5 to look out for in 2015
January 2, 2015
Player of the Week: UL-Lafayette soccer player Kimberly Grasso
January 2, 2015
The New Orleans Saints entered the 2014-15 NFL season as one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
Just 17 weeks and 16 games later, they’ll exit the season with the sour tastes in their mouths that comes with a sub-.500 year that saw the team go down as one of the biggest disappointments in the NFL.
The playoffs haven’t yet started, but the offseason is already underway for the Who Dats, who are trying to pick up the pieces and figure out what went wrong throughout a topsy-turvy, disappointing year.
Coaches and players put a bow on the season this week in a win against Tampa. After the game, they touted that there isn’t an easy answer for why the team struggled – things just didn’t seem to click.
“It’s not a shock,” Saints coach Sean Payton said this week when asked about his team’s struggles. “That wouldn’t be it. It’s disappointment. Obviously the highs of winning and being successful are up here and the opposite are just as low on the other end as the highs are of winning. … This year, we made too many mistakes, and we just couldn’t consistently get it done.”
For the Saints, two big red flags flawed the team’s efforts: defense and turnovers.
The Saints were among the NFL’s worst defenses statistically in 2014 – ranking near the bottom of the league in most-every statistical category for that side of the ball.
Heading into the finale, New Orleans ranked No. 31 in the NFL in total defense, allowing 390.9 yards per game. The yardage was spread evenly throughout the run and pass – the Saints were in the bottom 5 in the league in both rushing and passing defense.
The team also was in the bottom 5 in the league in scoring defense, allowing close to 30 points per game.
Because of these struggles, many fans have flirted around the idea that this past season would be the last in New Orleans for defensive coordinator Rob Ryan.
Payton has said repeatedly throughout the season that he and Ryan have a solid relationship and that it’s his wish that their relationship would continue into the future.
Ryan was candid and blunt about his future this past week, touting that he respects Payton’s decision either way. Ryan said he knows the NFL is a results-based business and that the Saints’ defense left much to be desired in the past 16 games.
“I’ve been in this forever,” Ryan said. “If I get a chance, that would be awesome, but the numbers are what they are. They don’t look good. The game’s not played on paper, obviously, but … this is a win business. This is a tough people business, too. I’ll be great with whatever happens.”
Looking on the defensive side of the ball, New Orleans has the lion’s share of its starting defense under contract for next season, so one could stand to reason that the group would be better in 2015.
The team will also get back former All-Pro safety Jairus Byrd – the high-dollar starting safety who was lost to injury mid-season.
Ryan said he agrees that improvements can be made, but added that the team’s mindset needs to be different. The Saints finished in the Top 10 defensively in 2013, and Ryan said he believes the team’s defense started to believe its own hype this past year – a lack of attention to detail that hurt the team’s efforts.
“Obviously we drank the Kool-Aid a little bit too much,” Ryan said. “If (the players) don’t think so, I think that’s wrong. That’s an honest opinion. We need to play better and we know we have some great young talent here. It’s unfortunate we didn’t play as well as we needed to.”
But while the Saints’ defense was pretty bad, it was the team’s offense that was arguably a bigger problem late in the season – specifically the unit’s ability to protect the ball.
The Saints turned over the ball 27 times in 2014-15 – including four giveaways in their Week 16, back-breaking loss to the Atlanta Falcons.
Payton said being among the league’s worst in turnovers makes it near-impossible to be an elite, championship-caliber team.
The coach’s words tend to have merit.
Green Bay, Seattle, New England and Arizona are the NFL teams who turned over the ball the least this past season. All four teams won more than 11 games, and are heading to the playoffs.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Oakland, Jacksonville, Washington, Chicago, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia are among the teams with comparable giveaway numbers as New Orleans. They are all at home this postseason.
“If you take a look at the top eight or 10 teams in the (turnover) category, most or all of them will be in the playoffs,” Payton said. “I think we are second-to-last in that area. That says a lot right there.”
So the big question many are asking is, ‘How will it get better?’
That’s a good news/bad news question for Saints fans.
The good news is that New Orleans does have a draft pick that sits in the upper-half of the first round, so the team will have multiple chances to fix itself through the draft.
But the bad news is that the draft may be the only way to make a big splash, as the team is projected to sit right at the projected salary cap figure, meaning that the Saints’ ability to sign free agents will be limited.
But as we’ve seen many times in the NFL, the difference between worst to first in the NFL is often razor thing.
Quarterback Drew Brees said he fully believes that this year’s struggles will breed success for New Orleans next time around.
“I feel like we have all the pieces in place knowing we are going to go out and add pieces as well, too,” Brees said. “I’m very confident in our management to do that. … This year did not dissuade me in this way in feeling the way I feel about this team, myself, what we have here or what we’re continuing to build here.”
