The domination of Seattle's defense against the Saints offense should be no surprise to anyone who is objective in their evaluation of the Saints. The Saints three losses have been to teams with the best defensive coaches in the NFL. The Jets, the Patriots and the Seahawks. Seattle's head coach was called the best of them all in the NFL by ESPN's John Gruden who knows a little about the game.
New Orleans's journalists continue to talk about Brees's prolific passing and Payton's genius offense play calling but neither one deserve that title. Five of the Saints victories this year came at the expense of teams who are playing 500 or less ball. Brees was not the only passer who was prolific against those teams. Good defensive coached teams do not let receivers run wild and unchallenged.
After 12 games of play only 13 of the 32 teams in the NFL have a winning record and that trend has been going on for many years. In other words there are a lot of bad teams playing football in the NFL. No wonder records are falling every day. Individual players pile up records over a period of time but what has their team accomplished. The case can be made that Eli Manning has done more for his team than brother Peyton or Brees have done for their teams. Eli's team has won two world championships. Peyton and Brees teams have each won one and they have been playing longer than Eli.
Sports journalists in New Orleans jobs depend on the Saints for their livelyhood and that is why they cling to cliches and hype in their reporting and can not be objective in their evaluation of the Saints. The city did produce one sports writer with the Times Picayune that did pick Seattle to win the game. Jim Henderson, the voice of the Saints commentary after the Saints games are a joke. His after the fact breakdown is laughable.
Yea, Payton and Brees are good at what they do but prolific and genius should be measured with caution. When the Saints started the season in good fashion many sports journalists were projecting them champions of their division and talking about home field advantage thru out the playoffs. Now after the loss to Seattle and the Panthers up next they are in a panic. Those journalists were ready to project the future after only the first 6 games. The last time I checked the Saints do play a 16 game schedule.
Lets see, Green Bay, Dallas, Pittsburg, New England and San Francisco won multiple world championships and had great quarterbacks. I wonder how today's sports journalists would describe those head coaches and quarterbacks? Its a question to ponder.
This commentary written by John Lucia.
No comments :
Post a Comment