Perry's Perspective: August 24, 2006

[Dr. Jack]

Perry's Perspective: August 24, 2006

Saints get no favors from schedule

Haven’t the New Orleans Saints been through enough already?

The Saints were turfed out of the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. They suffered through a 3-13 season (5-10-1 against the spread), highlighted by RB Deuce McAllister’s season-ending torn ACL in Week 5 against Green Bay in a 52-3 shellacking. And their reward? The NFL handed them the toughest schedule of all 32 teams for 2006.

The Saints’ opponents had a combined record last year of 145-111 – a .566 winning percentage. Two of those teams, Green Bay and the Philadelphia Eagles, are expected to rebound this season after getting chop-blocked by injuries in 2005. If they do rebound, that leaves only two games on the Saints sked against what looks like subpar competition: the season opener in Cleveland against the Browns, and Week 13 hosting the rebuilding San Francisco 49ers. Ouch.

It’s easy to be bullish on the future of the Saints, now that quarterback Drew Brees and blue-chip running back Reggie Bush are in town. But this is a team that has a long way to go to climb back into contention, and this is a killer schedule for even the best teams to negotiate. Suffice to say the Saints will not be drawing a lot of action at +600 to take the NFC South division, +2000 to win the conference or +5000 to claim the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

But how about the Saints going UNDER seven wins at a price of –150? With this sked, they might be lucky to win four. Problem No. 1: playing in the NFC South. This division includes a pair of teams that went 11-5 SU last year. The Carolina Panthers figure to contend for the Super Bowl; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers may take a step back, but they’re still a handful to deal with, especially if RB Carnell “Cadillac” Williams can stay healthy for an entire season. The other team, the Atlanta Falcons, went 8-8 SU last year, but their recent addition of WR Ashley Lelie from Denver, plus the free-agent signing of former Packers DT Grady Jackson, addresses that club’s two most pressing needs. New Orleans has to play their division rivals twice each.

Things get really bad for the Saints at the end of the season. They have to run the NFC East gauntlet in December, facing Dallas, Washington and the New York Giants in a row before ending the 2006 campaign against the Panthers. The Saints are almost certainly going to be out of contention by then, giving them every motivation to go in the tank and play for draft position in 2007.

But let’s give the Saints the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Perhaps they’ve made enough improvements in the offseason to overcome this schedule from hell. Drew Brees is certainly a major upgrade over his predecessor, the underachieving Aaron Brooks. Brees finally cashed in on his potential during his last two seasons with the San Diego Chargers, putting up QB ratings of 104.8 (!) and 89.2. Brooks, on the other hand, gave New Orleans QB ratings of 79.5 and 70 after the false promise of his 2003 season.

Mind you, Brees might see his numbers plummet to Brooksian levels this year. The Chargers had one of the better offensive lines in the NFL in 2005. The Saints O-line, sadly, looked like it was built by FEMA. At least Brees will have the luxury of lining up behind Jeff Faine, the former Browns center. His presence in the New Orleans offense is probably more important than that of Bush – at least for this season. The Heisman winner hasn’t looked all that impressive in preseason action, and he will be splitting time with McAllister for now. Saints fans can expect results similar to the Ronnie Brown-Ricky Williams combo the Miami Dolphins used last year. They’d better hope so, because WR Joe Horn is a shell of his former self, and the wideout cupboard is bare behind Horn and Donte Stallworth.

Where the Saints really need some help is at linebacker. This could be the worst unit in the NFL – they’ll get some pressure on running backs from Ronald McKinnon and Colby Bockwoldt, but they have nobody who can help out on pass defense. And this pass defense needs a lot of help. Add to the mix a ton of preseason injuries, and it’s pretty clear that things are going to get worse in the Big Easy before they get better.

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