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New Orleans Saints treading water as moves fail to fix biggest weakness

By Dan Salem

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The New Orleans Saints are treading water, stuck in No-Man’s land after making a lot of noise in free agency. This noise was all static and the Saints will pay the price. Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in today’s NFL TD Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate the NFL and sports.

DAN:

A statement that get’s thrown around during free agency states simply that bad NFL teams win the frenzy, while good teams stay quiet. I don’t fully agree with that, but in the case of the New Orleans Saints, an under achieving team has managed to make a lot of noise while still losing.

I liked the Saints a little too much last season, picking them to reach the Super Bowl during pre-season predictions in August. They nearly made the playoffs, nearly winning an awful NFC South division. But all kidding aside, New Orleans was a bad football team last season. They managed to shine on offense, while coming in close to last in the league on defense.

Offense: 3rd in passing yds, 13th in rushing yds
Defense: 25th in passing yds, 29th in rushing yds

Being a poor football team, the Saints unsurprisingly made a lot of noise during free agency. Unlike other active teams, New Orleans has not come out ahead.

I think its fair to say that defense was its biggest weakness last season. Let’s see what the Saints’ biggest moves were, heading towards the draft. They traded away their best offensive weapon, tight end Jimmy Graham. They added dynamic running back CJ Spiller and center Max Unger, as well as re-signed running back Mark Ingram. Yet receiver Kenny Stills and running back Pierre Thomas were let go.

Aug 16, 2014; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers safety

Troy Polamalu

(43) tackles Buffalo Bills running back CJ Spiller (28) during the first half at Heinz Field. Mandatory Credit: Jason Bridge-USA TODAY Sports

On offense the Saints have strengthened their run game, while hindering their passing attack. Since this year’s draft is full of quality wide receivers, so far, mainly okay. The offense was already solid. I’ll call their moves ‘no change.’ With Drew Brees they are still in good shape.

Defense is where I’d hoped the Saints made strides. However, they replaced linebacker Curtis Lofton with linebacker Dannell Ellerbe and added cornerback Brandon Browner. I like Browner, but that one move does little to improve on a sour defensive unit.

Lot’s of noise. Lot’s of movement and the Saints now have five of the first 78 picks in the upcoming draft. Here’s hoping their war room knows its stuff and that their rookies can start playing immediately. Otherwise I see a lot of noise with little to like about a partially re-vamped Saints team.

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TODD:

You completely forgot to mention that New Orleans re-signed Luke McCown and Shayne Graham in early February! Come on, there are few more crowd-pleasing pieces on a football team than the backup quarterback and a good placekicker.

Since the calendar has now turned to March, I agree with you that the Saints seem to have taken a step backward. I like Curtis Lofton even if he’s not an all-around linebacker. Dannell Ellerbe ended up being one of the worst free agent signings last year, and in order to take him on, N.O. dealt away young deep threat Kenny Stills and his mohawk. This is bad news on all fronts.

The only positives with that transaction are that Ellerbe is a player who can start for the Saints, the two sides have apparently re-worked Ellerbe’s contract a bit to lighten the cap load according to Ian Rapoport, and New Orleans got a mid-round pick out of the trade as well.

Dec 21, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; New Orleans Saints head coach

Sean Payton

(L) talks to quarterback Drew Brees (9) during the second half against the Atlanta Falcons at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The Falcons won 30-14. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

The draft is where this team needs to make big strides. You mentioned the quantity of picks it has at its disposal. The organization needs to hit on a lot of them.

There are major defensive improvements still necessary to make this a serviceable unit. Perhaps worst of all though, New Orleans has made its offense worse this March as well.

If we consider C.J. Spiller replacing Pierre Thomas a wash which, despite name recognition, it really is, and say that the Max Unger move-in cancels out the Ben Grubbs move-out (even though they play different positions), the Saints still lost Stills, lost Robert Meachem and lost Jimmy Graham, arguably the best player on their team. And the logical overarching goal of the offseason, to get some cap space, hasn’t even been achieved. So N.O. has moved sideways cap-wise, moved backwards offensively and didn’t really affect its defense in any considerable manner.

Oof.

The elephant in the room is Drew Brees. Brees seemed ordinary last season behind center, but even more important than his possibly declining skills is the fact that he is owed $27 million the season after this coming one. Unless New Orleans cuts bait with their franchise quarterback before the 2016 season, it won’t be able to compete and it won’t be able to rebuild. Stuck in no-man’s land is the worst place to be.

Next: Should the Saints trade Drew Brees?

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