New Orleans, La. -
Hey, Saints! Relax! It could be worse.
The 0-3 Saints, who went 13-3 last season, are off to their worst start since 2007 when they opened the season with four straight losses en route to a 7-9 finish. The only other winless team in football as of this writing is Cleveland. The Browns franchise has a grand total of three winning seasons the last 23 years. The last time they won 13 or more games? 1948, when the cost of gas was less than a quarter a gallon (when one filled up the brand new Chevy, for which you just paid $1,900.00).
The Saints coaching staff and players are desperately seeking answers as they travel to Green Bay Sunday, and the Who Dat nation is scratching its collective head as to what exactly is wrong.
Is this all the result of the bounty scandal and the subsequent season long suspension handed to head coach Sean Payton? The team won't admit to that, nor use it as an excuse, but it has to be a factor. Besides, I don't recall ever seeing Payton or Joe Vitt, who is serving a six-game suspension, ever throw a pick six or miss a tackle. This is on the players and their lack of execution. They know it and we know it.
But enough of that. I'm here to tell you that it really could be worse. The Saints are like a gifted major league baseball player who finds himself in a batting slump. 0 for 5 turns into 0 for 30. The player begins to question himself and press for solutions, changing routines in his approach at the plate and listening to everybody and their uncles' advice. It gets worse, and now the player is, as they say, 'squeezing the sawdust out of the bat'. Even when he hits a rocket, it's right at a fielder.
But, he keeps going up there and taking his hacks until a little broken bat ‘seeing eye' flare falls in between three fielders for a hit. It will look like a line drive in the box score.
A couple more of those and the player begins to relax at the plate and settle back into doing the things which made him a good hitter at the plate.
Do you follow my logic? The Saints truly do need to quit ‘squeezing the sawdust' out, beginning at Green Bay Sunday, and start doing the things which got them 13 wins last year. I don't know if they will do it, but I'm fairly sure they ‘can' do it. I DO know that losing can become habit forming. But, so can winning… especially when you already know ‘how' to win, as do the Saints.
Think of it this way: It could be worse. Going back to my baseball comparison, I recall covering the Baltimore Orioles in 1988, starting that miserable season 0-21. At least the NFL season is only 16 games long. So, there's that.
