AsylumGuido

I'd like to actually see you count more games than that (counted on two hands) that Brees has cost the team a loss. Sure, he's thrown a pick here or there at a crucial time, but it usually comes after a game of mistakes by defense, dropped catches or stupid offensive penalties has placed him in a situation where he has to force the issue. He has won us FAR more games single-handedly when those same failures by the rest of the team were a factor.

The worst games attributed to Brees usually involved defenders constantly being in his face (see Dallas game this season). The greatest players of all time (which includes Brees) can have bad games, but the expectations get set so high that blame is placed upon them when some things are out of their control.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

TheOak

You guys are more serious than hearing "oops!" during a vasectomy.

Danno

I'm pretty sure on every play there are 11 assignments with multiple adjustments on the fly. One bad play can cost dearly, but may be a result of several different mistakes or a key mistake by someone you and I aren't aware of.

Also no one considers the play that would have resulted in an offensive TD that didn't work because someone else didn't do their job correctly. Only the coaches know exactly what went right, and what went wrong on every play on both sides of the ball.

I doubt one player is ever the sole reason a game is won or lost.

The Dude

I don’t care how meaningless the game was. A third string QB who got cut from the practice squad shredded our starting defense. Playing to win or not, our guys were made fools of.
As for Teddy, I don’t think Payton wanted him to succeed. Drive his price down.

WhoDat!656

The Saints played the game for what it was, a meaningless game; the game meant more for the Panthers and so they played like it.

I don't remember the Saints blitzing one time.

IMO, the Saints were more interested in not getting players injured than in winning.

st thomas

Hearing Payton s press conference he was as pissed as any fan in the dome the team were flat out heartless and like above said just get thru the beotch without a stretchers on the field but if u saw there were players droping out of the lineup with hurt souls more than injuries / break a sweat and hit the showers if your like me I would have preferred a sharp looking practice game for a half but the shoe was on the other foot so to speak. We are spoiled that is all

TheOak

Try looking at the game from a players perspective, not just someone that plays football but someone who’s career and family wellbeing is football.

I can:
A. Play 90%, not effect our home field advantage one bit, have a chance to play in a NFC Championship game, have a chance to play in the Super Bowl... Preserve my opportunity to add to my resume and increase my value on my next contract.

Or

B. Play 100-110% and risk giving any opportunity listed above to someone else if I get hurt.

You might argue that players don’t think that way, you’d be surprised but I’m sure some do not. I’ll bet good money that their spouses and/or Agents do, and have had that discussion with them.

They don’t pull back because the game was meaningless, they all have pride and are competitive; they pull back because it’s a huge career risk to lay out on a meaningless game.

That Carolina game reminded me of the Pro Bowl.

QBREES9

Are future QB is not on the roster.

SmashMouth

Neaux!

burningmetal

If you weren't quite so busy being an egotistical smart mouth, you would have read the very next sentence of my post, and might have had just a shred of perspective to be able to respond to me appropriately.

I said "not that any one player single handedly loses a game". That means games where he just made a ton of mistakes that put the team at a massive disadvantage. It's well understood by myself, and anyone else who knows football, that there are other factors that go into it, and it's never quite as simple as just saying it's all one guy's fault.

However, when you are one of the highest paid players in the sport, for the very reason that you are supposed to be smarter than other QB's, and be able to minimize mistakes when other things are going wrong, you can't just go out and lay an egg.

But the thing that always bothered me, again, is not about the fact that he had bad games. Those happen sometimes. It's the fact that you can never criticize him around here, without people like you coming to his rescue to slobber on him and elevate him to some god-like status. It's pathetic.

You same people who defend Brees to the death have NO PROBLEM, whatsoever, blaming other players, and saying how bad a QB sucks if he isn't Drew Brees. Other QB's don't get the excuse of "well, if they blocked better" or "maybe the routes were bad".

You can't just take a simple point for what it is. You have to go straight into comparing Brees to other QB's, to remind me that he's better than them. I DID NOT say that he was not better than most. That's not the point, AT ALL. Can I make that more clear? All I'm saying is be willing to say when he has a bad game. Some of you refuse to do that, and it's intellectually dishonest, as well as just plain annoying.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.