Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

We are notorious for having a slow start to the season. I believe it has something to do with the complex schemes that we employ on both offense and defense. I also think it has to do with the influx of young players we rely on to step up their first year and the growing process takes time. I will admit that I was worried about the trenches after Rankins went down and Okafor moved on, along with Unger retiring and the lack of quality depth on the O-line.

However, if we can give Drew a clean pocket and give us time to make things happen we should be just fine. It looks like Brown and Edwards can fill the gaps while we wait for Rankins without rushing him back.

You win in the trenches and if we get our timing down then I believe we can get a fast start.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

We’re a counterpunch defense. We wait until the 2nd half to make adjustments and really start scheming. That’s fine later in the season when you have lots of game tape to give you an idea of tendencies. It doesn’t work so well early in the season. Think about how unprepared we were for what the Buccaneers threw at us in week one last season.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

IMO we had a fast start after the first week. We were flying high and peaked in November before crashing down hard in December. The offense was never the same again after Dallas spanked them around and showed the world that it was possible to do if you focused on taking MT and Kamara out of the picture.

Looking back in hindsight, I think problems were visible with the Falcons game on Thanksgiving night. They looked sluggish in that game and we all know what happened the next week when Dallas pretty much gave them a butt whooping.

I don't know if we can afford a slow start this year. The first quarter of our schedule is pretty tough.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

The schedule this year is just another in a long line of "F**k, You...No, F**k You!!!" exchanges between Goodell's Office and Saints Nation...

https://media.giphy.com/media/4qzgqaWkMNJsc/giphy.gif

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

There's no question that the years under coach Payton in which we've done really well, we have had a fast start and put the pedal to the floor and never really let up. 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, were all fast starts where we were a hot team racking up wins right out the gate. The years where it's a slow start, battling above .500, win one, lose one, win one, lose one, just barely eking it out....those years hardly ever seem to end well for us late in the year.

The exception to this rule is probably last year, where things really didn't seem to start coming together for us until maybe the end of the Browns game, or somewhere thereabouts. But the defense and the offense just kept getting better and better, as things started clicking and the year went on. There were games that didn't look good, but Drew had his Drew face on and Sheldon Rankins danced the robot....even the games we lost, people kinda forget how close and "in it" we always were.

It's kinda agonizing to admit it, but you could almost say that literally the ONLY thing that has kept us out of appearing in the Super Bowl the past TWO FREAKING YEARS IN A ROW, has been two absolute freak, fluke plays, in critical playoff games, one of which wasn't even our fault.

The odds of it happening a third time? I honestly think that the more times that this crazy fluke stuff in Minny and against the Rams has already happened to us, the less likely it is for something absolutely crazy and random to happen to us AGAIN, the next time. The odds have to go down. You can't keep losing on one-in-a-million plays. If we keep trying, then eventually we will have a normal Saints game in the playoffs and really make some history.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

The playoffs the last two years will not happen again for us. This is our year. It hurts to know we should have 3 Superbowl Rings and only have one but I am thankful for that one. It's vindication for the years of the Aints!

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

2019 NEW ORLEANS SAINTS REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE

Sept. 9 Houston Texans 6:10PM ESPN :brood:
Sept. 15 at Los Angeles Rams 3:25PM FOX :mad
Sept. 22 at Seattle Seahawks 3:25PM CBS :mad:
Sept. 29 Dallas Cowboys 7:20PM NBC ;)

As someone is going to say... 4-0!

https://media1.tenor.com/images/2580...itemid=5027578

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

No worries ....

4-0 to start the season ;)

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We will at least start 3-1. We won't lose to the Cowboys this year.

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Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

Roger Godhell is going for 3 out of 3 at stopping us from winning the Super bowl. This doesn't even count that bounty gate crap he made up to protect the shield from concussion lawsuits. :argue:

However, I think he's played all of his cards and Payton is still holding a joker.:lightsabres:

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

Defenses always lag behind offenses and our offense does not start the season slow.. We start games slow and are generally a better 2nd half team.

Average points first 5 games of the year.
2018 Ave 28 points per game
2017 Ave 29 points per game
2016 Ave 31 points per game
2015 Ave 20.6 points per game

Anything over 27 points per game is Top 5 in the league and that 20.6 is still top 3rd in the league.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

We will start 19 & Eaux for the season !

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

I’ll give you last year but nobody was going to beat the Eagles two years ago. Nobody. In 2011 we still had to get past NYG and they weren’t going to lay down. I don’t know where this idea of losing the divisional round equates to should have had a ring idea.
That being said... had we a defense like we have had the past two years throughout the Payton era I see no reason why we wouldn’t have 7 rings.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

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Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

This.

No game like that comes down to just one play.

I am really sick to death of hearing about the non-call. We have begun to sound like Vikings fans who blame the entire 1998 NFC title game loss on Gary Anderson's missed field goal. Cause it was totally Anderson's fault that Minnesota's defense couldn't do anything to stop Jamal Anderson in that game. And it was also totally his fault that they won the coin toss in OT and immediately turned the ball over. Our loss isn't that different - we also won the coin toss in OT and immediately threw a pick.

We led 13-0 and 20-10 and couldn't close the door on them. IMO the game was lost in the 4th quarter when we didn't have another positive net play after our last TD. Brees' miracle bomb to Ginn was the last positive play of the entire game, and that pass could've easily been intercepted. I've seen people on other sites talk about the non-call possibly being an interception if the DB would've watched the ball instead of shoving Lewis down.

Of the 4 teams in the conference title games, we had the worst offensive production in the playoffs of all of them. Our offensive numbers tanked for the year after the Dallas game and it was clearly obvious that something was wrong.

I said it on here a few months ago that everyone overlooked how bad we played against the Eagles and I didn't think Payton called a good game that night (bad play calling the entire first half and then forcing Lutz to kick way out of his range at the end). We screwed around that entire game and the defense really bailed us out by shutting Philly down for 3 quarters. We could've been one and done last year if Jeffrey don't drop that ball.

Something went wrong for us with the Cowboys game and we never fixed our offense, that's just the truth of 2018 at the end of the day. I knew we were in trouble after the Steelers game and the NFC title game went eerily similar to that (offense unable to do much in the second half, relying entirely on the defense to bail them out).


Seeing other seasons brought up here, I think there are huge differences and things to consider...

2017 - I spent all last off season telling people that our woes were not just the hail mary, but the fact that this offense was not equipped to get into shoot out games. Go back through their games and you'll see the offense relied on a Smashmouth style approach of pounding the ball and we relied on big plays (Ted Ginn ended the season ranked in the top 3 for deep ball percentage completion despite only having 4 TDs). In all of our losses, we failed to go back and forth scoring and would struggle to move down the field. There were so many times Brees would roll around looking for a play and end up throwing a check down to the TE cause no one was open. Our third down percentage was bad in 2017 and it seemed to get worse after all the injuries we suffered.

Never was convinced that we would've got past Philly if the Minnesota hail mary don't happen. Injuries had really crippled us at the end of the season and it was put on full display in the final game against Tampa and then in the playoffs with the Panthers. This team had bad luck having to play back to back divisional foes (Tampa in the last week, then Carolina again) before having to play Minnesota with no rest at all.

2013 - This team was fool's gold all year and looking back at them now, it makes perfect sense why they bombed out the next year. Sure they started 5-0, but they finished the year 6-5 after that. This team drove me absolutely crazy that year, cause they averaged around 34-38 points at home, but on the road? They scored less than 21 points in 6 games. The 27 points scored in the Patriots loss was the most they put up in any road game. This was a Jekyll and Hyde team that was great at home, but mediocre on the road. The defense was never the same again after Jabari Greer's horrific injury. I think people make too much out of them playing Seattle so close in the playoffs.

2011 - Our defense was ranked in the bottom 4 and we played a cupcake schedule of teams that we were able to run scores up on and pad stats. The Saints and Packers BOTH that year played through awful defenses and both of those teams struggled on the road with bad teams (GB lost to an awful Chiefs team. We got embarrassed by the Rams, shredded by a Josh Freeman Tampa team and nearly lost to the Jake Locker Titans). Come playoff time, neither got past the divisional round. We played one top 5 defense all year (Houston) and it was in week 4 (and we needed a huge comeback to win to win that game). From October until January, they had not faced a serious defensive challenge, then slammed into a brick wall with the #1 defense in the playoffs.

I've never been 100% convinced the 2011 team was some team for a Missing Rings episode. Even if we survive the 49ers game and beat the Giants, we have a Patriots team waiting for us in the SB with a version of Brady that threw for 5,000 yards, a healthy Welker, Gronk and Hernandez. If Vernon Davis shredded us, I know the Pats 2 TE sets would've wrecked havoc on us.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

I agree 100% on other seasons but we got hosed last year. Scores go back and forth in this league every day, it’s why they play 4 quarters and is what makes the game fun to watch. It would get boring as hell if we won every game by maintaining a healthy lead all the way through. Us falling flat was within the players control, the no call wasn’t. In a fairly called game good teams find a way to win sometimes in spite of themselves. We still had chance and opportunity to win but instead it was decided by a ref.

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

So true... yet so wrong. :shock:

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

Originally Posted by CHA_CHING View Post
No game like that comes down to just one play.

The Epitaph for all "Teams That "Shoud've" had winning seasons or Won Championships go back and look at all the Saints 7 - 9 seasons. See how many "Could've Would've Should've plays that had gone the other way would have made them at worst 9 - 7 teams. Payton Would've had ZERO losing seasons as Saints coach.

I can think of one play right now Denver "Pushing down the snapper" to block the extra point to win the game. Instead of 7 - 9 they go to 8 - 8

Talking about passes that "Could've" been intercepted is as meaningless and saying "We Should've won that game"

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

Re: Fast start vs. Slow Start
 

With nearly all the NFC South games stacked in the second half, we would be okay to start slow and hit a high in November and hopefully take our division stress-free.