24 to 3….18 blitzes in the first half….Brees below stellar….Daniels looking good….Ingram, Morgan, King….stats, schmats, we don’t care about that…or do we?
It’s the preseason after all. We have gone 4-0 and 0-4. In the end, no one cares. Nobody counts how many sacks you had in the preseason - nobody looks at those numbers. Preseason statistics, wins and losses, and good calls, bad calls, missed calls, don’t win superbowls. This has been my mantra for years. The preseason is a time to bask in the glow of the boys of fall. Seeing our squad go toe to toe to with some other riff raff – it reminds us that fall is around the corner and the long, bleak offseason has come to a close.
But this year preseason does have greater purpose. It is more than a thinning of the roster and down to the wire decisions about whose career continues or begins, and whose stalls or ends. This year’s preseason is more about developing cohesion. In years past, teams have endured mini-camps, endless team meetings, team workouts, and rigorous preparation. The lockout prevented the team from coming together in their normal offseason capacity. While individuals and segments of the team have been rehearsing their lines, they are only now having their dress rehearsals just weeks before curtain call. As Sean Payton aptly stated in his quote on neworleanssaints.com “We’re not a team yet. We’re a roster”.
I, for one, put my faith in a Payton/Brees/Williams/Vilma system. If anyone can pull a squad together in such short order it’s these guys. They lead, we follow. In Payton and Brees we trust.
....an' dat's dat!
“Cha-Ching Moment”: Could rookie Joe Morgan from Walsh University be our next Michael Lewis? That’s something we could all raise our beet to.
Comments
Yea, I usually sell my tickets to pre-season games and only watch so long as the first-team is on the field on TV. This year, I will be watching everything intensely, because it is a special pre-season. As you said, we usually have a pretty good idea from camps who is going to get cut by the end of the pre-season. There are few surprises, so it is just future unemployeed ball players going threw motions for most of the pre-season. This year, however, it is a baptism by fire (especially for my Titans with tons of new starts, rookie starters, star holdouts, and an entirely new coaching staff) where everyone must get prepared for the season, build a sense of team, get a feel for each other, and learn the systems on the fly as the coaches try to teach the system, grade players on both skill and effort, and figure out who has something special and who isn't worth keep. That's a process usually taken over 2-3 months, but this year it will be taken over 1 month, basicly, and before our very eyes, for the first time.
TheRealestWhiteBoy
Aug 13, 2011, 4:51 pm