WhoDat

The same could be said about our defense. This is the point I have been trying to make about Carolina improving more than us. Our weakness is our defense; theirs is their offense.

Now, you tell me, who has improved MORE:

The Saints - added Ruff and Ambrose, but lost Knight.
The Panthers - added Stephen Davis, Jake Delhomme, Ricky Proehl - cut Lamar Smith.

If you have to think about that for more than .000000000001 seconds you don\'t know football. Sure, there is time left in free agency. When the season starts, HOPEFULLY the Saints will have made the right moves and will have improved a lot more on defense in the talent category than they have so far. But if the season started today, Carolina would have our number.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

FWtex

I wonder about peoples credibility in evaluating other teams weaknesses or strengths. Some talk about Carolina\'s offense last year as though the saints blew them out in both games. In reality the saints were one \"no call\" away from being swept by this team that has the worse offense. It took a last minute drive for the saints to pull out a win in Carolina and that was after Brooks threw an interception that was negated by a penalty on the first play of that drive.

I don\'t think the saints or saints fans can stand too much taller than the panthers.

pakowitz

ok whodat, ur quote \"There\'s no reason this team shouldn\'t be 12-4\"
\"Hey guys, I always think the Saints can be 12-4\"

if u think that carolina has improved more, and they will be better then us what do u say there record should be? 13-3? 14-2?

my point is, ill concede we havent improved that much on D but ill say that we have improved, and the offseason isnt over yet, and if u thought we could have been 12-4 last year, Y shouldnt we do better this year? b/c the panthers have improved more?
the bucs are the same, the falcons got better but their games are always close no matter which team is better.....

I Live In Beastmode!

WhoDat

Exactly Pak. THANK YOU!

The Bucs stayed the same - which last I checked was roughly three games better than we are. Atlanta got better. Carolina got better. Yes, we did get better also, but not as much as Atlanta and Carolina, in my mind.

I don\'t think Carolina has any chance of being 13-3. Just because I think the Saints SHOULD be 12-4 doesn\'t mean that they WILL be. C\'mon Pak, \"shoula, woulda, coulda\" is our slogan. No, I think the Saints are likely to have another average (or just above - 9-7) year UNLESS they make SIGNIFICANT moves on D. Maybe Ruff turns out to be a star and Ambrose goes to the Pro Bowl next year. I\'d be completely wrong, and I wouldn\'t mind at all. I just don\'t see that happening. We got moderately better at MLB. We added depth at corner. We lost a Pro Bowl caliber safety. We replaced on stud OT with another stud OT. We replaced a good punter with a good punter and a good backup with a good backup. To me it sounds like we haven\'t gotten much better at all. We\'ve maintained or slightly increased our over all talent.

Carolina can easily win 9 games next year, maybe even 10 or 11. So can we - or more. We\'ll have to see what happens. Still, I believe that the Saints MUST do MORE than what they\'ve done in the off-season to date is they want a real shot at competing for a title.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

WhoDat

You\'re very right on that Gator.

ScottyRo

I have to disagree that last year\'s team choked down the stretch. Around the midpoint of the season I had recognized that the 2002 Saints thought so highly of themselves that when they played a \"lower caliber\" team it seemed they expected to be handed a victory - a cardinal sin in this age of parity. Look at the schedule. I thought we\'d go 11-5 based on it:

My prediction was we\'d split with the Bucs and Falcons, and lose to SF, Pitt, and GB.

I\'m sure many of your predictions were similar. Of my prediction I was wrong about all of it except losing to the falcons. In other words we beat all the teams I thought we\'d lose to. Why? Your explaination is as good as mine, but one thing rings true: we were bad against the bad teams ALL SEASON - not just down the stretch.

All I\'m saying is that I think calling it a collapse is a misnomer. I don\'t know what to call it except lack of motivation and preparedness.

If there was a collapse at all, I would say it ocurred when Culppepper scored on the 2pt conversion to win the game. After that I think the team might have quit, but that loss and the other 4 before it, we just flat got out-performed by less talented teams.

ScottyRo

I\'m just trying to point out that many people are comparing the 2002 season to the obvious collapse of the 2001 season and I think they are two completely different situations.

In 2001, the team just fell apart. It obvious that lots of things were going on behind the scenes and that the team chemistry suffered. But it has also been said that conditioning was a major factor for the collapse - especially with Brooks and as the season wore on the pressure making the playoffs ultimately broke the team\'s spirit.

To me, 2002 was much different. We had a team that could be anybody, but refused to play hard against the bad teams. I see \"choke\" as meaning that a team fails to play up to expectations when there is a high amount of pressure on them - such as making or being in the playoffs. I didn\'t see the 2002 Saints like that until the last two games of the year. The rest of the time they seemed arrogant and unmotivated.

Why does this distinction matter? I think that if both seasons were actually \"chokes\" or collapses then that would indicate that there is severe problem within the Saints organization causing such. And if there were, the astute minded people in this forum ought to be able to identify it. I haven\'t seen a good explanation for that phenomenon yet.

However, I heard - and maybe you could check on this - that the Saints haven\'t won their last two games in a season in 10 years. If that is true, there must be some reason for it, but I can\'t fathom what it could be. Any ideas?

BlackandBlue

Bourbon Street?

subguy

Panthers | Sehorn Talks Slow - posted at KFFL (http://nfl.kffl.com)
13:00 PT: Steve Reed of the Gaston Gazette reports the Carolina Panthers still hope to sign free agent CB Jason Sehorn (Giants), although talks at this point are progressing slower than expected. The Panthers did talk with Sehorn\'s agent, Kyle Rote, on Wednesday

WhoDat

Scotty - I agree with some of the things you\'re saying. I will say this though. In 2001 the Saints were talked about being a legitimate Super Bowl Contender up until the Tampa game when they lost big and fell to 7-6. That year was undoubtedly a choke. Likewise, last year, at 6-1, they were arguably the best team in the NFC. In the history of the NFL on 5 teams EVER have been 6-1 and not made the playoffs. They were 7-2 at the break and had one of the weaker second halves of the season of any team in the league. Again, if not making the playoffs isn\'t choking, I don\'t know what is.

On the other hand, you;re right about there being something wrong in the organization. However, every time I\'ve tried to talk about it I got shot down. Most recently, I tried to use Kyle Turley\'s grumbling as proof. However, everyone in the world believes that because Turley is unhappy here that he will say absolutely anything to get out. I don\'t think the fact that he\'s unhappy makes him a liar. I think he is identifying some of the major problems with this organization, but nobody wants to hear it.

As for the losing the last two games of the year for the last ten years - I\'m almost positive that is incorrect. However, the Saints have traditionally been fast out of the blocks and then faded down the stretch. There can be any number of reasons for this. My opinion is that the Saints have never had great ASSISTANT coaches. Contrary to popular belief, assistant coaches are often more important than the head coach. The make the game plans and call the plays. Our coordinators have never been very innovative or flexible.

In the NFL what works in week 1 rarely works very well in week 14. However, our coordinators seem to be unable to adapt and opposing teams tend to be able to read us like a book by year end. That\'s just my opinion, but it\'s better than \"Bourbon street.\"

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"