I\'m a true die hard Saints fan so that\'s why I can bash them when they need bashing. I was born and raised in LA and I\'ve lived the through the pain that is being a Saints fan. That brings me to this post and the situation that the FO must address before we are to go to the next level.

We spend alot of time talking about which players we need and what positions we need help at and that\'s great. It\'s fun to talk about free agency and the draft, but I\'ve yet to see anybody mention our biggest need. The thing we need more than any big time LB, DT, OT, or CB. The thing every other team in the league has that we don\'t. Leadership.

Look at every other team in the NFL and you\'ll see what seperates us from the rest of the league. You\'ll see why the Saints flounder in mediocrity year in and year out. Some teams are sorry every year because they don\'t have talent. We aren\'t one of those teams. We have just about as much raw talent as any team in the league. Why then do other teams do more than the Saints with equal or less talent? Because they have strong leadership. Somehow every year we reach right around .500 on talent alone. We manage to win about half of our games without any leadership. Imagine what we could do if we had some proven, strong leaders in the clubhouse.

In order for a good team to become great, that team must have leadership. Right now we are a good team, well above average in terms of player talent. I think, no I know that the Saints have the pontential to be great. I truly believe that with the right mix of talent, heart and leadership, that 8-8 record could easily turn into 12-4 and a run into the playoffs.
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Today\'s NFL is so twisted and upside down. We comend players for playing through pain and playing with heart. When a guy is getting paid milliions of dollars to play football, it should be expected that he play through pain and play with heart. Unless he\'s INJURED and can\'t physically play, his butt should be on the field. If we have a hang-nail do we still have to work? The last thing on alot of players\' mind is playing with heart and becoming a leader. The Saints roster just so happens to be full of that type of player. The FO must aquire more heart and more guys who can lead on the field and off.
i agree a player making millions should play hurt if capable, and while most do and some refuse to be held out, some won\'t. as for heart, that\'s inbreed.........you either have it or you don\'t......no one can pay you for it.....smitty
Leadership comes from two sources, players and the coaching staff. If Haslett\'s has showed us anything during his tenure it\'s that he can\'t control players. Players don\'t respect or follow him. He doesn\'t get the most out of a player\'s talent. Hell, he can\'t even keep his player\'s in shape (i.e. the lunch bunch, Sully, Deuce, etc). So we can rule out the possibilty of leadership coming from the current coaching staff. That leaves the responsiblity of leading to the players. There are a few guys on our current roster with the potential to lead. Deuce could, but he\'s more of a quiet warrior. Will Smith has alot of class and will end up being the leader of the D. Bentley, B.Young, C.Watson, D.Smith all have promise but who else? Brooks or Horn? Who would look at them as leaders? They\'re more of a comedy act.

Somebody needs to step up and take control of this team or we\'ll continue to have the joy of watching 8-8 seasons for years to come! :casstet:

Leaders.....Horn,Conwell,Bentley,Grant,Smith,McKenzie, Bellamy,Gleason. Seems like we have some leaders.....lets get some LB\'s.

Wasn\'t Ray Lewis recently on trial for something fairly bad? If so, I don\'t think he has the kind of leadership (which I generally think of as Integrity) that bignic had in mind. Maybe I\'m wrong about both of these points though.

In football, leadership is a shared thing. Sure it is good to have guys who are great leaders in all the ways we\'re talking about. However, even the greatest leaders have off-days when they need help from their reliable side-kick. I agree that in general leadership on the Saints has been a problem.

Certainly one way to diagnose this problem is to say that we don\'t have one guy who is THE leader of the team - like a Ray Lewis, John Elway, Ronnie Lott, or whomever. However, that isn\'t a necessity. Who on the Pats this year is THE guy. They appear to me to have many guys with different levels of the different kinds of leadership - all it takes is the right guy with the right kind of leadership to setp up at the right time.

Thus, the need for A leader seems not a necessity to me. I do, however, agree that we could use more leadership in general. I believe that perhaps it is the case that we are missing an Integrity guy, but I\'m not sure that is obvious based on anything that has been said so far. I further wonder about the value of THE Integrity guy - perhaps we merely need more players with integrity and not one guy to pull everyone together? I\'m still a bit confused by this idea, but I think progress is being made.