What can Brown do for them?


Shortsighted Saints miss a chance to improve "D"
By Ken Bikoff (kbikoff@pfwmedia.com)
April 29, 2005





It isn’t difficult to figure out why the Saints have been treading water for the last four seasons.

Defense wins championships, and the Saints don’t bother to play much of it.

They finished 32nd — that’s dead last to you and me — in the NFL in total defense last season. They were 30th vs. the run. They were 27th vs. the pass. They were 28th in points allowed. They were 29th in yards allowed per play.

I think you get the picture.

The thinking heading into draft weekend was that the Saints were going to look for defense. They needed a defensive tackle who could slow down the run. They needed better speed from their outside linebackers. They needed a physical safety who could be the anchor of the secondary for years to come.

So, naturally, the Saints used three of their first five draft picks on offensive players.

They actually traded up from the No. 16 spot to the No. 13 position to select Oklahoma OT Jammal Brown, who the team hopes will step into the starting lineup on the right side. New Orleans suspected that the Panthers, the Saints’ division rivals who were on the clock at No. 14, would snatch Brown away, and head coach Jim Haslett and general manager Mickey Loomis wanted to make sure they got their man.

A call to the Texans and a third-round pick in 2006 later, the Saints moved up. The selection of Brown should solidify the team’s running game for years to come.

Nevermind that RB Deuce McAllister has been a 1,000-yard lock without Brown for each of the last three years and he has gained 1,367.7 Brown-free yards per year in that span. Forget about the fact that he has never gained fewer than 4.0 yards per carry or that he ran for 1,074 yards in 14 games last season. And please, ignore that WR Joe Horn tied for the NFC lead in receptions with 94 or that he was second in the NFL in receiving yards with 1,399.
Clearly, offense was a huge need for the Saints.

Oh, by the way, the next four players off the board were OLB-S Thomas Davis (Panthers), OLB Derrick Johnson (Chiefs), DT Travis Johnson (Texans) and OLB-DE David Pollack (Bengals). Did I mention that the Saints could have used help at each of those positions?

Haslett and Loomis decided that the two deepest positions in the draft, defensive end and cornerback, weren’t big needs for the team because they are stocked in those areas. I’ll agree with them on that. The Saints feature two of the better pass-rushing defensive ends in the business in Charles Grant and Darren Howard. But that doesn’t mean more defensive needs could have been filled.

If this frustrates me, I can’t imagine what it is like to be a Saints fan.

The Saints did go with defense in the second and third rounds, selecting Nebraska S Josh Bullocks, who is known more for his athleticism than his hitting, and Connecticut LB Alfred Fincher, who is expected to be a special-teams guy, although some in the Saints’ organization believe he can be a sleeper. Then, it was right back to the offensive side of the ball, with the Saints selecting California WR Chase Lyman in the fourth round and former Florida State QB Adrian McPherson — he of the myriad off-the-field problems — in the fifth round. Wisconsin DT Jason Jefferson and Arizona State DE Jimmy Verdon, who projects to defensive tackle, rounded out the draft.

All told, the Saints selected three offensive players (a decent right tackle, an injury-prone possession receiver and a project quarterback) and four defensive players in their draft.

Let me just say at this point that I certainly hope for the sake of Saints fans that these picks work out. I hope McPherson is the next Randall Cunningham. I hope Lyman evokes thoughts of Ricky Proehl. I hope Brown is a dominant player for years to come. Lord knows Saints fans deserve it. But it makes my spine shiver when I hear Loomis explain why defense dropped down the list of priorities in the first round.

"I agree (with conventional wisdom), the ranking from last year speaks for itself," Loomis told reporters. "But there are other factors. We did feel like the defense played better at the end of the season, and we have some young guys that we feel good about."

The Saints finished last season with four straight wins and allowed 18 or fewer points in each of those games. But three of those wins came vs. non-playoff teams, and in the one game vs. a playoff squad, the Falcons rested QB Michael Vick and TE Alge Crumpler after clinching the division title a week earlier.
The excitement about how the team finished the season seems a bit shortsighted. Previous to those four wins, the Saints had allowed 30 or more points in five of nine games. They gave up 20 or more in the first 12 games of the season. Sure, the Saints rallied in December to nearly earn a playoff berth, but the simple fact is the team missed the playoffs yet again.

During the offseason, the team has done little to improve the defense. Dwight Smith was signed away from the Buccaneers to become the starting free safety, but other than that, former Cardinals LB Levar Fisher was the only other free-agent addition that could be called a key piece. Defensive coordinator Rick Venturi was retained, and the Saints’ attitude seems to be that all the parts are in place, they just need to have more time.

I understand patience, but when a team has such glaring needs and it still goes in another direction, it makes me shudder.

Again, I hope Haslett and Loomis prove me wrong on this one. I hope Venturi works a miracle and the Saints’ defense rounds into shape next season. But I wouldn’t count on it.

The absolute worst thing for a franchise is to be mediocre. If a team is going to be bad, it might as well be awful because there is more talent at the top of the draft. Striving to be the best is the goal of every team, but spinning its wheels is a bad situation for any franchise to be in.
The Saints currently are kicking up so much tire smoke that John Force is jealous.

"Honestly, after finishing 32nd on defense, you could make a case for all seven players (being drafted going toward defense)," Saints director of player personnel Rick Mueller said. "If you do that, you pass on lots of good players. You want guys that are going to be on your roster at some point, so if you look only at one side you bypass a lot of good football players and hurt your team."

There’s no question that the Saints got a very good player in Jammal Brown. The problem is that he likely won’t help New Orleans finally gain some traction and head down the path toward a championship.