Once in a while I chime in on the state of our beloved Saints and after last years playoff exit in San Fran I opined something along the lines that our linebacking corps bites, needed to be upgraded and used Jonathan Vilma’s declining tackle stats as proof. I may have linked Scott Shanle’s declining tackle stats too but you have to make tackles to have a decline. Saints fans noticed the declines as well but never was heard a discouraging word from the Saints beat krewe over at the T-P. Even worse they actually pump these descending players and to illustrate this point we need look no farther than the Top 25 Countdown series which has Jonathan Vilma ranked #11. Shanle has thus far not shown on the list which has rolled to the 8 spot and if he does show as one the the top 7 players to be named, the entire series will prove bogus as the stated goal of the series is “essentially deciding who would be the best players on the field if they lined up for a game today.” Then again it is already bogus with Vilma at the 11 spot.
Yeah I know the purpose of the exercise is to stimulate discussion and I’m down with that but is a Jonathan Vilma that can not run that has seen declining production since 2008 really 1 spot better than free agent addition Curtis Lofton whose 2011 tackles/assists were almost 3 times that of Vilma? Is Vilma better than free agent addition David Hawthorne who is listed at #17, a player with twice the number of tackles/assists of Vilma? Come on man! Fact of the matter is neither Vilma or Shanle was one of the top 25 Saints players last year and neither could have started for the Falcons or Seahawks, the teams from which we poached Lofton and Hawthorne.
That said no one slices and dices the sports beat better than Grand Master Wang over at Moosedenied, who recently sliced and diced Yahoo’s Jason Cole to the point where Cole called Wang a “complete dipshit” in comments. It is great stuff folks as the area gears up for training camp. Are you ready for some football……
sop