Proceed with caution, Saints fans

The New Orleans Saints have been in what I call football purgatory the past two years – the absolute worst place for an NFL team to be.

What I mean is they’ve been just good enough to have a faint glimmer of hope for success, but just bad enough to not actually cash in that hope into wins on the field.

The end result has been two-straight 7-9 seasons and two-straight years out of the playoffs in the NFC.

But it’s early August now, which means fans of every NFL team – the Saints included – have high expectations for Super Bowl success in 2016-17.

As for me, I’m not quite so sure when it comes to New Orleans.

I think that the folks in Black and Gold are setting up their fans for a pretty large letdown.

I just don’t like very much about New Orleans’ roster.

Offensively, yes, the Saints still do have Drew Brees, which is a huge coup. Brees is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history – a sure-fire, first-ballot Hall of Famer.

But that is sort of the problem.

For anyone to be labeled a future Hall of Famer, that means that they had to have played for quite some time and are getting up there in age.

Brees fits both bills. He’s getting long in the tooth and isn’t quite the marvel he once was.

He’s still good, yes. There’s no denying that.

But his touchdowns and yards have decreased every, single season since 2011 – five-straight seasons of lessened production.

That’s not a coincidence, nor an anomaly.

After five years, it’s fact. The immortal Drew Brees, folks, is getting old.

Father Time isn’t quite knocking Brees to the canvas like it did Peyton Manning or many others.

But we’re about 10 rounds into a 12-round fight and Father Time is certainly winning on the scorecards. The stats prove it.

But this isn’t meant to be an anti-Brees rant, because I think he’s still a top seven quarterback, and frankly, his greatness is what’s covered up the stink that I’m about to uncover for the past five or six seasons.

My concern with the Saints has far more to do with what’s around Brees, or more specifically, what’s not around him.

The Saints don’t have a top-notch NFL roster, folks.

They just don’t.

To anyone challenging my statement, my rebuttal is this: Tell me a position on the depth chart (besides quarterback) where New Orleans is elite.

They’re not elite at halfback. Mark Ingram is nice, but at best, he’s just a solid NFL player who is slightly in the upper-half of starters at his position.

The receivers are OK, but are hardly tops in the NFL. If they were as good as advertised, there would be no need for a journeyman like Hakeem Nicks, whom the team signed last week.

The offensive line isn’t yet up to par. It could be better in 2016-17, but that’s likely because they can’t be much worse. They were a unit which stood idle in 2015-16 while Brees was bloodied and battered to a pulp by opposing defenses.

And then there’s that defense.

I don’t even have to go through the Saints on a position-by-position basis for folks to understand that New Orleans isn’t the best at anything on that side of the ball.

Last season, they were historically bad – a unit which seemingly gave up a touchdown on every, single possession.

New Orleans did spend a little bread in the offseason to “fix” their defense, depositing a first-round draft choice on Louisville defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, while also signing Nick Fairley and James Laurinaitis.

But any credits New Orleans earned with those moves won’t match the debit that is the loss of Hau’oli Kikaha, who is out for the season with a torn ACL.

If ya’ can’t rush the passer in the NFL, ya’ can’t stop opposing quarterbacks from putting points on the board.

And with Kikaha out, New Orleans won’t be able to rush the passer, and yet again, it’s going to make the team’s defensive backs look bad.

It also doesn’t help when one considers that New Orleans is in a division that features Cam Newton, Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston, and their non-divisional games will pit them against the likes of Eli Manning (who hung half-a-hundred on New Orleans last year), Philip Rivers, Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Carson Palmer and Derek Carr (the best NFL quarterback no one has yet heard of).

Add it all together, and I’m not optimistic about the season from the perspective of a Saints fan.

Call me a hater. Call me blinded. Call me whatever you wish.

But pull out your newspaper from last year and see that I accurately predicted that the team would be 7-9 when everyone else said 9-7 or 10-6.

And as far as this year goes? I’ll give them one more win, but still no playoffs.

From where I see it, this year has 8-8 written all over it. •

Managing Editor Casey Gisclair says the Saints will face too many top-notch offenses (like the Falcons) in 2016-17, which will again put the Black and Gold behind the eight ball when it comes to playoff contention. 

JOSE DELGADO | THE TIMES

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