Saints heading in wrong direction entering the playoffs???

Well the Saints luck finally ran out last night. In all their close games this year the ball bounced their way, but not last night. Devery dropping a TD, Harper dropping a pick, the plethera of blown calls by the officials, etc.

The defense has been horrible for a while now. But that's not my biggest concern. Pass-happy Payton has decided that he no longer wants to run the ball, even though it worked so well to start the season. Steve Young and Terry Bradshaw have also voiced their concerns about this the past couple of weeks. Payton has gone back to calling plays as he did the previous two seasons, therefore all of our games lately have been nail biters. With the exception of NE and TB.

I'm hoping this loss will wake Payton the f up and get back to running the ball. Payton should be embarrassed that he got outcoached by Wade, i'm a fat Bum, Phillips. But if this is the Saints team that shows up in the playoffs, they will be 1 and done and this dream season will be all for nothing.

 

With the exception of the Patriots game, it's been going downhill for a while. IMO mostly due to injuries in an already thin and suspect defense coming into the season. But, I still believe Cowboys outcome was more a result of 'we thought we deserved it' --Brees' post game comment, and Colston's game week statement that maybe we're the best team ever. They're all young guys who've never been here before and they couldn't handle their own press. When I saw the cocky expression on the returner's face (don't know his name) before the opening kickoff, I knew we were in trouble.

 

Blown calls by officials was not the problem. All season the Saints have had to rely solely on their offense to pull them through because they had no defense to speak of. Last night the offense failed to show up for the first three quarters and they had no defense they could rely on to get them through the rough spots. I don't recall what their defense looked like last year, but if things don't improve next year on defense Benton needs to start looking for a new DC.

 

The defense hasn't been great all year but at least they were getting some stops and most of all TURNOVERS. This keeps giving Breese the ball back and many times in great field position. Now they aren't getting ANY turnovers and no stops. So Breese has to sit a big part of the game while the other team is scoring and making Breese have to play catch up instead of him making the other team have to play catch up. I really hope that the answer on defense is the injured players and not that they are just totally bad and the other teams have figured out how to attack us.

 

Apparently the key to beating the Saints is to pile on the points before Williams figures out what the hell is going on.

 

Just what the doctor ordered would be some healthy players. The Saints aren't exactly deep with quality talent, there is a huge drop off at most positions and there are tons of injuries. Also the OL and DL have been exposed for weeks. When all the DB's were healthy they had great coverage which hid the weak DL. Sedrick Ellis is looking more and more like one of those players that misses as many games as he plays. I sure hope he gets over the injury bug, the DL needs him. Someone earlier in the year was singing praise of Jenkins as he made a few good special teams plays claiming he was ready to play. It's obvious that he is very green and has a loooooong way to go. If he is one of the starters come playoff time it's going to be a short run. The Saints need everyone healthy on D and for Bushrod to take off his concrete cleats and get in someone's way. I think the big head or lack of motivation has played very little part in the recent struggles.

 

From my casual reading of Saints news, I understand that we have a lot of injured players. Sure would appreciate any learned opinions on…

Which Saints’ players are injured that have a good chance to be back for the playoffs?

 

Ellis, Greer, Gay, Bush, Shockey, Young. Those are the ones of the top of my head and they should all be back by playoff time. Those don't count the ones lost for the year earlier in the season.