papz

Yea I kind of left Freddie off at the 3rd string running back because in the last 5 full years he's been here, he's had a total of 7 carries. And out of those 7 carries, probably half of them came off our punt formation. He's one of our special teams ace and that's pretty much it.

TheDeuce

OK I guess I misunderstood what your post was getting at about Baltimore. My bad.

Sure we might have spent more overall money on the defensive side of the ball, but with the exception of Dwight Smith we brought in a bunch of nobodies. So sure it might seem like we did a lot to improve our defense, if you look at how much we spent, but we used the majority of that money on a bunch of scrubs (Jimmy Williams, Hodge, Fisher, Mel Mitchell, Tony Bryant). Maybe we could have used the money we gave to Smith to try and make a deal for Corey Simon, or maybe go after Ian Gold or somebody else.

Anyways, my point is that with such an awful defense last year, we only brought in 1 guy from FA that can make a difference. That just shows me idiocy. Sure we didn't pay Antowain Smith very much money, and I'm glad that he strengthens our backfield, but our FO could have used the money to improve our porous defense.

mayoj

Even if there were anyone out there good enough for us to grab on D, 665K sure as hell wouldn't get them to us. We made moves on a few LB's but they didn't bite. So we picked up Levar Fisher who probably won't do anything anyway. Picking up A. Smith gives us depth (which I agree with the rest is good) and it also gives us another player on our team who has been to and won a superbowl, which I think is great for addressing the intangibles of our past shortcomings. A. Smith, Mayberry and D. Smith were all great FA pickups IMO.

papz

True TheDeuce... I would have loved for us to acquire Gold or Simon. Unfortunately we weren't able to move Howard or cut Gandy to free up the cap space to do so. I don't think Ian Gold even considered signing with anyone else besides Denver during the offseason. He wanted to go back home.

I think we are trying to build around our young players that's why we weren't able to sign a big name linebacker. There wasn't really any big name DT's out there and our secondary was already pretty solid. But remember, we did attempt to sign a Antonio Pierce... but we were rejected. So you can't say the Saints didn't try at all. I mean Hardy is still out there, but I personally don't want him coming in taking Colby's or Courtney's playing time. It can only hurt their development. Boulware is there too but he's pretty much a pure pass rusher. We have trouble against the run and that's not exactly his strong point.

I think we'll be fine. We saw glimpses at the end of last year of what this defense can become. With another year of developing chemistry, we can only get better. I mean we can't get any worse... we were the last ranked defense. Hopefully one of our DT's will emerge and provide us with that extra spark we need up there.

JKool

Bryant isn't a scrub.

Danno

Yep. This guy was up and coming. There were high hopes for him in Los Angeles. Then he suffered a career threatening neck injury. I think he missed nearly two years of football before coming back to us.

He's a big DE, good quickness, who can spot play all 4 D-line positions. I'd have no hesitation to start him at LDE if Charles Grant got hurt. He's big enough to to contribute in the DT rotation. He's a younger faster version of Willie Whitehead. Definitely not a scrub. I think when Howard goes down (and its quite likely he will) Bryant (with Will Smith) will step in and do well.

Fisher is an interesting prospect too. A starting LB who was doing well until he got injured. he'll be nearly two years removed from the ACL this year which is typically the time it takes to get back to 100%. Low risk, high reward signing. I wouldn't call him a scrub. I'd call him an inexpensive gamble that may pay off big.

Jimmy Williams? Reminds me of Fahkir Brown 2 years ago. He's got skills, but still needs some development. He's probably as good as any mid to late draft pick we could have gotten. Its not like we threw Champ Bailey money at him either.

Mel Mitchell? Scrub? OK maybe. But for a 4th round SS, who had won the starting job before being cheap-shotted, who excells playing special teams, and still may develop into a decent SS, I think signinging him for near league minimum was a good move.

Hodge? OK, I'll buy the scrub line. But for a back-up to Allen (and probably the last LB roster spot), you could do a lot worse. I'll be kind and just say, at least he knows the system.

SaintFanInATLHELL

Don't we all. There's been a lot of discussion about talent lately. But I still haven't seen anything about scheme. Who's defense will be out there in September? Venturi's? YUCK! Haslett's? Robinson's? Who's going to be the coach making the defensive calls.

I figured out that Venturi's pictures of Benson and the farm animals is real problematic.

Awesome is debatable. I'd call it a slow starting, inconsistent, yet expolosive offense. The offense's goal this upcoming season should be to put up 150 first quarter points. If they can score consistenly in the first quarter it'll set the tone for the rest of the game.

It looks like there was a signficant talent upgrade on the defensive side of the ball. Let's just hope that the coaches can put that talent in the right position to make the key plays that the defense needs to make.

SFIAH

AllSaints

Bryant didn't really do any thing special last year blocked the kick against Carolina. He really wasn't that great as much as ppl say he is.

ThePaSaint

i do understand everyones arguments(which were all legitimate claims) but all i was saying is that we can put so many points on the board every game. but every year it seems our PA is higher than our PF. Which means 8 and 8 seasons every year. We need to keep our offense intact as it is. and give ourselves a baltimore/new england D#. lets face it defense wins games and all that offense pizazz goes down the drain when you lose. It doesn't matter! SAINTS FAN FOR LIFE! Peace fellow saints.

CheramieIII

Yeah, as much as we were banged up at RB last year, you can never have too much depth at that position and our defense will be fine this year. Craft has come on, we have Smith, Grant's back, Fincher at Middle, Watson outside, the best damn DE's in football and average, yes average DT's.

But this looks alot better than last year, does'nt it!!!!