The Saints are the real deal

I like to be right – who doesn’t?

But I’m also a gracious loser.

In our preseason football guide, I was pessimistic about the New Orleans Saints. I said the team wouldn’t make the playoffs, piggy backing off accurate predictions I’d made about the team in the past three seasons before.

But I was wrong.

Early in the season, the Saints were a mess – much so that fans were jumping off the bandwagon in droves.

But since that time, the Black and Gold have rebounded in a big way and it pains me to say this (I’m not a Saints fan … at all), but New Orleans is a true championship contender in a NFL that lacks a dominant great team.

The key for New Orleans right now, to me, is two-fold.

The first is offensive balance.

Look, Drew Brees is the best player in the history of the Saints franchise and their truly is no close second.

But for the past half-decade, the Saints have used him, abused him and have beaten him into the ground.

The Saints are at their best when they get 160 yards rushing to go with 250 yards passing – not when they pass every play and Brees goes for 450 yards on 50 attempts.

This year, instead of chasing cheap stats (a Sean Payton specialty), New Orleans is committed to running the ball, staying ahead of the chains and making things easy for their quarterback.

Brees isn’t 25 anymore. Heck, he isn’t 35, either. He’s closer to 40.

By getting Mark Ingram more involved and utilizing the skill set of rookie sensation Alvin Kamara, New Orleans has become a team that’s awfully tough to deal with because they have a variety of ways to push the football down the field.

Likewise, by running the football, they’re also more equipped to win in cold, wet weather, too, which should come in handy later in the season when the playoffs roll around.

But the second reason for New Orleans’ turnaround is defense.

For years – since the Super Bowl season – New Orleans’ defense has been a train wreck of epic proportions.

Last year, the Saints were at the bottom or near the bottom in every, single defensive metric, which made the team’s recipe for victory simple: score 35-40 points or lose.

But in the offseason, New Orleans retooled their roster, adding veterans and key rookies, which has allowed the team to make the next step.

The Saints aren’t a trainwreck defensively anymore. They’re a unit that’s moved all the way up to the top-half of the league, which has meant awfully big things for the team.

That defensive turnaround, combined with the commitment to run the football has created a perfect storm for New Orleans. They’re controlling the clock and limiting the amount of time their defense has to be on the field, which, in turn, is allowing that group to play freely and without stress throughout games to put opponents in bad situations.

So now, the question that needs to be answered is: “Exactly how good are these Saints and can they win the biggest games in the biggest pieces of the season?”

Truthfully, I don’t know.

New Orleans is on a roll, yes. But they’re also had an awful lot of things go their way, which has allowed all of this to happen.

The Saints have won eight-straight games, but who out of those eight teams are threats to go deep into the postseason?

Carolina was a nice win, but at that time, Cam Newton was a mess.

Miami has a nice roster, but Jay Cutler. Enough said.

To win at Green Bay was excellent, but let’s be real – there was no Aaron Rodgers in that game, which greatly changes the way the Packers look.

The Bears have a rookie quarterback, the Bucs are a mess and Buffalo is uncertain under center and is looking to move on from Tyrod Taylor after the season.

So I guess the jury is still out a little bit and we will see how the rest of the season goes.

But one thing is for sure – New Orleans is much, much better than I thought they were and the guys in that locker room are starting to believe. And as we all know, belief in the world of sports is a powerful, powerful thing.

ALSO IN NEW ORLEANS SPORTS …

This column was supposed to only be about the Saints, but I had to make an audible and add a little Pelicans into the gumbo after watching some basketball on Friday night.

It’s not working, folks.

The Pelicans are a mess – again. And the team, in my opinion, is at a real crossroads moment in its history because of what’s coming in the future.

Boogie Cousins is a pending free agent. The team is obviously not good enough to win a championship with him. They don’t have adequate salary cap room to make drastic moves to get better.

Do you re-sign Cousins and make mediocrity your ceiling for the next five years or do you maybe trade Cousins at the trade deadline for a combination of players/picks that give you more flexibility in the future?

If you do re-sign Cousins, do you maybe consider building around him, instead opting to trade Anthony Davis because of the king’s ransom he would get on the open market?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but they are all things that need to get answered in the coming weeks.

New Orleans is a decent basketball team, but they’re nowhere near Houston, Golden State, Boston, San Antonio or any of the other powerhouses.

When you have Cousins and Davis on board, that’s a problem.

The Pelicans are a mess defensively and they allow points in droves.

Again, that’s a problem.

When your general manager has been employed since 2010 and you’ve had limited success with him since that time, but no one seems willing to commit to change, that’s the biggest problem of them all.

Blow the ship up.

Fire Gentry. Fire Demps for hiring Gentry.

Bring in some fresh blood.

The Pelicans haven’t had a 50-win season since 2007-08.

They’ve only been to the playoffs three times in the past decade.

That’s a mess – one that needs to be cleaned up right now.

Drew BreesJOSE DELGADO | THE TIMES

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