Ray, Drew Brees Situation w/ the Saints!?

[jayviabay]

Or, you know, Smith wouldn't make a pass into a tight window. This is one of the places where his concern over making a mistake hurt us. He would constantly throw it away or check it down to an underneath receiver with no chance to get in the endzone. Those were not the called plays, generally, so to at least some degree, that is on Smith.

In the red zone, "Manning open" vs. "Smith open" is magnified. The windows are small. You've got to pull the trigger and put the ball into a small area.

Now, to be fair, some of this might be on the coaching and emphasizing that Smith not mess things up. But he is the QB and we called more than enough pass plays. He's got to make a play. He had effectively the same players as last year, so I don't buy the "his supporting cast can't get open" argument.

couldnt agree more with this! I had redzone seats for several games this year and this was totally evident. At times it was like smith had a time clock in his head to get rid of the ball no matter what? The line would hold and a receiver would pop open, only to see the ball sailing out of bounds. Then you would see guys shaking their heads in disgust because they could see he had time.
Iguana, maybe you should attend a game or two so you can hold him more accountable. I dont think anyone is blaming smith for the total failure of the offense but it seems you have blinders on when it comes to his flaws? We all try to focus on the positives as we root for the success of the team but that doesnt mean you are suppose to ingnore the negatives.

 

[Flyingiguana]

i watch the games, i was frustrated with every aspect of the offense, but i can see the total lack of ability in our wr's and what looks like a lack of trust in throwing to them.

why does most of smith's big passes end up in the hands of vernon or walker? why does smith have his best numbers throwing to our TE's? even tho they both dropped plenty of balls this year.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

i haven't made excuses. problem around here are the few that point out every missed throw and even some that were throw aways.

considering how bad the offense looked in the preseason and against the seahawks in the first game, the offense improved big time. injuries at wr and the glaring weakness on the interior line really limited our running game and passing game.

if crabtree can't run a pass pattern, its smith's fault
if harbaugh goes with running plays instead of going for a score, it's cuss smith doesn't have the ability to lead drives
if the pocket collapses from the inside out it's smith's fault

what i seen this year was a lack of flow on offense. many other's questioned the play calling and we shot ourselves in the foot many times.

but of course the lack of flow is all because of smith. nevermind that he did perform when we needed a score late in games. i expect the offense to be much improved next year after making a couple upgrades and having a full offseason to implement the playbook.

if brees came here, he'd be operating at 70% of capacity because of the garbage around him

See, that's about where you reveal that you've lost it.

In terms of talent across the board on offense, Niners are in the top half of the league. And I'd bet most third-party observers would say that the thing keeping them out of the top-10 is Alex Smith at QB. They had a pro bowl TE, RB, and LT this past year. Excluding the QB, I can think of nearly 20 teams off the top of my head that had worse or comparable offensive talent last year:

Arizona - better at WR, worse everywhere else
Seattle - possibly better at WR, though it's close; RB is probably a draw; much worse on OL and TE (especially given how they used Miller).
St. Louis - worse across the board this year; possibly better at WR once Lloyd arrived
Cleveland - maybe better at OL, worse everywhere else
Miami - better OL and WRs, worse at RB and TE
Buffalo - better OL, probably better WR, worse at TE and RB, especially after the injury
Oakland - better OL, WRs close, worse RBs (given the DMC injury) and much worse TEs
Denver - OL comparable, WRs close, TEs and RBs worse
KC - WRs better, OL comparable or worse, worse RB after injury to Charles and much worse TE
Denver - RBs worse, OL comparable, WR's comparable, TEs worse
Chicago - OL much worse, WRs worse, TEs much worse, RBs comparable pre-Forte injury
Minnesota - RBs slightly better before AD went down, WRs comparable, OL worse, TE worse
NY Giants - better WRs, worse OL, worse RBs, much worse TEs
Washington - OL a bit better, WRs a bit better, RBs much worse, TEs worse
Indiannapolis - better WRs, OL comparable, RBs much worse, TEs worse
Tennessee - better OL, comparable WRs after Britt went down, worse RBs, worse TEs
Jacksonville - better RBs, comparable OL, possibly worse WRs, worse TEs
Tampa Bay - comparable OL, comparable receivers, worse RBs, worse TEs

This idea that we don't have enough talent to support an elite QB is ridiculous. The question of whether we have enough talent to support an average QB is still somewhat up on the air.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

i watch the games, i was frustrated with every aspect of the offense, but i can see the total lack of ability in our wr's and what looks like a lack of trust in throwing to them.

why does most of smith's big passes end up in the hands of vernon or walker? why does smith have his best numbers throwing to our TE's? even tho they both dropped plenty of balls this year.

That's only true in the case of Davis. Walker had one or two really clutch catches this year, the most pivotal being the game-winner against Detroit. But in the second half of the season, he had two receptions for 11 yards, so I'd say it's more than a little disingenuous to imply that he made a lot of crucial plays.

As for Davis, he's one of the most physically talented receiving TEs in the league. He's a complete mismatch against LBs or safeties. I can't imagine why we would have better numbers throwing to him than other players.

No one disputes that our WRs underperformed this year. But Crabtree actually put together a decent season after a bumpy start. At this point you're clearly relying on his poor playoff performance to overshadow what was a tolerable strong season given the constraints of our offense - one of which is Alex Smith at QB. Hell, if Smith could hit a wide open Crabtree to save his life for the three or four weeks after the bye, Crabtree likely would have gone over 1,000 yards this year. We had injuries which limited us to one effective receiver. That happens in the NFL. We still had PLENTY of talent to field a more effective offense.

 

[Flyingiguana]

i think alex smith is above average. look at games where the coaching staff opened things up, like late in games when a td was needed or against the bucs. but then we went into super conservative mode for the middle part of our schedule.

our offensive line was horrible and made our pro bowl RB look washed up early in the year. i wouldn't put staley in the pro bowl category. he's above average but that's about it. the interior line is just horrible and the line couldn't pick up blitzes. miller was excellent at picking up bliztes but when he was not out there our pass blocking broke down big time.

a qb like brees can function without a top notch offensive line, but when u factor in the lack of talent at wr and not having that outlet pass catcher it would cause brees to operate at 70% of his potential. 70% of brees is better than most qb's at 100%, but we have a ton of holes on offense and we would end up losing guys on d if we brought in brees. it's all moot now on brees since the saints used the exclusive tag.

most third party observers say we need not only to draft a WR, RG and TE, but also to sign a free agent WR. we have glaring holes on the interior line and at WR. it's an issue of a lack of talent at critical positions. smith might not be an elite qb, but the above positions were well below average.

 

[Flyingiguana]

That's only true in the case of Davis. Walker had one or two really clutch catches this year, the most pivotal being the game-winner against Detroit. But in the second half of the season, he had two receptions for 11 yards, so I'd say it's more than a little disingenuous to imply that he made a lot of crucial plays.

As for Davis, he's one of the most physically talented receiving TEs in the league. He's a complete mismatch against LBs or safeties. I can't imagine why we would have better numbers throwing to him than other players.

No one disputes that our WRs underperformed this year. But Crabtree actually put together a decent season after a bumpy start. At this point you're clearly relying on his poor playoff performance to overshadow what was a tolerable strong season given the constraints of our offense - one of which is Alex Smith at QB. Hell, if Smith could hit a wide open Crabtree to save his life for the three or four weeks after the bye, Crabtree likely would have gone over 1,000 yards this year. We had injuries which limited us to one effective receiver. That happens in the NFL. We still had PLENTY of talent to field a more effective offense.

crabtree showed he was an effective wr when he made webster look like deion sanders. crabtree was one of the constraints of the offense along with the offensive line.

crabtree would be much more effective as a #3 wr, but even then his poor route running is an issue. a guy like stokely can find soft spots and pick up first downs, but crabtree almost always cuts his routes off too shallow. what happens to passes when a wr cuts his routes off too short? i'm 5-8, i've done it the ball goes over my head. crabtree isn't gonna live up to his hype from texas tech, maybe his college injury is a problem. but he can be an effective slot reciever if he gets his act together. as our primary reciever, he was horrible.

a healthy edwards would have opened up the offense a lot more and teams wouldn't be able to pay so much attention to vernon.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

i think alex smith is above average. look at games where the coaching staff opened things up, like late in games when a td was needed or against the bucs. but then we went into super conservative mode for the middle part of our schedule.

our offensive line was horrible and made our pro bowl RB look washed up early in the year. i wouldn't put staley in the pro bowl category. he's above average but that's about it. the interior line is just horrible and the line couldn't pick up blitzes. miller was excellent at picking up bliztes but when he was not out there our pass blocking broke down big time.

a qb like brees can function without a top notch offensive line, but when u factor in the lack of talent at wr and not having that outlet pass catcher it would cause brees to operate at 70% of his potential. 70% of brees is better than most qb's at 100%, but we have a ton of holes on offense and we would end up losing guys on d if we brought in brees. it's all moot now on brees since the saints used the exclusive tag.

most third party observers say we need not only to draft a WR, RG and TE, but also to sign a free agent WR. we have glaring holes on the interior line and at WR. it's an issue of a lack of talent at critical positions. smith might not be an elite qb, but the above positions were well below average.

The coaching staff called much more aggressive game plans in the second half of the year. We came out throwing in a lot of games as the year progressed, and weren't terribly effective in doing so. I didn't mind it late in the season because it allowed us to work on the passing game, but it was a mistake in the playoffs, especially the second half of the Giants game.

But saying Smith played well when we opened up the playbook is simply false. Smith played well on several occasions when we needed to score. In crunchtime, he made some plays. The problem with Smith is what happens in close games when we are leading or don't absolutely need to score. Late this season, it wasn't that the playcalling was becoming conservative. There were times when that happened, but every bit as often Smith would fail to make plays in those situations. Only late would that sense of urgency arise and he would make some plays. That's one of the knocks on Smith. He thinks too much, and only when he has to go out and make something happen does he do so. That didn't change this year.

It doesn't matter what category you would put Staley in. He made the pro bowl this year. I agree that seems generous. It's a fact, nonetheless. He played well this season.

As for the Brees at 70% argument, that's nonsensical. If Brees would be at 70% in our offense, any other QB would be below that percentage-wise. Obviously we don't have the talent on offense that the Saints did last year. That was one of the most complete offenses - the most complete? - in the salary cap era. They had elite talent at QB, OL, TE, and WR, and if the talent at RB was below elite it wasn't by much. But while that talent is phenomenal, I can't help but wonder how much a QB like Brees is elevating guys that otherwise would be good, but not great.

Finally, I don't know any third party that says we need to draft a TE. Several people have said we COULD draft a TE despite having a great one already. It's a given we need to try to upgrade the talent on offense. That's life in the NFL. Every team needs to upgrade.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

crabtree showed he was an effective wr when he made webster look like deion sanders. crabtree was one of the constraints of the offense along with the offensive line.

crabtree would be much more effective as a #3 wr, but even then his poor route running is an issue. a guy like stokely can find soft spots and pick up first downs, but crabtree almost always cuts his routes off too shallow. what happens to passes when a wr cuts his routes off too short? i'm 5-8, i've done it the ball goes over my head. crabtree isn't gonna live up to his hype from texas tech, maybe his college injury is a problem. but he can be an effective slot reciever if he gets his act together. as our primary reciever, he was horrible.

a healthy edwards would have opened up the offense a lot more and teams wouldn't be able to pay so much attention to vernon.

Again, citing his worst game doesn't overshadow a solid season. The situation at WR and along the interior OL also led to constraints on offense. No argument. BUT SMITH WAS ALSO A CONSTRAINT. Denying it doesn't change the fact.

 

[Flyingiguana]

that is the point i'm making. brees can elevate those around him. but our line would still stink with brees. his interior line was amazing and once they fixed the problems with the outside pressure brees could light it up.

colston is also one of the best possession recievers. nevermind what graham and sproles bring to the table, if things break down brees has always been able to count on colston. then he has other wr's capable of making big plays.

our wr's aren't capable of big plays and are incapable of getting open on a consistent basis.

brees would be going from an offense that allows him to rack of huge yards to one where the talent just isn't there.

i've used this analogy before, but our offense is like my pc. i upgraded my video card and added more ram. now my cpu is the weak point. if we can upgrade WR and the interior line then it would be smith being the weak point, ie the cpu. i couldn't max out the ability of my cpu with the levels of ram or the video that i had.

 

[clyde_carbon]

i think alex smith is above average. look at games where the coaching staff opened things up, like late in games when a td was needed or against the bucs. but then we went into super conservative mode for the middle part of our schedule.

our offensive line was horrible and made our pro bowl RB look washed up early in the year. i wouldn't put staley in the pro bowl category. he's above average but that's about it. the interior line is just horrible and the line couldn't pick up blitzes. miller was excellent at picking up bliztes but when he was not out there our pass blocking broke down big time.

a qb like brees can function without a top notch offensive line, but when u factor in the lack of talent at wr and not having that outlet pass catcher it would cause brees to operate at 70% of his potential. 70% of brees is better than most qb's at 100%, but we have a ton of holes on offense and we would end up losing guys on d if we brought in brees. it's all moot now on brees since the saints used the exclusive tag.

most third party observers say we need not only to draft a WR, RG and TE, but also to sign a free agent WR. we have glaring holes on the interior line and at WR. it's an issue of a lack of talent at critical positions. smith might not be an elite qb, but the above positions were well below average.

I completely disagree. He had a good QB rating, but if you isolate most of his other stats he's on the bottom of the league.

He's a mediocre QB at this point, and only because he doesn't commit turnovers.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

that is the point i'm making. brees can elevate those around him. but our line would still stink with brees. his interior line was amazing and once they fixed the problems with the outside pressure brees could light it up.

colston is also one of the best possession recievers. nevermind what graham and sproles bring to the table, if things break down brees has always been able to count on colston. then he has other wr's capable of making big plays.

our wr's aren't capable of big plays and are incapable of getting open on a consistent basis.

brees would be going from an offense that allows him to rack of huge yards to one where the talent just isn't there.

i've used this analogy before, but our offense is like my pc. i upgraded my video card and added more ram. now my cpu is the weak point. if we can upgrade WR and the interior line then it would be smith being the weak point, ie the cpu. i couldn't max out the ability of my cpu with the levels of ram or the video that i had.

Bullshit. He had two fantastic OGs, but his center was Brian De La Puente. He had a decent year, but he's certainly not an amazing player.

Brees has been one of the top passers in the league for the past five years. Sproles and Graham only made an impact this year. Brees has gotten it done with Colston and a bunch of middle-of-the-road guys in Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem, and Jeremy Shockey. These guys are fine players. They are not elite talent.

 

[Flyingiguana]

they work well together as a unit. brees has guys who can make big plays like meachem and henderson. colston is a security blanket that brees has had i believe ever since he went to new orleans.

i seen brees' potential when everyone was saying he was a bust. with a 2nd year in the same system and some actual talent, i think smith can take the next steps to maybe become a top 10 qb. the potential is there, but we have to fix the weak links on offense or it will hinder whatever qb we have.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

they work well together as a unit. brees has guys who can make big plays like meachem and henderson. colston is a security blanket that brees has had i believe ever since he went to new orleans.

i seen brees' potential when everyone was saying he was a bust. with a 2nd year in the same system and some actual talent, i think smith can take the next steps to maybe become a top 10 qb. the potential is there, but we have to fix the weak links on offense or it will hinder whatever qb we have.

Again, where was the talent in Brees' first year in NO? He still put up big numbers. The niners are light on dynamic receivers. But, of course, they have the most dynamic TE in the game today.

Anyway, I'm getting tired of this back and forth. I hope you're right on Smith. There's no doubt he improved this season. I'm just not sure how much higher his ceiling goes. He still showed many of the same shortcomings this season. I'd love it if he proved me wrong.

 

[Flyingiguana]

smith ran the offense and turned it on when needed. right now i would compare him to jake plummer without being a turnover machine for 3 quarters.

a 2nd year in the same system will help. smith cut down the dumb mistakes last year after his near benching against the eagles. this year he looked much more poised and in control of the offense.

i still think our interior line would be much better if davis went inside and we started boone at RT. that would help our offense big time and it's possible we could upgrade badwin in the draft with someone like jones in the 3rd. we won't have a dallas cowboys line of the early 90s, but our line would give the whole offense more chances to actually make plays.

not sure if we'll make the upgrades needed on the offensive line, but going on and spending money on recievers or any skill position is a waste if we don't improve the line.

 

[mufasa76]

If we had Brees, we wouldn't be forced to make the same moves at WR. Crabtree, Morgan, Williams, Davis, and Walker would be a fine start with Brees at QB. Add a guy in the first three rounds of the draft and we'd be just fine.

+1

 

[mufasa76]

Bullshit. He had two fantastic OGs, but his center was Brian De La Puente. He had a decent year, but he's certainly not an amazing player.

Brees has been one of the top passers in the league for the past five years. Sproles and Graham only made an impact this year. Brees has gotten it done with Colston and a bunch of middle-of-the-road guys in Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem, and Jeremy Shockey. These guys are fine players. They are not elite talent.

+1

 

[jayviabay]

smith ran the offense and turned it on when needed. right now i would compare him to jake plummer without being a turnover machine for 3 quarters.

a 2nd year in the same system will help. smith cut down the dumb mistakes last year after his near benching against the eagles. this year he looked much more poised and in control of the offense.

i still think our interior line would be much better if davis went inside and we started boone at RT. that would help our offense big time and it's possible we could upgrade badwin in the draft with someone like jones in the 3rd. we won't have a dallas cowboys line of the early 90s, but our line would give the whole offense more chances to actually make plays.

not sure if we'll make the upgrades needed on the offensive line, but going on and spending money on recievers or any skill position is a waste if we don't improve the line.

it doesnt take a rocket scientist to know if you do something repetitive, you gain the ability to do said action with less thinking... Alex Smith should be more confident and have the ability to perform better in the same system.
Do you actually think a 2nd year will help him throw the deep ball accurately? Will it prevent balls from sailing out of bounds looking like wounded ducks??? Do you really think the different coordinators and systems are the cause of this deficiencies? Like CC said, I hope you are right and Smith proves me wrong!!

 

[Flyingiguana]

ppl said he didn't have accuracy on deep balls down the sidelines then he hits a couple late in the year... he's hit them in prior years as well. deep throws aren't 100%, but every miss is overanalyzed

some qb's never progress no matter the reps they get. it took brees 28 games before he had his big season in his 4th year. by the time smith hit 28 games he had 2.5 coordinators and had a sever shoulder injury that cost hm over a year.

 

[BINGO]

Brees upset with tag?
9:26 AM ET
Drew Brees | Saints

As we've seen in seasons past, some players are none too pleased with receiving the franchise tag, while others take it in stride. With a large crop of taggees this offseason (21), there will be some that refuse to sign their one-year franchise tender, and will be absent from offseason activities until something is worked out. And as it happens, the most high-profile member of this year's franchise tag class may be one of the men who refuses to sign that tender.

According to a report from WIST-AM in New Orleans (per CBS Sports), New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees is "livid" about the fact that he was tagged and did not get a long-term deal from the club. The radio station cites members of the Brees camp for the intel.

Looking ahead, the two sides have until July 15 to agree to a long-term deal. If nothing is struck by then, Brees has to sign the one-year tender or elect not to play. While negotiating up until that deadline will not threaten the QB's participation in training camp, if nothing is worked out until then he'd be absent from the other offseason activities (mini-camps, OTAs, etc.).

- Tim Kavanagh​

 

[jayviabay]

ppl said he didn't have accuracy on deep balls down the sidelines then he hits a couple late in the year... he's hit them in prior years as well. deep throws aren't 100%, but every miss is overanalyzed

some qb's never progress no matter the reps they get. it took brees 28 games before he had his big season in his 4th year. by the time smith hit 28 games he had 2.5 coordinators and had a sever shoulder injury that cost hm over a year.

throwing the ball up and hoping that your receiver can make an athletic play on the ball, is not considered hitting on the deep ball. Most would say the receiver made a great play.
Before i continue, what do you consider a "deep ball"? Anything over 25+, 30+?