When your best case scenario is to finish 8-8 and to miss the playoffs for the 3rd straight year it is very difficult to call that a ‘success’, but that’s just what I’m going to do. Now let’s be clear here, I don’t think that 7-9 or 8-8 are acceptable, and they aren’t ‘good’ by any measure. Not with a top offense, not with a hall of fame quarterback, not at all. As a fan I don’t expect anyone to be satisfied with these kinds of performances, and I certainly am not. However, when you are looking at something as mercurial as success in the NFL you often have to consider a much bigger picture than just the present. The past influences the present, and the present shapes the future. This Sunday’s game is the season finale and it’s an opportunity for the Saints to spoil the final regular season game in the Georgia Dome, and to cost the hated Falcons the number 2 seed in the NFL. This game matters a lot to the fans, the players, and the history books. I’m hoping our guys can give us one last great show, but win or lose the Saints 2016 season is a success….and now I’ll tell you why.
The Past:
Some people trace the Saints decline from the leagues elite back to the disastrous 2014 season, others trace it back to 2012 and ‘Bounty-farce’, while still others trace it back to the Saints epic collapse against the 49ers in the divisional playoffs in 2011. Anyone of those can be argued to be the ‘moment it all went wrong’ and you wouldn’t be wrong, but to be honest which of these is moment doesn’t really matter. The reality is that it went wrong, and what is far more important than when is why. The Saints didn’t magically become terrible, Roger Goodell didn’t cause the Saints to become bad, and even Greg Williams being an ego maniac and Junior Galette being a moron didn’t cause the Saints to be awful. No one thing caused the Saints to go from the upper echelon of the NFL to a punch line, it was all of them.
Any one of those things could have been overcome, heck even any two of them. But having an epic playoff collapse (exposing a bad defense and a mediocre DC for what they were) followed by your Head Coach getting suspended and losing a vitally needed draft pick, followed by key injuries and the departure of veteran leaders, and followed by the emergence of several cancers in the locker room. That is what broke down the Saints. They collapsed, then lost their leader, lost the ability to refill their talent pool while also missing the central defining member of the their staff who gave them direction, and then suffered through a series of AWFUL drafts (partially on the Head Coach but far more on the scouts) that exacerbated the talent deficit on the roster. The Saints basically didn’t hit on a single draft pick from 2011-2014 that wasn’t a 1st round pick other than Terron Armstead. That is TERRIBLE, and if there is any one thing you want to point to its that. However, the issues that have caused the Saints fall from grace are far more about the circumstances the team went through than those picks alone.
The team went through a series of defensive coordinators with varying success (varying meaning from bad to record setting bad) which seriously inhibited the team’s ability to build a cohesive unit on that side of the ball. You can’t build an identity until you find a path to build it around, and you can’t built that until you build a cohesive unit with complementary talent. The Saints failed to do that in large part because circumstances forced them to change their plan repeatedly. Some of those circumstances were created by themselves (extending Galette a second time and making him a captain for instance), but others were beyond their control. The Saints were in a massive hole, and the ONLY reason they never became Cleveland Browns or Jacksonville Jaguars level bad was because they had the best offensive mind in football and a HOF QB that kept their offense elite.
Many fans like to use the last few seasons as an example of why the Saints should get rid of Sean Payton, but to me the last few years are an example of exactly why they must keep him. 90% of coaches would have won 4 games or less the last 3 years in all likelihood, but Payton and Brees barely dragged the Saints to mediocrity. That doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it is in fact impressive.
The Present:
The Saints season in 2016 is a success for one reason and one reason only, they have put in the groundwork to get back to the top. The Saints came into 2016 with limited weapons, a declining offense, few playmakers on defense, a number of questions, and a stigma of record settingly bad defenses. The Saints in 2016 have found a defensive coordinator worth keeping in Dennis Allen who has done a remarkable job of getting near competence from a banged up unit all year. Allen has the defense playing hard, often times playing smart, and most importantly playing together (the single biggest key to having success). The Saints have added young talent all over the place, but none better than their first two picks in this year’s draft who both look like they won’t just be good…but great!
Sheldon Rankins has been an excellent addition and a real difference maker for the defense since he came back from injury, and Michael Thomas has all the makings of becoming a star wide receiver and is the PERFECT complement to Brandin Cooks. The Saints also seem to have hit on fellow 2nd round pick Vonn Bell and their 4th round pick David Onyemata has shown flashes of being at worst excellent depth (an underrated quality because it doesn’t affect fantasy football). Combining those two with the emergence of last years 1st round pick Andrus Peat on the offensive line and the potential represented by injured players in Delvin Breaux, PJ Williams, and Hau’oli Kikaha gives chances for a solid young core. But lets say none of the injured players like Kikaha, or Williams ever become anything. The Saints still have a solid young core comprised of veterans and young players that gives us hope for the future. The unit plays hard, plays together, and has shown noticeable improvement throughout the season. The additions of Nick Fairley and Craig Robertson have been huge for the team as well as they have helped solidify their units (or in Robertson’s case at least make it not horrendous).
The Saints are a few pieces away from having a shot at being a contender again next year so long as Brees doesn’t fall of the Manning cliff, but more importantly they have pieces to build around for the future.
The Future:
The Saints have two stud wide receivers, some very talented linemen (on both sides of the ball), a brilliant head coach, and a number of complementary pieces that are just waiting for the stars they need to complete the puzzle to shine. The margin for error that the team has been working with over the last few seasons has been virtually zero. Could they have competed? Yes, but only if they didn’t lose a single starter (major injuries each year), and even then it was a long shot.
Next year is different and that is because the team had success this year. Not in the sense of wins and losses, but in building, or in reality rebuilding, a foundation. The Saints defense has found an identity, and the offense has reloaded (pending improvements for the offensive line). We as fans always hold them to the standard of being a winning team because of who their coach and their QB are, and to a degree that is fair. But, the reality is that the Saints for many reasons have been forced to go through a total roster rebuild on the fly the last 4 years. That time is now over. The Saints need a guard, a linebacker, a corner, and a legit DE (not a star…just not garbage) to be a REAL threat to any team in the league next year. The Saints will have around 30 million dollars in cap space and the draft to fill those needs this offseason. They still have to actually hit on those moves, but the margin for error is better than it has been in half a decade. They don’t have to get stars, they just have to get competence. That is a position the team was not even close to being in a year ago, and after this Sunday’s game we will be reviewing the entire Saints roster, their off season moves, and will start looking at the off-season, but as of right now the Saints 2016 season is a success in the big picture.
of course with that Said the season becomes a total success if the Saints can find a way to add a black mark to the Falcons season by defiling the Georgia Dome and costing them a bye week.
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