Saints 2008: Hit the ground bitching

Here come the fake football games. As every sports fan is well-aware, the NFL pre-season is the greatest ripoff this side of home remediation in New Orleans. Each summer, fans are treated (for the price of a regular season admission) to a long month's worth of football-like competition between medium-talent camp bodies trying to become the next Mike Buck interspersed with the occasional pointless but devastating season-ending injury to a key player.

Last night, the Saints concluded the first of their four scheduled painstaking pre-season sessions. Right now Saints fans, bloggers, and reporters are working hard to pick out something they think they may have seen last night and explain how it bodes great or ill for the upcoming season. We will make no such effort here. It's still too early in the fake season to make any substantive pronouncements about the long year to come. Early August just isn't the time to say something you have to spend half a year hearing about how wrong it is anyway. But it's never too early to start complaining about stuff. So with that in mind, we present you with the first official thing that has bothered us this football season.

• It appeared to us back in July in the form of a dreaded "Burning Questions" list. I tend to enjoy Ralph Malbrough's contributions to WWLTV.com but this year, right off the bat we found him hacking away at one of the most overused pre-season memes in existence. As camp opened, Malbrough tossed off a piece he titled "Ten Burning Questions a week before training camp" By employing this title, Malbrough is either following a tired sportswriter's cliche or attempting to riff on it in some way. He hints at this in his opening paragraph but the explanation of the possible satire is both unclear and unfunny... sort of like those enigmatic New Yorker cartoons you hear so much about.
  
  

  Ok I know you’ve read like 20 of these things and they all ask pretty much the same questions going into training camp. So I’m going to try and spice things up with questions, thoughts, and my observations going into camp.

  
  
  We still aren't sure if the title is a joke or not. We get some acknowledgment that the form is standard which is okay but we're still not sure how things will be "spiced up" other than that the "questions, thoughts and observations" will be uniquely Ralph's. Again that's okay but I still don't get the title because not only are the "Ten Burning Questions" not on fire they are also not even all questions. (Only four of them are.) And even this is okay with me. Not all sports observations need be phrased in the form of a question, but for Chrissakes the title "Ten Burning Questions" is overused enough even when the number of nonflammable interrogatives is correct. Must we drag it out again when it isn't even that descriptive of the article's content?
  
  In any event, the article did grab our attention. So let's quickly address this list of questions... which aren't all questions... none of which are on fire.
  
  Marbrough's first non-flaming non-question reads:
  
  

  1. $120 million is a lot to pay for 9.5 sacks
  
  The Saints have signed Will Smith and Charles Grant to contracts worth over $120 million and last year they didn’t even have double digit sacks combined.
  
  Call me concerned. And I’m not even talking about the trial hanging over Grant’s head.

  
  I sort of see where Ralph is going here. But $120 million is actually an incomplete figure since it doesn't include free agent acquisition Bobby McCray's $20 million contract.....or his 3 sacks from a year ago. This non-question should state (but not ask burningly) "$140 million is a lot to pay for 12.5 sacks". It is. Especially now that McCray has come up lame after one pre-season game.
  
  

  2. Jonathan Vilma will be the next big mistake of the New York Jets

  No. The next big mistake of the New York Jets is Brett Favre. Moving on.
  
  

  3. The Saints Secondary still stinks

  Well... Jason David is still on the team, but so are like 40 other cornerbacks. If Mike Mckenzie comes back okay, and if Josh "Never Mind The" Bullocks doesn't start and if they find another corner who knows how to not fall down every other play, it might not be as bad as some people think right now.
  
  

  4. Reggie Bush will have a huge year and fantasy nerds and message board guy will still hate him.

  This is not only a non-question, it's a lame prediction based on... I don't know... wishful thinking combined with antipathy toward "fantasy nerds". First of all, if Bush is asked to carry the rushing load this year, the Saints are in trouble. For evidence of that, we refer you to all of last season. Secondly, Reggie Bush is an enormous douchebag. For more on this, we invite you to search this blog for his name.
  
  

  5. If the Saints receivers continue to drop the ball, will Drew Brees have a mental breakdown?
  

  Actually the Saints' projected top 3 receivers, Marques Colston, David Patten, and Lance Moore, don't drop the ball very often. The final cut this year could come down to two guys who are well known for that attribute. Terrence Copper is well known for his ability to tackle people on special teams and for his ability to drop the ball a lot. Devery Henderson is known for his ability to run really fast and for his ability to drop the ball a lot. Most coaches would prefer to keep the guy who can tackle people. But coach Soupy has a tendency to favor offensive finesse players so... we'll see.
  
  

  6. Will Jeremey Shockey be partying on Bourbon Street come September?

  Congratulations, that's two actual questions in a row. But Jesus, Ralph, you're writing for a local media outlet. Do you really have to use an out-of-towner's phrase like "partying on Bourbon Street" in order to evoke celebrating success in New Orleans? If there's any question on the list that we, in fact, should light on fire it is this one. Anyway there are two schools of thought regarding Jeremey Shockey. The first is expressed here in the latest ANTIGRAVITY "St. Nick" column:

  To be as blunt as possible, I love this trade. Coach Sean Payton was the Giants’ offensive coordinator when New York drafted Shockey in 2002’s first round, so he knows what he’s getting with the embattled TE. Payton was also with the Dallas Cowboys when they selected another Pro Bowler in Jason Witten.

  In other words, Soupy and Shockey work well together ergo giving up a 2nd and a 5th round draft choice for a dude with a broken leg and an ego problem who was largely irrelevant to the last team he played for should work out great. Yeah, I'm skeptical. The second school of thought comes from the New York media who covered the Giants last season and points out that the team and its quarterback only really got it together AFTER Shockey was removed from the lineup. The Saints just traded for a guy who best helped his team win a championship by breaking his own leg. Something about that should bother people. It bothers me. Plus, if there was one player the Saints could have acquired to out-douche Reggie Bush, it was Shockey. This also bothers me.
  
  

  7. What will be a sign that Deuce’s comeback is going poorly?
  
  If you start reading on the internet or see John Clayton saying the Saints are talking about bringing some washed up and over-the-hill running back it probably means Deuce is struggling.

  
  
  Last week the Saints made an effort at acquiring former Raiders RB Lamont Jordan before he decided to sign with the Patriots. If Ralph's answer to his own question is correct then that is a disconcerting development. On the other hand, the misinformation coming out of Saints camp is that Deuce is coming along fine. It's not time to freak out just yet.
  
  

  8. Martin Gramatica wants to bring joy to all Saints fans but Sean Payton might not let him

  We like Gramatica's amusing hair. But if rookie Taylor Melhaff doesn't make the team, then what the hell did they waste a draft pick on a kicker for?
  
  

  9. The Saints game on September 7th will be moved because Farveapolooza will be coming to town

  Yet another lame prediction presented as a non-flaming non-question. This is already not happening. Moving on again.
  
  

  10. Will the local media continue to get softer or if the Saints struggle will they ask tough questions?
  
  Since Buddy D passed away the local media is down to few voices that really will give a strong opinion if the Saints struggle.
  
  I like my media to not be liked by the team. I want columnists that write columns that tick off coaches and some fans. Sometimes tough questions need to be asked. Will the media ask them?

  This, in fact, is THE most pressing (burning, even) question of the 2008 football season. While ever-expanding local internet coverage has brought the typical fan an array of new forums for football discussion, the actual professional reporting on the team has grown far too "soft" and sycophantic since Buddy D left the airwaves.
  
  Just yesterday, I left the following comment for in an Adrastos thread:

  The very reason I like to follow sports is because I am amused at the mendacity and hypocrisy of those who claim to be in charge of stuff. It's the same reason I follow politics, really.

  Buddy D understood this. Somewhere along the line the sports press chose to content itself with stats and cheerleading instead of actual critical analysis. It certainly doesn't bode well for the future of New Orleans sports journalism that the team's owner now also owns a local television station.
  
  One small item that already has us concerned is an alteration to the T-P's daily "Camp Confidential" feature. In previous years, it contained a regular "Who's Hot" and "Who's Not" juxtaposition. After each practice the beat reporter would note one player who did something impressive as well as one player who did something crappy. This year, T-P readers are being fed ONLY the "Who's Hot" side of that equation. If the paper won't tell us who sucks they're deliberately ignoring half, if not most, of the story of training camp. We will continue to monitor this situation.
  

Bonus observation: During the second half of last night's game, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Saints have a defensive back on the roster named Wale (pronounced "Wally") Dada
The name alone immediately makes him our new favorite Saint. Unfortunately, as we mentioned above, the Saints have roughly 50 million other DBs in camp and so the odds of Wale Dada (Keep saying it. It's fun!) making the team are practically nil. Nevertheless, we're rooting for ya, Wale.