So Shanle It Is

When off-season acquisition Dan Morgan unexpectedly retired a few days ago, a mini-panic resonated among Saints fans. Questions and inevitable concern abounded: What do we do now? Who will we start at weak-side linebacker? Are we going to go after somebody? If so, who? Two names, in particular, have been thrown around: Cincinnati’s recently released Odell Thurman, and former Philadelphia linebacker Takeo Spikes. Now that Morgan is out of the picture, however, the most likely, and frankly the best scenario for the Saints is that Thurman and Spikes remain right where they are -- on the street -- and that Saints linebacker Scott Shanle remains right where he is -- at starting weak-side linebacker.

Scott Shanle burst onto the scene in his first season here in New Orleans and went from being an essential backup in Dallas to the Saints leading tackler in 2006. In fact, Shanle, along with the likes of Scott Fujita and Hollis Thomas, was one of the names often cited by Saints fans as one of the genius acquisitions made by the Payton regime after its arrival in New Orleans. The signing of Morgan this past off-season, however, indicated that Payton and Loomis were concerned with his drop in production in 2007. At the very least, they wanted to bring in a body to compete with him for the starting spot. But by bringing in Morgan, a player with a significant history of injuries, the Saints also indicated that they were comfortable with the realistic prospect of Shanle again manning the Will spot in 2008. Payton and Loomis had to know that the Morgan signing could have easily ended exactly the way it did -- with Morgan never playing a down for the Saints. Therefore, Payton and Loomis must still have some confidence in Shanle. And for good reason…

Shanle figures to have a much better season in 2008 than he did last year. In 2006, when the club got much better defensive line play, and at the very least more consistent secondary play, Shanle turned in a solid year on the weak-side, registering 97 tackles (73 solo) and 4 sacks. This year's defense, at least on paper, figures to be much closer to the 2006 version than to the 2007 one. The defensive line will be improved, Jonathan Vilma will make everyone around him better, and the law of averages says our secondary has to improve; it certainly couldn’t get much worse. That's good news for Shanle, who is now a virtual lock as the starter on September 7th against Tampa Bay.

And as for the other two names being mentioned, they are both moves that would make no sense for the Saints right now. Neither Odell Thurman nor Takeo Spikes would be an upgrade to this club, and at least one would be a tremendous risk. In the case of Thurman, he was just kicked off the Bengals -- the Bengals -- for lack of discipline and an unwillingness to participate in team activities. Consider what Cincinnati safety Dexter Jackson had to say about Thurman: "To see a young guy with so much potential and so much talent, and let it go to waste … his mindset just wasn't in the [right] place. I wish him the best in whatever he does, but he had the opportunity to be here and be one of the best, but he didn't capitalize on his opportunities." That just doesn't sound like a Sean Payton football player. Payton is a Bill Parcells disciple; the last thing he is going to do is bring in a bad egg to a team that he feels has a shot to make a deep playoff run. Couple that with the fact that Thurman has been out of football for two years, and there's no reason to take a risk on him. Whereas the Morgan risk had a minimal downside (we are seeing it now), the Thurman risk has a huge downside, and one that Sean Payton is probably not willing to take.

The other name mentioned, Takeo Spikes, has just had age and a long career catch up with him. He will simply never regain the form he had in the prime of his career when he was making 120+ tackles a year. He had a bad ACL tear in 2005, and is entering his 11th year in the league. Plus, the club learned its lesson in trying out a player on the downside of his career in Brian Simmons last year. It won't make that mistake again. Now that the Morgan experiment is over, Payton and Loomis seem to be comfortable with a Fujita-Vilma-Shanle combination at linebacker. It makes no sense at this point to bring in Spikes, who can't compete with Vilma in the middle and is too slow at this point in his career to man the outside in place of Shanle.

The bottom line is that Shanle is what most other players in the league are -- pretty darn good at what they do assuming everyone else around them is decent at what he does. He will never be a Pro Bowler, and he will never be the guy mentioned as the leader of our defense. Nonetheless, with a good supporting cast (something we figure to be closer to having this year), Shanle is very far from being a liability. When the Saints re-signed him after the 2006 campaign, Mickey Loomis had this to say, "Making sure Scott returned to our team was one of our priorities entering the off-season. He is a player who is an integral part of the group that we want to build around. This is a really positive way to get 2007 started." Based on the moves they have made, Loomis and Payton still believe that about Shanle, and Shanle's production in 2008 should do justice to those comments.