TheOak

I owe Cha Ching a better reply and this thread is perfect.

This is why "Breees is done" gets no traction.

1. We are mid season, you aren't finding new talent now.
2. The owner, coaches, fan base, practically everyone with the exception of Bridgewater fans believes Drew Brees is the best chance for this team to win this season.
3. Brees has been "done" a few times since 2014.
4. Nothing that is being said about Drew Brees wasn't said about Favre when the Packers got rid of him and in 2009 that guy didn't look done at all. Brady has been done a couple times in the last 5 years.

.... the final point. Drew Brees isn't finished playing football and until he is if you put him on the market you'll have to face him and as much as you guys think he is done I dont think you want to face him with a good line and two good receivers do you? Hint.. If you dont want to face him with two good wide receivers you are admitting we need receivers and not a new QB.

~ Peace

burningmetal

He's not done yet, but his pocket awareness and reaction times have slowed significantly. When the line struggles at all, he's average. Several times today, I thought he had room to step up in the pocket, but he was way too slow to react.

I also thought the Saints abandoned the run before the game even started, which was insane. Just when the Saints learned how to win as a team, they go right back to being pass happy, with stupid checkdowns to the fullback.

Another thing that drew my ire: Payton barely played Kamara all day today, when they needed him most, but all of a sudden, on the last drive when the game is clearly over, he's got him out there catching passes and taking hits.... So it was cool to expose him when it didn't matter, but not before? What kind of idiocy is that? What happened to this entire team during the bye? No common sense, no sense of urgency, no awareness, just nothing.

I get that it's one game. But this is a historically bad loss, and happened in in a fashion that I've never seen from a 7-1 vs 1-7 kind of matchup. You see upsets in these games where the favorite turns the ball over five times and gives the game away. I've never seen a team that was such a huge favorite just come out and do absolutely nothing. That just cannot happen.

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

CHA_CHING

It's been obvious since the Cowboys loss of last year.


As I posted this earlier, will post it again.



Brees is having a very similar decline to the one Peyton Manning had at the end of 2014.

Back in 2014, Manning and the Broncos started out on fire. He led the league in passing yards and TDs and was right there in the MVP conversation. Then in week 12, Denver went to St Louis and were held to 7 points and something was off. They never looked the same again. Aaron Rodgers ran away with the MVP, but Manning's end of the year stats were great enough that he nearly had 5,000 yards and on paper, it looks like a truly monster season until you split it like this.

When Manning declined was when Denver transitioned from an offensive juggernaut (remember, they broke all those records in 2013) to suddenly, relying on their defense to do the heavy lifting, get turnovers and hold down the fort. They limped into the playoffs and lost the divisional round to the Colts in a game where their defense truly played lights out and was doing everything to try and bail out a struggling offense. They ultimately lost cause the offense couldn't convert drives into points when they got down the field.

Sound familiar? That was our story last year. The defense kept us alive in every game after Thanksgiving. They pretty much moved heaven and earth for us to beat the Steelers around Christmas. Remember when the offense needed a PI call on Joe Haden to finally get that TD and win it? The defense got 4th down stops, turnovers and ultimately sealed the game.

In the playoffs, we almost went out like that Denver team - offense put up stats after struggling but couldn't stop shooting themselves in the foot with penalties and screw ups to really put an end to that game. Defense held Philly to less than 90 yards and in the end, got a lucky turnover and prevented us from going one and done.

Against the Rams, everyone focused on the non-call and forgot that we really did not play a good game. Of the 4 teams in the conference title games, we had the worst offensive numbers. Brees also did not play good that day. The long bomb to Ginn was almost intercepted. The infamous non-call play, WOULD'VE been an interception if the corner had been watching the ball instead of trying to murder Tommy Lee Lewis like a moron. That would've been an INT and possibly pick six with all that room to run. The defense tried really hard, but we let the Rams linger around long enough to steal it.

Five Thirty Eight's writers have been saying this for many months now, that Brees has declined. That is the only reason they put Matt Ryan ahead of him in their NFC South quarterback rating. Neil Paine in group chat articles on there brought up how Brees could come back and still declining after his injury, and I think he had a point.

jnormand

If you're insinuating that that loss was Brees' fault, you're crazy. And if you'd rather have Bridgewater in than Brees...you need to put the crack pipe down.

CHA_CHING

If Bridgewater had the game Brees had today, this whole forum, Saints twitter and other forums would be going off wanting him traded or cut.

Brees at 40 years old has a bad game, and we blame everything else.

I'm sorry the truth hurts, but Brees has declined and it's expected when you get to 40 years old. Manning was god awful his last year, Favre and Marino also looked terrible and we're now witnessing also; the declines of Brees and Brady. It just happens. People are nuts to think these guys will be playing at a high level until their 45.

Lord_Saint83

Well for the longest time you couldn't say nothing bad about payton without being called crazy or whatever else on here. But now you kinda can when its warranted but drew is still off limits no matter if he does have a bad game.

bobdog86

Offensive line was “offensive”....defensive line sucked....linebackers sucked, wr’s dropped too many, everything sucked today, coaches really sucked, Drew sucked...coming off a bye, you’d think they would have at least showed up. Typical rivalry game...they showed up with nothing too lose...we just didn’t show up. Hopefully this taste lingers a little while

burningmetal

You and I normally don't agree on things, but I agree with you about no one ever wanting to blame Brees. I've been fighting that losing battle for years, about trying to critique him honestly.

Now, he certainly didn't lose this game all by himself. Outside of Michael Thomas, who really played well? But your QB is your leader, and if everyone, including people in this forum are going to kiss his butt over everything he does FOR the team, they should be equally willing and ready to say when he hurts the team. People talk about how the team would be dead and buried without Drew, but they were emphatically proven wrong while Drew was out. That doesn't mean that Bridgewater is better then Brees, but it just shows that there is a little more to the team than just Brees.

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

blackangold

Don’t know if he is done but he looked like **** today

CHA_CHING

Appreciate the kind reply, I truly do. Though we disagree, it's nice that we can be respectful. I didn't get that at times on the other Saints board, so know that I appreciate it.


Favre was 38 when the Packers got rid of him, and I think he deserved better. But at the same time, no one really expected his 40 year old 2009 season at Minnesota to be MVP caliber. It came out of nowhere after he struggled with an injury in 2008 with the Jets and had a bad late season collapse.

I really liked Favre's 2009 season cause that Vikings team truly proved to be fools gold. He put up an MVP caliber season with Brenard Berrian, Percy Harvin and Sidney Rice as his main targets. Those guys didn't really have great careers after he retired. I remember back in 2010, many people thought the Vikings had a great future after Favre due to how great he made that whole offense look.

Brees has done better with less before, but I've felt that he's been declining since the end of last year. Something is just off with his reads and his throws.

It reminds me so much of Peyton Manning in the end. Manning was a genius at reading defenses and though the Broncos defense ultimately carried him to a ring in 2015, I still think he was vital in that playoff run for making reads on defenses and doing his audibles. They had just 1 turnover on offense in the playoffs before the SB and I think that is cause their QB despite his decline, could still make good reads and didn't put them in dangerous situations while allowing the defense to do their job.

After Manning's decline, his INT rate soared high cause he was still trying to throw down field and on many of those INTs in late 2014 and through 2015, they were on passes he normally would hit back in his prime. But his arm was just gone. Brees has actually done a better job at preventing this by not forcing balls in tight coverage more often like Peyton would do. Peyton had to learn the hard way after he was arguably benched for Brock Osweiler. When he came back late in the season, he didn't turn the ball over again until the SB.

I wish we had a historical defense like that for Brees, but unfortunately we don't. Today was painful to watch and the defense does deserve a good bit of blame around the table - they allowed Ryan to pick them apart, Jones went off on us with some big plays and catches and all around the boneheaded penalties were not good.

I'm not suggesting making Bridgewater the starter again; but I do know had he played this bad, people would be losing their minds.

Overall the whole team is going to deserve blame for this and beginning with our coach. We looked like we spent the whole bye week partying it up and came in with a massive hang over.