"Are you fucking kidding me?"

That's not my "fill in the quote" for the picture with Sean Payton--though I'd gamble it was that, or something similar to it--that's what I said to my friends ad nauseam as we left the Superdome to find the St. Charles streetcar line.

If anyone would have come to me before Monday's game and asked, "Say, Kevin, suppose we can hold the Vikings' to LESS THAN 50 RUSHING YARDS, do you think we can win?" My response would have been as follows: "Not only will we win if that happens, but Brad Childress may be shot on the spot if he can't figure out how to get Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor more than 100 rushing yards total against the Saints' defense."

So apparently...I'm a fucking idiot, but at least Brad "Major Dad" Childress ought to be used for target practice at a skeet shooting meet. Excellent.

Oh, and the Saints also lost Tracy Porter for the year with a wrist injury, meaning we all get to ride The Jason David Experience for the rest of the year. Sheesh.

I am ready to declare the Saints' 2008 season an official wash. That's not the same as declaring your season DOA (see: the St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions, and Cincinnati Bengals) but rather the acknowledgment that things just have not gone your way and likely will continue in a similar manner, no matter what the team or coaches do. I'm not blaming Sean Payton for this. GM Mickey Loomis gets a pass, too. Even Tom Benson; and all my friends know how much I loathe Tom Benson.

No, when you lose your first two picks of the previous draft, both of whom were starters, and your Pro Bowl-caliber tight end and starting wide out, the number two man on the WR depth chart, etc., then you need to reevaluate your expectations for the season. And my 11-5, we're going to the Super Bowl analysis of the situation just isn't cutting it. So I'm officially LOWERING THE BAR to a 7-9 record in which Drew Brees throws for over 4,000 yards again and Reggie Bush manages to score 15 total offensive touchdowns.

Look, there's not a lot the Saints can do when: a) Ed Hochuli can't seem to pull his head out of his own ass long enough to see a face mask penalty and to know what a fumble looks like, and b) a lot of their starters are missing weeks at a time.

Trust me, Saints fans, Martin Gramatica is the least of our worries right now.