Is that a wrap?

Saints season, playoff chances near the end

With four games left to play the Saints are 6-6 and with Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Carolina left on the schedule the Saints are starring at the 7-9 finish of 2007. Until this team can get a consistent running game and upgrade a leaky secondary the New Orleans Saints are an average team in the NFC and average teams don’t get into the playoffs.

The New Orleans Saints 23-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers does not mathematically eliminate them from playoff competition, but right now they are just hanging on by a thread.

I have written this before, but the Saints are built on offense to play in the Superdome. Fast receivers, excellent pass catching tight ends and running backs, an offensive line that excels at protecting the quarterback – a quarterback that is playing on a different level this season.

But to win on the road in the NFL, and that it is a very important measure in getting into the playoffs, you have to run the football when you want to and have to, and you can’t give up big plays on defense through the air.

In the 23-20 loss to the Bucs the Saints defense played very well, matter of fact well enough to win, limiting Jeff Garcia, one of the top passers in the game to just 119 yards passing, but when they had to run the ball they just couldn’t.

It is probably unfair to write this, but if Drew Brees does not play great each and every week the Saints don’t have a chance to win, and this week against one of the top defensive units in the league Brees was good, but not great. That is a lot of pressure to put on him each and every week, but when you don’t have a consistent running game and a secondary that has given up more 20-yard or more passes than any other team in the NFL you have to play at a certain level to keep your team competitive.

While Brees did throw for 296 yards and two touchdowns, he also threw three pass interceptions and when the Buccaneers needed to run the ball they had good success.

The Buccaneers rushed for 149 yards against the Saints defense on a muddy track and when you add three turnovers that spells a defeat for the Saints.

Coach Miles: You need to make some changes

The LSU Tigers finished the regular season at 7-5, a far cry from the BCS Championship run of 2007. Yes, we finally got to see some of freshman quarterback Jordan Jefferson late in the year and there is plenty of talent to rebound in 2009, but the problems the Tigers had on defense were alarming to say the least.

Time after time experienced players seemed unsure where to line up and many were consistently out of position to make plays.

Also, some of the underclassmen stars of 2007 were in the witness protection crew in 2008.

Middle linebacker Darry Beckwith, who was considered one of the elite linebackers in the Southeast Conference in 2006 and 2007 struggled with injuries all season long, but even when healthy he looked nothing like the player we had seen the past two seasons.

Defensive tackle Ricky-Jean Francois, who was the Defensive MVP in the BCS Championship game against Ohio State, looked to have slipped his excellent play of the final two games of the 2007 in automatic pilot most of the 2008 season.

The same can be said for senior free safety Curtis Taylor and defensive end Kirston Pittman.

Good Tiger teams of the past few seasons have always played aggressive defense and been the tempo setters. That was not the case in 2008 and Les Miles has to know that a lot of his personnel problems lie in the fact that his coaches did not do their jobs properly this season.

DHS’ Damaris

At this time last year every high school coach who played Destrehan High School praised the talents of wide receiver/return specialist Damaris Johnson.

The problem was that many of the major colleges were scarred off from Johnson due to his lack of great size (5-7, 170), but now many of those same schools would love to have him in their lineup.

Johnson, as a true freshman, led the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes in receptions with 44 catches for 588 yards, an average of 13.4 yards per catch and 9 touchdowns.

The all-purpose athlete was a major part in getting the Golden Hurricanes a Conference USA Western Division title and Johnson accounted for 2,104 yards of total offense and that included averaging 26.0 yards per kickoff return and rushing for 220 yards on 33 carries.

This young man is quite an offensive playmaker and hopefully these same schools that passed on Johnson won’t make the same mistake with Destrehan High School linebacker Rufus Porter.