Euphoria

Actually I give credit to the front office for realizing that we are in the early stages and foresight of rebuilding!!! I see signs of this team in rebuilding mode. Cap starting to be a problem for the saints and the talent level just not getting much better and the help needed at DC and OC level... hmmm. Leads me to believe we are transitioning into a rebuilding phase and not calling it what it is -rebuilding-. Trying to keep the the parts of the machine that works in which gives you a 'good' product on the field week end and week out, while acquiring projects that develop... With this theroy... one can hope... that overnight we'll have all we need to ride the team to a SB win. Aside from the Patriots seems its become more and more of dark horses that rise up for that one special year to win it all and then take a dose of harsh reality and come back to earth the following year.
With some key players aging and the addition of players who are going to be replacing them in years to come, its not a bad philosophy to keeping the Saints in position to make the playoffs year in and year out. Which many moons ago we could only dream of being 8-8. 7-9 and Saints fans were elated, now 8-8 brings mysery.
So the Saints are settling for many years at 8-8... working and tweaking the the machine in hopes to have a SB run... maintaining a decent product on the field isn't a bad theroy if you go back to the early days and bask in the days of ole'.

[Edited on 29/4/2005 by Euphoria]

LKelley67

there were some pretty awful players and front office in days of yore. that was before the era of free agency, salary caps, and parity though.

12 teams make the playoffs every year, 37.5%. that isn\'t exactly a high bar of excellence to say you are in the top 1/3. they make it so everyone gets a little happiness. not making that for 4 years in this era is an indictment of failure.

11 teams were 7-9 to 9-7 last year. again, over a third were pretty good. 8 others were 6-10 or 10-6. that totals 20 teams (62.5%) that were neither dominant or terrible. my point is, it ain\'t much to be pretty decent team and contend for playoffs.

benson comes across to me as not the win baby win driven owner but one that would like to win but is satisfied with such a decent team if it stays very profitable. if the CBA expires with the no-cap as now on the books (i do not think it will) then you would really see the different colors of benson vs. the jerry jones\' and al davis\'. i venture to say the saints would be the football equivalent of the beisbol pirates, royals, or devil rays with no cap.

saintswhodi

We had a pretty good run late 80\'s early 90\'s. I wouldn\'t mind a return to a few years of respectability such as those. Hopefully with a slight bit more success. We won\'t have the defensive dominance but if our offense now could be as dominant as our defense was then, we could have a different philosophy to ride to success.

saintswhodi

Nice thought Kelley. I agree on Benson. Here is something on the no cap year: as far as I understand it, the top 8 teams in the league are not allowed to jump into the free for all. SO that would probabaly eliminate the NEs and Philly and PITT and such right off from jumping in. also, the way the CBA is worded, having a no cap year is actually set up as a deterrent to avoid having the CBA expire. The problem inherent within having a non-capped year is if you go all out to sign players, and an agreement(new CBA) is made within season, it would be in effect the following offseason, meaning after the Superbowl. So if you give players exorbitant salaries and such, when the cap comes back into effect, you are screwed. Now you could offer players one year deals and pay them 10-20 mil for a year, but I don\'t think any NFL owner would do that too much. So even if the CBA were to expire, I don\'t expect much to go the way of the Yanks or Sox in baseball. Things will still be conservative, although you may see the eye-popping dollar figure for a player here or there.

baronm

I do think we are re-tooling the team...and hopefully haz has a upward direction he wants to take them...the question is..what is the plan? and whose running the show?

LKelley67

nice new look whodi,
yes, like that run under mora... that is what i have been ranting about, quality of play, regardless of record. those were some pretty solid teams that you felt good about, playoffs or no playoffs. (too bad the pigskin gods threw them in with the montana-young 49er era). THAT is what i do not see now whether they would have made the playoffs or not last year. erratic, underachieving, etc. if i saw a different product, a solid coming together, blossoming unit i could feel completely different about back to back 8-8\'s than i do.

saintswhodi

Agreed on all counts Kelley. That\'s why I said, if this offense could be as dominating as those defenses were for us, I would have a completely different attitude about the team. It\'s when you see the inconsistencies on both sides of the ball that makes it so much more frustrating. Even against those high powered niners, and sometimes Rams, with our defense, I felt like we could be in any game. I just don\'t get that feeling with this team about either unit. Hopefully our offense, with a supposedly improved O-line, can at least give us the consistency on that side of the ball so we can at least have a belief that we are going in the right direction. It would be a good feeling.