October 20th, 2006
Saints, Week 6
They beat the hated Eagles. Cool.
Sitting on the ball for the last two minutes was kinda of brash, but it worked. Sean Payton seems to be a sharp young coach.
Okay, so my impressions of the Saints: not as good as their record indicates, but they have the potential to be better than that. How so? They made many, many changes since last year, and they are still learning to play well to together. Consider:
- New Head Coach, Sean Payton
- New Quaterback, Brew Brees, coming of shoulder surgery to boot
- New running back, Reggie Bush
- Old runnning back, Duece McAllister, coming off knee injury.
And that is just a few key changes.
Brees and McAllister coming off injuries are not back to the last few years of performance.
Bush has been productive, but not up to the hype (in many ways the other rookie, Marcus Colston, has had more visible impact.) However, in Bush’s defense, only LeBron James could have lived up to the hype that Bush has recieved. Also, except for Arizona QB Matt Lienert and Tennessee QB Vince Young, no other rookie has been asked to do as much as Bush, nor had as much attention by the opponents in preparing for playing their respective teams. And the opposition game planning for Bush is actually of a different kind than the others. For Bush, teams are planning to not get hurt by him, but for the others, it is how to exploit their inexperience.
The team, barring injuries, will continue to improve as they are get comfortable with Sean Payton’s schemes, and as Brees and McAllister continue to improve physically, and as the rookies continue to learn and grow. The Saints, for the first time I can remember, have a bright future.