Saints Roundtable! 09-30-11

RALPH:
As I listened to the fans next to me in the dome go bat shit crazy over the defense giving up tons of yards and points to the Texans I thought," What is realistic to expect from them every week?"

I'm not sure yesterday won't be what we get when they play elite offenses. They made redzone stops, didn't get crushed on the ground, and survived.

The offense is close to be the 2009 killing machine. Although the two injuries on the O-line could be a HUGE ISSUE.

Franklin didn't make the box score but I thought Rogers was sucking up space and Cam Jordan I definitely improving every week.

By the way, I forgot my phone charger and my phone died yesterday before the show and my wife's iPhone gets shit reception. I hope you guys ripped me a new one and I am looking forward to listening later.

WANG:

Meantime, as far as yesterday goes, I think "survived" pretty much nails it. And much like against Green Bay, I don't think it was nearly as bad as it looked. Houston was 6 of 14 on 3rd down, 1 for 5 in the red zone, only ran for 109 yards, Schaub was sacked twice and intercepted. I'm not saying it wasn't bad, because it was. But against elite offenses, "surviving" isn't a bad thing, it's a good thing. How many "elite offenses" are the Saints gonna face? Even in the playoffs. If you'd have told me before the season that the Saints D was gonna give up 75 points against Green Bay and Houston, but the Saints were gonna win one of those two games anyway, I'd have taken it. The Saints have 3 games left on the schedule against (current) top 10 offenses and they're Camrolina (x2) and Detroit.

We'll know more when the Saints play an offense that's middle of the road, rather than an outlier (to either end of the spectrum.)

For now though, I'm really REALLY pumped about the rest of the season after that game yesterday. I'll elaborate in my post tomorrow, but that was a "special" win. A season-defining win. An "I Believe!" kind of win. Shades of 2009. One of those games you look back on in January and go "That one right there was a springboard, and spoke volumes about what was to come." And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I've got a hunch that "Team Gleason" is gonna be 2011's answer to 2009's "Doing it for the city" or whatever. The "bigger than us" thing to rally around and make special things happen.

Yep, I'm getting that 2009 feeling once again. In my pants.

And now? October. The soft underbelly of the schedule. Jacksonville, Carolina, Tampa, Indy and St Louis. Tampa is the only one I'm even remotely worried about, and I'm not all that worried about that one to be honest. I'm smelling a 5-0 October and 7-1 heading into the 2nd half riding a 7 game win streak. Shit's about to get REAL fun. Atlanta and Tampa are both looking a whole lot like fair-to-middlin' frauds already (looks like Matty Ice's deal with the devil is just about to expire) and Atlanta gets Green Bay in October, while Tampa gets Chicago and... um... the Saints. The Saints could very well be on cruise control in the NFCS by Halloween.

RALPH:

Wang, I agree with you and think Brees is in F U mode i.e. "Pay me my fucking money Loomis" Which is completely fine.

Still though the o-line could be huge problem.

While Brees is raising his price by the day, I just can't see the Saints signing Porter long term or maybe even short term.

KEVIN:

Porter needs to realize we are his best chance for another ring. And he ought to take a hometown discount. Now, if he wants to go to the Clevelands of the world, hey, no hard feelings. /Fujita'd

I absolutely DO NOT trust this defense. Yeah, we may have buckled down a couple times and kept the Houston Texans to FGs at critical moments, but if not for that moron's helmet-to-helmet hit on Breesus accidentally turning on No. 9's KILL! KILL! KILL! switch, things would have been baaaaaaaaad. The lesson, as always: fuck Kareem Jackson.

Dare I say it, but I think this offense looks BETTER than '09. Sacrilege, I know. Wang will have me drawn and quartered for sure. This defense, though? Sheesh.

And "Camrolina" TOTALLY needs to be accepted into the nomenclature. Tom Jackson ACTUALLY compared Newton to John Elway. John fucking Elway. Dude nearly lost to Blaine Gabbert, folks. Can we please wait to crown his ass?!?! Wait until the pregame show this week, I'm going to blow a fucking gasket over Gabbert being better than Newton.

And 2 things from Twitter yesterday:

1. Tom Benson NEEDS to commission a life sized statue of THE BLOCK. And it needs to go in Champions Square or--as someone on Twitter suggested--at Lee Circle. Gleason Circle, FTMFW.
2. We need a nickname for Darren Sproles. So far all I've got is ExSPROLESion.

WANG:

I wholeheartedly support the Gleason statue, wherever they want to put it. How about atop the Dome like a fuckin' hood ornament?

11 offense better than 09's: Sacrilege? Where's the sacrilege? As of now, I agree 100%. Sproles > Reggie, Pierre = Pierre, and Ingram's getting better every week. Drew is dialed in, and not even in 2009 did the Saints score 30+ in each of their first 3 games. And they played Buffalo and Detroit 2 of the first 3 in 09. The schedule has been juuuuuust a bit tougher so far this year.

The hilarious thing about it all is that it seems like half the damn fanbase is looking for the nearest exit. Already! At 2-1!

And I cannot stress this enough: The rest of the division pretty much fucking blows right at the moment. That could change of course, but Carolina's living on Cam hype right now, Atlanta seems to have lost the horseshoe they had up their ass last year, and Tampa's still not ready for primetime.

Total offense: Camrolina 7, Atlanta 19, Tampa 22
Passer rating: Cam 18 (85.1), The Great Matty Ice 23 (81.5), Freeman 27 (76.1)
Total defense: Carolina 17, Atlanta 22, Tampa 24

Yes, I know, superficial stats AND small sample size so far. But I don't have the time to go more in depth right now. Meantime, I do think it's (superficially) illustrative.

DAVE:

Haha! Hood ornament!

Thanks,
Dave
Managing Editor
Canal Street Chronicles

ANDREW:

I'm oddly not that worried about the o-line injuries. Nicks/Bushrod/Evans I'd be worried, but will the replacements really be that much worse than Kreutz/Strief? I just don't think either of those guys has been anything close to awesome yet.

The clear weakness I think is how bad our linebackers and Roman Harper are in coverage. A good receiving back and a good tight end always slay the Saints' D. That's not going to be improved... So expect that weakness to be exploited tons as the season progresses.

As awesome as that win was I just don't think the D is good enough. The backer play is very poor, Vilma included, so far. I'm sure the D will look better facing Gabbert, but they're just not enough front four or back four playmaking to make up for the horrid backer play.

Sent from my iPhone

RALPH:

I'm thinking Del Rio uglies this game up and J-ville has a shot in the fourth until Blaine Gabbert acts like the rookie QB he is.

KEVIN:

I say it's close at halftime. Saints start to pull away and Gabbert gets picked trying to get the Jags back into the game.