The Saints will do two things very well this year: Pass the ball and play no defense. With Deuce obviously at the end of his career, and Reggie Bust still getting in the way, we can assume that the running game won't be good enough to control many games. Drew Brees has been a model of consistency in his tenure as a Saint. Expect him to remain the same competent but not exactly overwhelming performer he has been the past two seasons. While he makes a remarkably low number of boneheaded mistakes, Brees still isn't the kind of athlete who makes good things happen on his own. He needs help to be successful.
This year, as was the case last year, that help will be adequate but not necessarily playoff worthy. Despite the uncertainty throughout training camp over roster positioning, the Saints' receiving corps has not been shaken up much. Robert Meachem is finally on the field but still has an awful lot to prove. The word on him is that he isn't particularly fast or quick... or strong... or well... impressive in any way other than that his teammates seem to like him. I think that's very nice but don't expect it to make much difference on the field. The Saints top three receivers are still Colston, Patten, and Moore. And, of course, Terrance Copper and Devery Henderson are still around to drop the ball a lot when called upon. Again... no big change there. There's also a rumor that there's a new tight end on the roster but nobody has seem him this pre-season. There has been some talk about a tattooed douchebag with frosted blond hair hogging all the time on the sideline exercise bike but I expect he'll just go away once the Daiquiri shops in St. Bernard Parish return to pre-Gustav operating hours. Expect the largely unchanged Saints offense to perform much as it did last year. Well enough to win some games but not the ones that the crappy defense goes out of its way to blow.... and that will be more than a few.
Regardless of Johnathan Vilma's (highly dubious at this point) impact, the defense still features journeymen Scott Shanle and Scott Fujita in staring roles. That plus the questionable knee of Mike McKenzie is enough to keep our expectations very very low. Looking at the Saints' defensive starters, it's probably safe to assume that only Will Smith and Roman Harper would likely start on more than half of all other NFL rosters. That is to say, 2 of the Saints 11 defensive starters qualify as mediocre. There is potential in spots. IF McKenzie's knee holds up, IF Sedrick Ellis plays exceptionally well for a rookie, IF Vilma can find whatever it was he lost over two seasons ago, IF Jason David doesn't ever ever ever get on the field... okay so you see how far the hopeful are reaching this year.
All in all, this team has exactly the same strengths and weaknesses of the 2007 Saints.... except one. When the Yellow Blog nailed its predicted win total for that squad, here's what we wrote.
....it seems likely the Saints can play every bit as well this season as they did last year and still finish with something like only 7, 8 or 9 wins. And factoring in the fact that the kicker sucks, I'll have to err on the down side of that and say we're looking at a very exciting, but somewhat disappointing 7-9 in 2007.
This year the sucky kicker has been replaced. That should get them an extra win somewhere. 2008 Saints: 8-8.
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