Tag: Opinion

3 critical questions for the Saints to answer in their 2020 training camp

The Saints look towards their 2020 training camp with question marks along the offensive line, at linebacker, and in the receiving corps.

It sure feels like New Orleans Saints training camp is a lifetime away, but it’ll be here before we know it. And when the black and gold gather for a month-long workout under the grueling Metairie sun, it’s safe to say that the coaching staff will have some questions weighing heavily on their minds.

We have three of those problems already written down in pen, circled, and highlighted. These are the most important issues facing the Saints this season, and they won’t even sniff Super Bowl LV if they don’t solve each problem before September. New Orleans must act quickly to gets its 2020 rookie class on the same page as its veteran pickups and the nucleus of players returning from the 2019 team.

Who starts at center and guard?

Credit: Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports

New Orleans sent both guards to the Pro Bowl last year, but the Saints offensive line got even deeper in the 2020 draft by picking Michigan center Cesar Ruiz. While Andrus Peat is entrenched at left guard (having signed a five-year contract extension earlier in the offseason), the center and right guard spots are all but settled. If anything, they might be the most competitive roster battles we’ll see in training camp.

Ruiz and Erik McCoy, the incumbent, will both compete for the right to start at center. They’ll also work into the lineup at right guard, three-time Pro Bowl alternate Larry Warford is entering the final year of his contract (which carries the second-highest salary cap charge for the Saints this year, behind Drew Brees). With just those two spots available, the Saints will be benching either a draft pick selected in the first two rounds of the last two drafts or one of their best free agent acquisitions.

It’s possible Warford gets traded to help make that decision easier. Moving him would allow the Saints to work around the salary cap a little easier, while also getting both Ruiz and McCoy on the field together. While McCoy was graded very well by Pro Football Focus in 2019, Ruiz is one of the best center prospects in years — his college coach allowed him to make all the line calls for the Wolverines, and credited Ruiz with getting it right “99% of the time.”

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The Athletic ranks Saints uniforms among the NFL’s finest looks

A recent NFL uniform ranking from The Athletic heaped praise on the New Orleans Saints for their iconic black and gold color scheme.

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New Orleans Saints fans might be biased, but the black-and-gold jerseys they put on each week have to rank among the best in the NFL.

Fortunately, an NFL uniform ranking from Matt Barrows and Daniel Brown of The Athletic vindicates those feelings. They placed the Saints among the NFL’s elite, praising New Orleans for the history woven into their color scheme and its timeless synergy with the logo.

Compare that to the sorry also-rans in the NFC South, like the bottom-ranked Tampa Bay Buccaneers (31), Carolina Panthers (30), and Atlanta Falcons (28). You’ll struggle to find a collection of worse color palettes and designs around the NFL, which helps the Saints stand out even more for how great of a job they’ve done in putting their own kits together. Here’s a summary from The Athletic’s writeup:

7. Saints. The black-and-gold combo used by the team represents oil – “black gold” — and indeed the Saints struck it big with this surprisingly flexible color palette. The fleur-de-lis logo adds a distinctive only-in-New Orleans touch. It’s like a Mardi Gras for your eyes.

Best look: Thanks to vital journalism by John Sigler of Saints Wire, we know that during the Sean Payton era, New Orleans’ best winning percentage (10 games or more) is black jerseys/gold pants (.639).

And hey, look at that shoutout. It’s good to know that the hard work we put in here at Saints Wire is appreciated — you can check out each uniform combination used by the Saints since Payton was hired back in 2006 by following this link, which also details the 2019 results.

Everyone knows that the weeks of practice, planning, and preparation pale in comparison to great uniforms, which is what really determines the better team on any given Sunday. That’s just common knowledge. And if the Saints are smart, they’ll continue to capitalize on it.

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Grading the Saints’ pick of Cesar Ruiz at No. 24 overall

The New Orleans Saints used their first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft to select Michigan Wolverines offensive lineman Cesar Ruiz.

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So, that happened. The New Orleans Saints passed on prospects commonly projected to join them in the first round like linebacker Patrick Queen and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, instead opting to select Michigan Wolverines center Cesar Ruiz. How do you grade that pick?

The last time the Saints played a football game, their offense was destroyed from the inside out when the Minnesota Vikings defensive line outplayed their New Orleans counterparts. Neither left guard Andrus Peat nor right guard Larry Warford were up to snuff, leaving rookie center Erik McCoy in the unappealing position in-between. It was a massacre.

In light of that disaster, Ruiz makes sense. While the Saints may currently plan for him to start at center, bumping McCoy over to guard (where he’ll probably compete to replace Warford, who is highly-paid in the final year of his contract), that feels like a situation that won’t get resolved until the final weeks of training camp. McCoy played center at a very high level last season and Ruiz has experience in Warford’s spot at right guard (starting five games there as a freshman in 2017).

Don’t look at this pick as a depth move, though. That was how the Ryan Ramczyk pick was characterized a few years ago, and he was starting at right tackle by Week 3 after injuries cut down both Zach Strief and Terron Armstead. We’re one bad day away from Ruiz taking Ramczyk’s lead, by inheriting a starting job and never letting it go.

Ruiz actually has a shorter path to starting and playing often now than Ramczyk did those years ago. If the Saints can find a way to get out of Warford’s contract — possibly with a trade during the long draft weekend — it would immediately open the door for both Ruiz and McCoy to play early and often. Given the financial implications, that appears increasingly likely.

So we’re looking on this move more favorably than many Saints fans may be. Ruiz can help the Saints right now and offers long-term stability, completing the rare trick of helping extend Drew Brees’ Super Bowl window while improving the team years down the line. Still, it would be nice if the player the Saints added at this spot didn’t mean another recently-picked prospect didn’t have to get moved around.

The Grade: B

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Sean Payton thinks the NFL will push back the start of free agency

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton anticipates a delay to the start of NFL free agency in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

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How will the NFL respond to the growing threat of infections from the COVID-19 coronavirus? Unlike other sports leagues like the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Minor League Baseball, its teams and players were not actively playing games before infections began to spread throughout America. But the advent of free agency — and the dozens of flights for meetings and physicals that are integral to it — might be giving the NFL pause.

And New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton anticipates some changes to the league’s offseason calendar, which is set to roll over into its new fiscal year next week. Payton said during an interview with the TVG Network’s Britney Eurton that he’s expecting the NFL to delay the start of free agency until the immediate threat of the coronavirus has lessened.

When asked how the public health crisis might impact league operations, Payton’s focus was more on free agency than April’s NFL draft. “Most immediately, the start of our league year, which is due to be this Wednesday, free agency begins, that’s gonna be, I think, pushed back.”

Payton also said that he anticipates some formatting changes for the draft, which traditionally features a roaring crowd of fans eager to welcome the next generation of NFL stars into the fold. The event is also known for its red carpet festivities featuring prospects and their families, and plans for the 2020 draft in Las Vegas initially called for elaborate taxis-by-boat to that red carpet stage. But the draft has always been an event that teams can conduct remotely, and Payton guessed that it could be the case this year.

As for the changes the Saints are making: Payton noted that their top priority was keeping personnel and their families safe and healthy, with some employees working remotely while extra work is put in to maintain clean facilities in New Orleans. He also spoke warily about the danger younger, healthier people may present to those close to them, emphasizing the need to be vigilant about our personal hygiene. It’s clear that he’s taking the situation seriously.

But is Payton right about the league pushing back the all-important start to its offseason? Mark Maske of The Washington Post reported that the NFL and the NFL Players Association expect to deliberate on the topic Sunday, following Saturday night’s final vote on the new collective bargaining agreement, with talks centering on the start of teams’ offseason programs and the first extended time players will spend gathered in training facilities around the league. It’s very much a developing situation, so check back soon for updates.

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Premier League suspends season, but seems to have done so for worrying reason

It was only when Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was diagnosed with COVID-19 that the Premier League made the right decision.

On Friday the Premier League and the rest of English soccer — the Championship and lower leagues — suspended their seasons until at least April due to the outbreak of COVID-19, a strain of the coronavirus.

It was a late-made decision — as of Thursday night, the leagues had all plans to move forward with games this weekend as regularly scheduled. It was only after news broke that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta had tested positive for COVID-19, and Chelsea player Callum Hudson-Odoi had as well, that the team owners held an emergency meeting on Friday morning and made the decision.

I am glad the Premier League got there and did the right thing. I am worried they got there for the wrong reasons.

Too often we are seeing professional sports leagues only act when one of their own contracts the disease. It is only then that the point is driven home. While the NBA acted more quickly than other leagues in the United States, and was the first domino to fall in a sense, it was only when Rudy Gobert tested positive that the league made the decision.

Twenty thousand plus people in stadiums across the country, packed in during a pandemic, with no way of knowing who is sick or not? Not an issue. One center for the Utah Jazz? League suspended.

The same has happened in the Premier League now, which seemed more than content to hold games … until the Arsenal manager and a Chelsea player got sick. Now every league in English soccer is off.

This is how too many of us think, I fear. A pandemic is an abstraction until it hits someone you know, at which point it becomes very, very real. By waiting until one of their own tested positive, these leagues are making clear they don’t really care about general public health, or if they do care, they are willing to risk it. But when a member of their tribe comes down with it, then it becomes something to react to.

I can understand the hesitance, but Premier League officials needed to understand what a cavalier attitude about this disease can bring. While coronavirus has not rocked the UK yet, it is currently doing so in northern Italy, where the pandemic has led to a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic scenario which medical professionals are describing using war-time metaphors. There is a shortage of hospital beds. People are getting sick, and dying.

Interview after interview with Italians has them saying: We just thought it was the flu. We didn’t take it seriously.

Thankfully, these leagues are now taking this seriously. With the Premier League, it took a positive test for Arteta, who we all pray recovers quickly from this disease. And in a perverse way, Arteta’s positive test could end up doing a lot of good, in that it woke the Premier League up to the real threat here.

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U.S. Soccer hits rock bottom with shameful legal argument against USWNT

In a filing, a lawyer for U.S. Soccer made the argument that women’s players were inferior to men. There’s no coming back from there.

Forget the United States men’s national team missing out on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup. We have found a new low for the U.S. Soccer federation.

This week, legal documents in the equal-pay lawsuit brought against U.S. Soccer by the USWNT were made public. In them, attorneys for U.S. Soccer made the argument that women were inherently inferior to men when it came to the game.

Writing on behalf of U.S. Soccer, attorney Brian Stolzenbach made the argument that the job of a USMNT player requires a greater level of skill than does a player for the USWNT.

The attorney also argued that men’s national team members have a greater responsibility to U.S. Soccer than the women’s team does.

It was shocking. U.S. Soccer was echoing the sentiments of toxic trolls you block on Twitter. It was saying the quiet part, the part you always feared they may feel deep down, out loud.

U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro offered an apology after the document was made public and everyone, from USWNT players to journalists to federation sponsors Coca-Cola, expressed their shock at the legal argument. Coca-Cola has publicly demanded an immediate meeting with U.S. Soccer to “express their concerns.”

In the statement, Cordeiro wrote: “On behalf of U.S. Soccer, I sincerely apologize for the offense and pain caused by language in this week’s court filing, which did not reflect the values of our federation or our tremendous admiration of our women’s national team.”

Cordeiro can try to distance U.S. Soccer and make the claim that the attorneys were the ones who made the argument, but it’s a horrifying look either way. He’s either so incompetent that he was unaware of arguments his own legal team was making, or he approved those arguments, and is now trying to cover his tracks. (Especially after major sponsors got involved.)

There are arguments to be made against the USWNT lawsuit. FIFA pays out higher prize money for men’s tournaments than women’s tournaments, and U.S. Soccer could easily deflect some of the USWNT claims onto the higher authority.

Instead, they went scorched earth. They made the argument you can’t come back from, one that gets at the heart of all this. U.S. Soccer is no longer arguing that economic realities or FIFA’s backwardness make it impossible to guarantee equal pay. U.S. Soccer is now arguing that women don’t deserve equal pay because they aren’t equal.

This is sickening.

Part of the reason this is so sickening is how short-sighted this all is. The USWNT is U.S. Soccer’s most successful product by a long shot. They’ve got four World Cup titles. They draw consistently bigger crowds than the men’s team does.

In making this argument, U.S. Soccer is not only risking forever alienating that women’s team, the organization is also sending a message to potential fans — potential customers — that this isn’t as good as the men’s game. It’s an inferior product. 

This is not only morally repugnant, it’s bad business. 

On top of that, U.S. Soccer is now undoubtedly making the men’s team furious, who are suddenly being held up against their will as a superior team to the women’s, even though the men haven’t had even an iota of the success internationally. It also links them to a sexist argument that the men’s team itself almost certainly doesn’t want to make.

Over at SI, Grant Wahl made the argument that U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro needs to resign. I don’t see any other way out of this, myself. This is a dark, dark day for U.S. Soccer, and unless there are wholesale changes, top to bottom, I don’t see a way out of this.

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Myles Garrett’s ‘indefinite suspension’ allowed NFL to have it both ways

Myles Garrett was reinstated to the NFL on Wednesday, after serving an “indefinite suspension” that turned out to be six games.

The Browns’ Myles Garrett was reinstated into the NFL on Wednesday, after missing six games during an “indefinite suspension” for hitting Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph in the head with a helmet during a game last season.

Garrett met with Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday, two days before his reinstatement, per ESPN.

The six games that Garrett served is probably fair based on other punishments doled out by the NFL, but it is interesting to look back and note that the NFL didn’t call it a six-game suspension, or a suspension for the rest of the season, including playoffs — which is what it likely would have been, had the Browns made the playoffs. (By Goodell scheduling their meeting after the Super Bowl, it seems fair to guess that was where we were headed.)

If that was the case … why not just say that? Why did the NFL insist that the suspension was “indefinite?”

The reason, I pretty strongly suspect, is that it allows the NFL to have its cake and eat it too. If the league declares a specific number of games as his suspension, pundits and fans can get furious, declaring it too high or too low. When you come up with a specific suspension, the NFL basically has to guess at what’s appropriate and what will draw the least amount of ire from fans, owners, coaches, players, etc.

But with an indefinite suspension, there’s none of it. How can you get mad about an indefinite suspension, however? You can’t. You have no idea what it means. It is by definition … indefinite. Right there in the name.

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For people who wanted Garrett thrown out of the league or, like, put in jail or whatever, an “indefinite” suspension sounds appropriately severe. An indefinite suspension could go on forever, technically! For fans who thought the whole thing was overblown, there is no huge number that they can get mad at, or compare the suspension to suspensions for other infractions, and point out how unfair and hypocritical it all is.

It’s just a blob, a meaningless amount of suspension, that no one can fixate any feelings on, which is exactly what the NFL wants.

The biggest thing an “indefinite suspension” buys the NFL is time. By making an amorphous suspension that could be anything, the league gets to wait until things settle down, people have moved on, then reinstate the player say, on a random Wednesday in the offseason.

That’s what happened here. It worked exactly how the NFL wanted it to work.

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Why this season can be considered a success for the Broncos

The Denver Broncos are sitting at 5-9 and will miss the playoffs again, but it hasn’t been all bad.

The Denver Broncos are 5-9 and there are two games left in the season. They will finish with a losing record for the third year in a row. That’s a total disaster, right?

Sure, if you choose to look at it that way. Many fans of the Broncos will do just that. After all, the fanbase expects success year in and year out. But let’s be honest, this season wasn’t going to be successful.

There were fans and guys on radio stations making outlandish predictions such as the team going 11-5 this year, but what was that based on other than being a total Broncos “homer”?

The team was coming off two very poor seasons in which they were hardly competitive for the most part. The team had a first-year head coach and a brand new quarterback.

That’s not a team that is likely to go 11-5. And of course, they didn’t even sniff that level of success.

However, for one reason and one reason only, this season can be considered a success. You guessed it: Drew Lock.

The fact that the team put Lock in to see what he had was a big move, even if the organization wasn’t completely sold on him starting this season. It gave them the chance to see what he had.

Playing Joe Flacco or Brandon Allen was not going to bring about any talk of the future, since one of those guys is at the end of his career and the other is a backup, at best.

The success Lock had in his first two starts made one thing quite clear for the Broncos . . . they don’t need to worry about a quarterback with an early pick in next year’s draft.

That gives the team something it hasn’t had since Peyton Manning was the starter and that is the ability to build around a quarterback. That doesn’t mean that Lock is guaranteed to be the quarterback of the future, but it does mean the team has a guy that could be.

Trevor Siemian wasn’t that guy. Brock Osweiler wasn’t that guy. Paxton Lynch proved to not be that guy. Case Keenum wasn’t that guy and Flacco wasn’t that guy.

Lock possibly could be.

That’s exciting. Because going into the offseason, the organization and the fans don’t have to be worrying about who the quarterback is going to be. Instead, the team can use its picks to give Lock a better offensive line or to give him another talented target to throw the ball to.

A 5-9 record is no good. Being eliminated from the playoffs is certainly no fun. But looking at things from a realistic perspective, the Broncos did have some good come from the 2019 campaign.

As a result of this and things like the development of Courtland Sutton, the play of safeties Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson and other promising rookies such as Noah Fant and Dalton Risner, the Broncos are a franchise with the arrow pointing up.

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How many more games will Broncos win this season?

The Denver Broncos are sitting at 3-6 following their bye week. How many more games will they win?

The Denver Broncos are ready to return from their bye week and sit at 3-6 heading into the second half of their 2019 season. Fans are still riding high after a win over the Cleveland Browns, which featured a new quarterback in Brandon Allen.

Several questions remain for the rest of this season, including how many more games the team will win. But before we get into that part, let’s look at some of the other key questions.

How much longer should Allen hold onto the starting job? Much of that answer likely lies within what the team decides to do with Drew Lock. Will the second-round pick play at all this season?

Will the offensive line, specifically Garett Bolles, ever start to play at a consistent level, or will this unit again be one of the big question marks going into next season?

When are the quarterback and offensive line spots not going to be big question marks for this team? How many games can the team win with those question marks the rest of this season?

Going over the team’s remaining schedule, we attempt to answer that final question.

Week 11 at Minnesota Vikings

(Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports)

Despite the Broncos being well-rested coming off the bye week, they have to travel to Minnesota to face a surging Vikings team.

Minnesota has a stout rushing attack and a good defense. This looks and feels like an unlikely win for the Broncos.

Prediction: Vikings 24, Broncos 13

Record: 3-7

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