The Exile’s Report, political edition
Wednesday, 01 October 2008 07:18
The Exile's Blog
First, apologies for the absence last week. No excuse.
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Feeling Like There’s Finally A Candidate We Can All Agree On Dept.:
From Jonathan Martin’s blog on www.politico.com last Friday before the first presidential debate in Oxford, MS:
“Even apolitical students seemed thrilled to have the focus of the nation on their charming college town, excitedly asking visitors about the details of the debate.
But this being Mississippi many still had their priorities straight.
The most popular button: “Archie for President.’”
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Feeling Defensive Dept.:
As we’ve noted before, this is a big year for Saints defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs. He’s charged with rebuilding this defense to at least a level where it can complement the offense, as it did in the last two months of the 2006 season.
Many writers, pundits, critics, fans, whatever have so far given the group a combination of low passing grades and/or half-credit for an injury pass through the first four games. Given their lowly per-game league rankings in yards allowed (27th) and points allowed (22nd), who could blame the critics for jumping to an expected conclusion?
Why, of course, Dr. Ex! There are a number of factors at work here:
-- rebuilding an unsatisfactory D from last season with new starters/key rotation guys (Jon Vilma, Bobby McCray, Randall Gay, Kevin Kaesviharn);
-- youth (rookies Tracy Porter, Sedrick Ellis and Jo-Lonn Dunbar have combined for 10 starts, redshirt freshman Usama Young is now in the dime package); and
-- injuries (of the expected regular rotation players, Hollis Thomas, Mike McKenzie, Scott Fujita, Aaron Glenn, Randall Gay, Antwan Lake, and Roman Harper have missed all or a good part of a combined 18 games; meanwhile, adding to the frustration, Jason David is scheduling a press conference to announce that he is healthy enough to play until the year 5769).
As in 2006, when Gibbs came into a new situation, it will take at least some time to teach this largely rebuilt group to play as an effective unit. Although the smarter character-type guys that the team likes tend to be more coachable, to be highly successful they must operate collectively at a higher level of precision than, say, a defense like Baltimore’s that is largely comprised of ninja robot assassins. Nevertheless, the Saints’ defense is already playing at a higher level than last season.
For starters, one needs to account for the quality of the first four opponents’ offenses which rank 1st (Denver), 7th (Tampa Bay), 9th (Washington) and 12th (San Fran) in the NFL in yards per game -- all these teams are moving the ball. Moreover, in the three games other than the loss to Washington, the Saints held the opposition to fewer yards gained than their average. Finally, the Saints are already ahead of last year’s pace for both sacks and takeaways.
Yes, stats can be for losers, and no one’s denying that the team is 2-2, or ignoring the fourth quarter collapse against Washington. And there is still work to be done. But as long as the defense’s overall health continues to improve, my money is on it performing like a legitimate playoff defense by the end of the year.
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Feeling Hungover Dept.:
Why do almost all the Saints’ home games have to start at noon local time? Is there some immutable law about this? Was this in the Code of Hammurabi? Did the NFL take this from Sun-Tzu’s “The Art of War”? (“Whenever possible, make the small market teams play when the sun’s light hits their eyes through the bamboo trees and their fans are too hung over from watching LSU the night before” – I tell you, this Sun-Tzu guy makes Nostradamus look like he was just guessing.)
Dr. Ex knows the NFL is all about rigor and control (or at least that’s what the judge said when he read me the restraining order). And maybe if all the games don’t start and end in one of two specific three-hour brackets (1-4 and 4-7 p.m. EST, I looked it up), it’s like the global credit markets would collapse or something.
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be great if the Saints home games all started at 2 p.m. local time? That gives the out of town folks enough time to get in at a reasonable hour for a little tailgating, but doesn’t end so late that they’re driving home at midnight. It seems like our home crowd is always just a little late getting in and getting rolling, thanks to cultural factors (high churchgoing population, LSU football), and we’d be in better shape as a home team, both from a crowd energy perspective and a tailgate opportunity perspective (Dr. Ex is thinking ahead to redevelopments up and down Poydras Street), if the games started at 2:00.
And how bad would this be for NFL Sundays on TV? Instead of all the games ending at the same time, you could start a bunch of games at 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. local time in each time zone and have two or three games ending every hour all afternoon until dinner. Fans could latch on to the best fourth quarters. Would that not help attract serious and casual fans alike?
And then you ask, Dr. Ex, how does it feel to always be right, even knowing just when to stylishly split the infinitive? And the answer is, despite the immense burden, it’s awesome. Simply awesome.
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6-10 two weeks ago, 8-5 this week, 31-28-1 on the season and a massive 20 simoleons in the black.
Later this week, we address the bizarre link between the Vikings’ purple and gold color scheme and their success against the Saints, and try to find a way to work the phrase “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” congruously into the blog.
