MVN - Most Valuable Network

Saints Plauged By Inconsistency In Second Straight Loss

Congratulations go out to the Saints who have now reclaimed their spot as least understandable team in the NFL.

This week’s 23-10 loss to the Houston Texans made just enough “non sense” to push New Orleans past San Diego for the No. 1 ranked underachiever in the NFL this year.

Traditional thinking says that a majority of the time, the team with the most talent wins the football game.  Apparently, the Saints don’t believe in traditional thinking. 

New Orleans played like a team completely unfocused and unprepared on Sunday.  Did they not learn from what happened the week before against the Rams that they needed to come out sharp and put less talented teams away early?

Apparently not.  In a game the Saints needed to win to keep pace with Tampa Bay in the exceedingly dismal NFC South divisional race, New Orleans came out flat.  Which begs the following questions: how can Sean Payton, the reigning NFL Coach of the Year, not have his team ready to play?  How can an squad that puts up over 500 yards of offense on a tough Jacksonville defense only amass 10 points against a less-than-intimidating Texans defense? 

Where is the sense in all this?  How can you even try to understand a team that can play so good one week and so bad the next? 

The only thing I know about New Orleans this season is that I don’t know anything.  And here’s how I know that: 

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the Saints won the rest of their games and made the playoffs, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the Saints lost the rest of their games and finished 4-12. 

After two consecutive losses to teams the Saints were expected to beat, there’s no way you can point to single game on their remaining schedule and say they will win that game.

At the same time, you can point to any game on their remaining schedule and still say the Saints are a more talented squad and should win the game based on that fact.

How do you begin to try and understand a team like that?  I wonder if the Saints themselves even know the answer.  I wonder if they’re sitting in the locker thinking, “What the hell is wrong with us?  Who are we?”

Who knows?  Who knows anything in the NFL this season?  Who would have thought Tom Brady would be 11 TD’s shy of Payton Manning’s single-season record by Thanksgiving?  Who would have thought Michael Vick would be walking around in shackles right now instead of a shoulder pads and a helmet?

I certainly didn’t predict any of it.  That doesn’t mean much though because I predicted the Saints to go 12-4.  Right now that prognostication seems pretty far fetched.  But you never know.  Six weeks from now it might not be so far off after all.      

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.