WhoDat

With the draft just around the corner, posting on BnG seems to be at a fevered pitch - but I find myself highly uninterested in most of the draft speculation. I recently asked myself, why?

Maybe I am just the pessimist that some on this board enjoy coloring me to be. After all, I don't expect this team to make the right choices in the draft. They haven't in the past. What's to make them start now?

This got me to thinking about the old Pessimism v. Optimism debate that has raged on this board. Does expecting the Saints not to succeed mean you're a pessimist? Afterall, they haven't succeeded, and expecting them not to doesn't mean that I don't want them to. That's something right?

So I consulted the dictionary, and found what I was looking for.

Optimism is "a tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation, an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome." There are some of those here, no doubt. I am not one of them. So what am I?


A hopeful realist.


A realist is "a person who accepts the world as it literally is and deals with it accordingly." While Billy and Saintfan will no doubt jump on me for this, I think I am closer to this than anything else. That my track record in predicting results and future strengths and weaknesses has bee fairly good, as far as predictions for the Saints go, makes me think I'm on to something.

So what is a hopeful realist?

To me, it's a person who believes that the Saints can have it all go their way. A person who is hopeful (i.e. desires that result) that the Saints will win it all. However, a hopeful realist is one who isn't going to construe things as positively as possible. Nor as negatively as possible either, despite what some might say.

This team is talented. If some of the young players can step it up, the team can be a good one. Then again the reality of situation is that these same players and coaches have had ample time in the past to do just that (step up), and haven't. Why think they will this year? Hope for it sure - but is there reason to think that they will? I haven't seen any.


So looking at the 2005 season, just before draft day, what do I see? I expect an 8-8 or 9-7 year, and I will continue to expect that until the team proves me wrong. What do I hope for? I hope that things can go the Saints' way, that players can play up and coaches can coach better, and we can end up 11-5 and in the playoffs. But then, that's just one Hopeful Realist's view. ;)