MANUFACTURED JOY – NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

by Zac, Throwing Into Traffic

1. Reggie Bush doing Reggie Bush things!

Perhaps nobody caught more heat for the Saints’ free fall from Super Bowl contention to irrelevance than Reggie Bush, who was forced to step into an every down back role after Deuce McAllister went down with a knee injury. The trouble with looking at last year and using it as proof that Reggie Bush is a draft bust is that it misses the point of Reggie Bush. Debate all you want about the merits of spending the second overall pick in the draft on a spot back built to give your offense versatility, and not consistency, out of the backfield, but THAT, and not what happened last year, is what the Saints were drafting when they picked Bush in 2006. With McAllister returning and Aaron Stecker emerging as a solid between the tackles option, Bush should be free to step back into the more comfortable role of not having a defined offensive role, splitting out to catch passes as a receiver or keeping defenses honest as a running back. Forcing Bush to do one or the other is a waste and will only put more undue pressure on him to become something he’s not.

2. The NFC South might be the worst division in football!

Sure, some would argue that Manufactured Joy isn’t about turning football into a crab barrel where we build teams up by dragging others down, but what fun would that be? One look up and down the NFC South reveals that this division is as bad as any in football. The Panthers are still without a clear running back, and are relying on Jak Delhomme to bring back the “glory days,” which is like getting excited for a tetanus shot. The Buccaneers are holding a six quarterback race in which Jeff Garcia is the clear favorite, and will need to start pulling a Weekend At Bernie’s on Joey Galloway to get him to keep performing at the unrealistic level he’s been at the last few years. At this point, bets placed on Michael Vick dogfights are safer than those placed on the Falcons. Even if last season’s plummet wasn’t a fluke, the Saints can’t be that much worse than everyone else that they’ll see twice this season, can they?

3. One football isn’t enough for all those receivers!

Drew Brees has one of the quickest releases in football, and it’s a good thing too, because he’ll likely be throwing the ball a LOT this year. We all knew how good Marques Colston was when he showed up the Saints 2006 first round pick, Reggie Bush, as the Saints 2006 seventh round pick. Still, what went unnoticed was the fact that right behind him was Terrance Copper, who showed a knack for finding holes in deep zones. This year, the Saints add Jeremy Shockey, who will finally have an excuse for the enormous chip he carries around on his shoulder, and may even get contributions from Robert Meachem, last year’s first round pick who went down with a knee injury. If Meachem is as fast as the team drafted him to be, and all camp accounts say that he is, this will be a SCARY aerial attack. Oh, and don’t sleep on Adrian Arrington. Seriously, just don’t.

4. Less offensive defense!

See what I did there? Seriously, it’s hard not to get down on this unit’s play last season. CB Jason David might as well have been a turnstile last year, and he was the BEST player in a defensive secondary that comprised the third worst passing defense in the league in terms of yardage. The good news here is that while the defensive secondary remains questionable (with the question being “how hard will receives lined up against THESE guys be laughing?”), the defensive front looks significantly more imposing thanks to the addition of DT Sedrick Ellis, who was simply a beast at USC. Ellis should free up some assignments for DE Charles Grant and Will Smith, both of whom went from an imposing speed rush tandem to irrelevance once teams realized how soft the middle of last year’s D-line was. If Grant, Smith, and Ellis can start creating pressure in the backfield, the team will ask less of the aforementioned shaky secondary, which can only lead to good things.

5. They get to be a football team again!

The truth is that while this team wasn’t REALLY as good as they looked when they had their magical 2006 season (a flimsy schedule and an even flimsier NFC helped a lot), they weren’t as bad as everyone seemed to think they were last year either. Despite a bizarre 0-4 stretch to start the season last year, the team was still vying for playoff contention late in the year, and Drew Brees was finding his stride again after trying to do too much too quickly early on. It also didn’t help that the team was forced to lean on either an undersized back or a one-dimensional pass attack, neither of which was up to the task of diminishing the significance of losing Deuce McAllister (Brees set the record for pass attempts last year, and Bush’s role in the passing game was lessened by over 20 passes, both bad things). Finally free from the expectations of last year or the strange “bigger than sports” mentality of 2006, this team should be a scary unit for anyone to face, particularly with an expanded offense and a defense that should step up a level very quickly with a stronger front.