If we thought Brees declined this past year, we are in for a rude awakening next year. He'll be 41 and I'm not looking forward to it. It's sad watching legendary QBs past their primes still trying to play with diminished skills. I expect Brees will still have his good games from time to time just like Manning and Brady did after their declines, but we are going to be leaning entirely on the defense if we are to have another winning season. He'll still get his stats and high percentage completion by relying on checkdowns.

It's too early to say, but I almost feel like this team will be 8-8 or 9-7 next year. Losing Mike Nolan on the defensive staff is going to hurt unless we get a solid replacement. Fans talk about how "easy" the NFC South is, but that don't last forever. The NFL is very unpredictable. We probably wouldn't even be having this conversation about our Saints, if the 49ers didn't just appear out of nowhere, or GB fluke into a 13-3 season and get a bye. No one was predicting the Niners to get this far before the season started, nor did anyone see the Titans having the kind of success they had.

I think next year, there's going to be another set of surprises that bumps us up, just like this past year. I do not see us finishing 13-3 again with the opponents on our upcoming schedule. We've had some serious lucky breaks the past 2 years in the regular season and that stuff don't always work out year to year.