would follow would change the course of Saints history forever. We traded Ricky for some nice picks. Deuce stepped in and became the back that Ditka invisioned Ricky to be and more. Ricky had a couple of quality seasons with Miami and then retired to smoke weed and travel. Now we have a potentially lethal offense and Deuce is the centerpiece of our attack. And Smoot? Well Fred has turned out to be a very good, not great, player. He played very well for some very bad Washington teams and earned a big payday for that production from the Vikings. Saints fans have pretty much forgot about Smoot and the fact that we were supposed to draft him. They try to forget how upset they got when we picked Deuce. But what if we would have picked for a need and said to hell with the best player available theory? We would have picked Smoot and God knows what would've transpired after that. This is an example of why we as fans should always trust our FO. Sometimes they stike out ( i.e. Sully ) and sometimes they hit a homerun ( i.e. Deuce ). I know that we have a new regime now with Loomis and that Mueller made the call on not picking Smoot but to me they are pretty much the same. Mueller, Loomis, and Haslett all seem to like athletes with alot of potential more than proven football players who might seem as though they have maxed out their potential. No matter who's in the FO we have got to put our faith in them.
bignic26 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 122

03-17-2005, 12:44 PM	#2
no_cloning 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 249	What If... Yikes. Paragraphs. Please.
no_cloning 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 249

03-17-2005, 12:45 PM	#3
4saintspirit 500th Post Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 690	What If... Nobody wanted Smoot as a 1st round pick. I was screaming for them to trade up in the second round to get him -- they actually tried to do that and failed.
4saintspirit 500th Post Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 690

03-17-2005, 12:50 PM	#4
blake6900 100th Post Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 182	What If... When a team drafts for need they are more times than not reaching. The best available player is rarely a reach because that player is \"the best available player\". While it makes little, if any, sense to sign a free agent because he is \"the best available player\" I believe the draft serves a different purpose. By and large the draft is planning for the future. Frankly there aren\'t that many first year players that have made an immediate impact on the field. Sure there\'s the Randy Mosses and the Deions but there are a larger number of Stallworths and Terrells.
blake6900 100th Post Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 182

03-17-2005, 02:27 PM	#5
LKelley67 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: baton rouge Posts: 2,540	What If... greetings and welcome big nic. i will respond to your post about one word... faith. faith is an assurance or belief from confidence or proven reliability. this front office is not deserving of that. i am a lifelong fan so i\'ll hope (desire with anticipation) forever. their wildly erratic moves have shaken out average at the very best when all is said n done (just like the team play). mueller was the nfl executive of the year, a respected football guy. loomis is a beancounter. for every charles grant or courtney watson pick. there have been more stinchcombs, hendersons, and the alltime saint draft bust sully. for every good dwight smith signing there have been more dale carters and overweight lazy lunch bunches. for a mackenzie trade there is a tebucky. i love my country. that is why i do not blindly give allegiance to any leader and question policies whether middle east or economics. i want it to stay the best and not fade away as other world powers have. sorry to bash your offseason party. hope on brutha. just dont put your faith in anything or person(s) not desrving it. do that, then the next thing ya know, you will be satisfied with 8-8 seasons.

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03-17-2005, 04:41 PM	#6
bignic26 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 122	What If... Don\'t get me wrong L Kelley, I wouldn\'t follow the current FO into the fires of Hell. All I\'m saying is that instead of bashing the FO, we should respect them as the leaders of the team. They do the best they can and yes some of their draft and free agent choices have been duds. Show me one GM in the history of the NFL who hasn\'t swung and missed! I\'m sure Loomis and Haz would be happy if every piece of trash they picked up turned into gold. In the real world things don\'t happen like that. You win some, you lose some. Loomis has lost more than he\'s won though and I\'ll admit that. The FO has done some very stupid things, some things that just don\'t make sense looking back now. But remeber, they were just trying to improve the team and give us fans the best possible chance to watch the Saints win games. We all feel like we could be a better GM than Loomis, and alot of us could be given the chance, but he\'s the man for right now and we have to accept that. The bottom line is this: The Saints current front office is a powerful, free swinging, home run hitter who\'s hitting about .223. When they swing, they swing hard. When they connect, the ball is outta the park. When they miss, they look very foolish while they\'re falling down.
bignic26 100th Post Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 122	We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams

03-17-2005, 06:01 PM	#7
zachsaints52 500th Post Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Abingdon, Virginia Posts: 522	What If... bignic26 You are correct, even though I wasn\'t a big time Saints fan back then, I still was like ??? when they said Deice\'s name. But I am glad they did that too. I am glad we don\'t have a probl;em with the retirement of Ricky and I am very glad we got those picks, because if not everything would be different right now. Your right about home run hitter, but I think the average is around .100 more than .223

03-17-2005, 06:10 PM	#8
LKelley67 1000 Posts + Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: baton rouge Posts: 2,540	What If... that sounds fair nic. the faith thing was getting too sunshiney for my likings. respect i won\'t say much on except that it has to be earned. and if it is not earned then mistrust grows. reel off whatever names ya like... parcells, gibbs, belicheck, cowher... front office guys too, polian, savage, finks... they all earned respect. yes, by winning. but winning that came from running a tight ship. the tight ship didn\'t appear from winning. the erratic performance of the fo and on the field reflected in 4 years of sum total mediocrity doesn\'t command a whole lot of that. i have been hoping for 38 years. if they blow \'n go after this year i will still be here.

03-17-2005, 08:47 PM	#9
Euphoria 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Hollywood, CA Posts: 7,601 Blog Entries: 5	What If... Actually I like the drafting idea of drafting best player available. So what you get two great running backs but you never know what will happend and you can always make the other trade bait for furture picks. I don\'t have a problem with going with best available... I hate to disappoint many on here but I think that is what is going to happen this year...