Saints Lose, but show promise
Anyone who watched yesterdays game between the Saints and the Cardinals should feel optimistic about this team moving forward. Well, maybe not the offense, but definitely the defense. While we gave up 31 points and 300+ yards, we were within a few points up until the last few minuets of the game. As young as the players on defense were, they held the line on 4 drives, but had pressure put on them as the offense couldn't convert drives into points. As the game went on you could see that these young players were over matched, but they showed heart, and with time, they will win those matchups. As we get players back from injury, this should only get better on defense. As of the time of this post the Saints have the 25th total defense (yards and points), so there is room for improvement, but they certainly could be worse. Given that AZ's strength are WR/TE and DB, and our weakness is WR/TE and DB, this could have been much worse.
The offense exhibited some signs of life, but left to much on the hands of such a young defense. Maybe we got a little to cute with those fb screens, or maybe our receivers could have caught more balls, but time together will help tremendously. And it was more the drops than the play calling that hurt us. #12 is old reliable, but yesterday he was just old. He needs to regain form if he wishes to stay on the team. He played bad enough where we could have cut him during the game, and people wouldn't have known he was gone. Our young wr's need to get on the jugs, and all will be fine.
Finally, it was AZ who we played. This wasn't Jacksonville, the Titans, the Bucs. This was a team who is a Super Bowl contender. They have the horses to make a deep run in January, and a very good coaching staff. Losing to them at home is upsetting, but we were in the game until the final minuets. They are getting paid too, so lets not forget that as we look back on this loss.
Things will get better, so don't break out the Schwegmanns bags yet.