Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Who Dat Say News: Payton, Loomis Confident Saints Can Return to NFC Elite; David will be Counted On

News: Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis feel the Saints should be back in the championship hunt provided they stay healthy, according to SI.com. "Those are the types of expectations that we have of ourselves," says Loomis. When asked about embattled cornerback Jason David, Loomis had this to say, "We have not by any stretch of the imagination given up on Jason David," says Loomis. "Jason had a tough year, a tough transition period, going from the [Cover 2] defense that the Colts played to the defense that we played. What we asked him to do, in terms of being out on an island and covering guys man-for-man more often than he did with the Colts, it took an adjustment period for him. But he's got the ability to be a good corner for us, and that's what we expect."

Who Dat Say: Jason David could very well be the most disliked Saints player since … well, since Josh Bullocks. When receivers blew by David as he stared down the quarterback in the backfield instead of keeping his eyes on the receiver, it was frustratingly obvious at times that David was playing as if he were still in a cover 2. To be fair, Bullocks deserves as much blame as David for his complete inability to help out on the deep ball. Regardless, I do think David has the skills to compete if he can ever, as Loomis says, adapt to our man coverage scheme. He does have the quickness and speed to keep up with top-notch receivers if he can only break those terrible habits. Because of his lack of size, at 5’8” and 180 pounds, I doubt David will become a great corner, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him thrive as a nickel back.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please keep him in there. He is worth at least one or two blown coverages a game. He is too small and slow to be a great cover guy especially when he gives us 4 or 5 inches to many receivers.

The reason the Saints are giving up on him because they paid 4 million a year and a 4th round draft pick for perhaps one of the worst corners in the league. They have so much faith in him they went out and picked up several more corners this offseason and tried to get Samuels as well.

The only bust bigger in the last few years has been Bush. Between those two the Saints have thrown away almost 70 million dollars.

Great scouting there guys.

MT said...

I am going to say this and feel free to flame me all you want but Bush is not a bust.

We knew from Day 1 that he was not an inside running back.
We knew from Day 1 that he was not going to be the #1 back by himself.
We knew from Day 1 that the best way of using him is to have him and another back in the backfield and when used this way he could create major mismatches and alone 1 on 1 coverage for either himself or a reciever.
The reason you all think he is a bust is because you are looking at HIS numbers and they mean NOTHING. This is a team game and if his being out there makes say... Colsten catch the ball for a big play that results in 1 TD a game. That is unmesurable on his stats but is a big benifet to the team. The key to Bush is to have a healty inside RB and himself healty. Neither of which was the cause last year.

Thunder Lips said...

I love the Saints, but Reggie is very close to being a bust. Not b/c he doesn't contribute, b/c he does, but the amount we are paying him should mean that he is an everydown back, and he just isn't. An unfortunate truth. That means we have to take his hit on that cap, plus another runner that can carry the load. That is going to hurt us more and more every year.

Anonymous said...

nah, PT will run for rent money

MT said...

Understood thunder lips. I felt the same way until my Miami fan friends pointed out the non stat contributions he can bring. Currently we are paying PT 'bus fare' in terms of NFL salarys so that kind of balances that out and I think they were be a rocking combo in the backfield.