Iron Saint

Meh. He played well on the special teams units but despite safety becoming a dire position we needed a warm body at, he was a complete non-factor on defense to justify keeping him around. He averaged 10.2 defensive snaps per game across 12 games last year and couldn't overtake Howden or Abram for the position (both of whom were brought back this year). Maybe he'll play better at CB for y'all but I wouldn't hold out much hope. As mid of a head coach Allen may be, he knows his stuff regarding the secondary so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on it.

Last two years there's been a dip in the run defense compare to the few years preceding it, however after an overhaul of the entire interior last year the run defense improved back to 4th place in scoring but were still 22nd in yards and YPC. Bryan Bresee was 2nd on the DL in TFL (and sacks, along with 3rd in pressures) last year despite only playing less than half of all defensive snaps (48.7%) and is poised for even more playing time as the team expects him to continue his 2nd year leap. The addition of Young will also allow for a solid rotation of him, Jordan, and Granderson (all solid run defenders) to keep each other fresh. Willie Gay joining the front 7 also adds some sideline-to-sideline mobility against the run which also should help some from hemorrhaging yards like last year. It's still deafening though, especially for Week 1.

I don't think y'all will be as bad as most are saying. Could easily see y'all winning at least 7 again, possibly 8 or maybe even 9 games. Thankfully as weak as the NFC South is, our teams also have a relatively weak schedule rotation this year (AFC South and NFC North who both have a lot of question marks in both divisions) so a few ugly wins could be had in some of those games. The toughest part of y'all schedule is due to finishing 2nd in the division last year resulting in y'all having to play Seattle and Miami, who despite both winning only 9 games last year, were deceptively solid teams. Ayeee, we had both of those last year! And that's the cold hard facts about it because y'all got our ***es twice because of it. That 10-7 game was honestly embarrassing on both accounts. Thankfully though y'all took two players that factored into both those poor metrics off our hands for us so I do have so say thanks. And Atlanta took the other one.

Probably referring to this regarding their playoff stats...

It's a combination of many factors including but not limited to the following: selectively deciding which of our players will be re-signed and at what price and will rarely, if ever, deviate from those values; our the front office usually has a set price in mind for not only our own guys, but any potential free agent signings as well allowing some players to walk in free agency for big money deals and collecting compensatory picks for their departure (this piggybacks off the first point) and using those picks either to package and trade up for higher value players (and hitting on them) or using them to provide quality depth; I'll also include strategic free agency signings that don't factor into the compensatory formula such as players that were released (like Carr despite us signing him to a massive deal and it not offsetting any potential comp picks) using void years sparingly and only on players the team is confident will sustain playing at a high level; the void years is a newer tactic and this seems like common sense but this is where teams that aren't very cap savvy quickly get burned by adding void years to oft-injured or old, declining players that end up getting released way earlier than the team intended forcing them to eat massive amounts of dead money years earlier than more than originally intended resulting in teams having holes across their depth chart without the available money to fill them factoring in the annual growth of the salary cap due to the revenue generated through the NFL's broadcasting contracts and maximizing those profits now instead of waiting until those future years; this is probably the biggest one and not something a lot of teams do (especially those sitting with a lot of cap space every single year), this one is the only reason that after the COVID season we had a larger dead money hit than the organization was planning for because that was the first season since I don't remember when that the salary cap didn't increase a significant amount

Got younger for more production and smaller contracts to the two DT's, Davenport lost his starting job halfway through the year and Granderson was far more productive despite playing less snaps, and while Elliss saw significant snaps, it only happened because the guy in front him went down in the Baltimore game; when Werner was healthy Elliss only saw the field in base sets and came off in nickel.

He'll fit right in because our run defense stunk last year compared to previous years, LOL. 2022 Saints defense vs. rush: 25th (attempts), 24th (yards), 14th (TD's), 20th (YPC) 2022 Panthers defense vs. rush: 23rd (attempts), 18th (yards), 21st (TD's), 12th (YPC) We gave up 316 rushing yards to y'all last year and the Falcons went for 200+ in both games.

#9 is the starting point to get that paw in the door, boys and girls. Hell yeah! Show me the picks! Realistically have a better chance of making Corral look like Garrett Grayson or Ian Book but fork over the goods and we can see. LOL.

Damn, this thread is making me sad by reminding me we were one pick away from Mahomes falling into our lap.

I think all our guys will play this week, Kamara and Winston included. Winston shouldn't be as hampered as he was last week if his injury is actually what's being speculated as (transverse fractures) which were the same injuries Cam Newton had after the car wreck in 2014 and Derek Carr had in 2017 (both missed a game but played the following week). It'll be a pain management deal, but he shouldn't be in nearly as much pain as last week. Defense indeed has been stout (only allowed 3 TD's so far) and should be even better if Adebo returns this week after missing the first 2 games. Our OL however has been a bit shaky compared to previous years. We've been running the ball well (including pushing around the Bucs' front 7 last week), but pass protection has a lot to be desired allowing 20 pressures on 74 pass attempts (10 sacks, 6 hits, and 4 hurries) through only 2 games. If y'all can generate pressure consistently all game, y'all will likely win with how anemic our offense has been. First one to 10 might win, LOL.

Again, neither fans nor the media influence the job security of a head coach; especially in a small market like New Orleans with a stable ownership and front office like we have in place. The media might have far more pull in larger markets like New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, ect. But not here. If the fans and media in smaller markets had that much pull, wouldn’t Rhule be fired by now? Also that first article made me laugh on the discussion about how bad Allen’s defense is only a year into his tenure at DC. Fast forward to three top-10 scoring defenses (including two top-5’s) later, safe to say the media doesn’t know . Unless a team ponies up to the asking price, he won’t be on a sideline until 2025. And that’s only if his contract doesn’t “freeze” due to him not coaching. I’ve seen conflicting stories of whether it does or not.

Dang, I must’ve missed the meeting where the fans got to vote on the job security of the head coach! I didn’t even get as much as an email despite having club seats! C’mon now, you know every fanbase has its share of *** clowns that just want to remain miserable regardless of how things play out every season. We’re no different. Hell we had threads by those aforementioned “fans” wanting to get rid of Brees for challenging the franchise tag we used on him. There’s a reason we aren’t paid as fans.

Pepperidge Farm also remembers he had just signed a 5-year extension (through 2020) before the start of that 3rd 7-9 season in 2016. He wasn’t going to get fired 1 year into that extension that was paying him $9M per. TL;DR - his seat wasn’t hot

Exactly, the technology is there to drastically improve the quality and accuracy of calls in games and the NFL either drags their feet in taking advantage of it or downright refuses to implement it. NFL officiating in its current state is not a flaw, it's a feature which the league office will use to their advantage at every step.

Hate seeing any team get outright screwed, division rivals included, but welcome to the club. The league office especially has it out for small market teams because they know they can get away with it.