Into the Fire: How the Saints Can Live Up to Expectations

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Preseason football is nothing to dismiss and call insignificant. Coaches, players, and front office personnel need these games more than ever because of how many restrictions there are how often teams can have a full practice. Every year multiple people who cover the sport for prominent media will rail about how four preseason games is too many. That is bogus. If a team is already hindered on when and how often they can completely suit up together to prepare for a season, that makes these games mean something. Maybe they don’t mean anything to you or I because we watch games to see winners and losers, but to the people actually involved on the field, these games are important. With that being said, I certainly hope the players on the New Orleans Saints roster are not looking too much into their meaningless preseason victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Smart football fans know that when you are observing a preseason game with a rooting interest, you are rooting for flashes of brilliance and moments of dominance; not necessarily a win. The Saints did some of that, but if you watched this team in their first go-round then you saw a team that has some things to work out. The most telling portion of this came in the opening drive for the Jaguars, where Blake Bortles led a 79-yard drive down the field that resulted in a touchdown. That is exactly what you do not want to see from your starting defense against any team, let alone one quarterbacked by Blake Bortles. Not to say there are major issues with the Saints defense, but I believe they were humbled just a bit yesterday when Donte Moncrief and Dede Westbrook kind of tore up the suddenly vaunted Saints secondary.

The Saints were improved on defense last year because they finally stopped giving up so many damn yards through the air. The Saints stopped giving up so many damn yards in the air because their secondary broke up passes and the defense made splash plays resulting in turnovers. This is still going to be a “bend, don’t break” defense that will need to make big plays. What we saw in the first preseason game for the Saints starting defense was a lot of bending without splashing back at the Jaguars offense.

Again, this is not to say that the Saints defense should panic because they really aren’t as improved as everyone says they are. This defense is improved and the Jacksonville game was the first time this unit has played together in a live game having to communicate and adjust to a real NFL offense. Sean Payton knows this and so do his defensive players. There were positive signs, like Demario Davis flying to ball carriers and the Saints’ C-squad getting after the Jags quarterbacks. These are the things you get excited about when watching preseason football; not the victory. You also do not dwell on a 79-yard drive that saw Blake Bortles make your secondary look like Swiss cheese as if this was a loss. Preseason football is all about a team finding itself. The Saints are in the process of doing that.

This does not feel like a group that is going to believe their own hype before they take a field. If they do and the confidence the Saints earned as a defense last season turns into cockiness, that will hurt their chances at going on a Super Bowl run more than any injury could.

– Alan Michael