The GOAT
Founder of GSEZ
While his final destination was a little odd, FA WR Odell Beckham Jr’s failure to sign with the Saints was no surprise.
If he’d have come here, he’d have ended up like Norma Desmond – in his mind, he IS big, it’s the quarterbacks who got small.
And that would include medium-armed Saints QB Trevor Siemian.
Ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille?
Other than “slow news day/week,” I am baffled as to why the entire NFL media was hanging on the edge of its seat over a 29-year-old wide receiver who last made a Pro Bowl in 2015 and has played in 45 of a possible 80 games in the last five years, catching 16 TDs.
Maybe there’s a reason Browns QB Baker Mayfield wasn’t looking his way.
If you’re keeping score at home, former (as in 2020) Saints WR Emmanuel Sanders has played 71 games with 21 TDs over the same stretch. And nobody cared that he wasn’t re-signed by the Saints. Just sayin’.
Yes, our WRs suck, and OBJ would have maybe helped some, but not enough to make a big difference.
Let it go.
*****
Roughly 51 years ago (November 8, 1971 to be exact), the Saints sucked, as they always had before, and they would afterwards, for many years.
My dad and my beloved uncle Francis stood in line in 1966 to get season tickets for the inaugural year. My dad would never miss a game. And my dad was very IQ smart, and had fought in combat in WWII, and had his own business, and was about as far from a naïve fool as you can get, but he would never leave a game early. “You might miss something,” he’d say. And there were many opportunities in that era to leave Saints games early, I assure you.
So on that day, we were right there in the stands, when Detroit kicked a FG (PK Errol Mann, which I did not have to look up) with about 12 seconds left to put us down 17-16, and when Al Dodd ran the kickoff back to about the 25, and when Billy Kilmer hit Dodd at the sideline at the 44 with two seconds left, and then when Tom Dempsey made that 63-yard field goal.
To this day, I can’t remotely make it through the highlight video of that kick without crying, so I don’t even try.
But 51 years later, I never leave a game too early. And I do a lot of other things the same way, too.
*****
FS Marcus Williams misses the tackle, we lose. FS Marcus Williams makes the tackle, we lose.
Schrödinger’s Williams.
We’re both dead and dead at the same time.
*****
Saints DC Dennis Allen is the guy who makes A’s and B+’s on all the quizzes and a C on the final exam that’s for 50% of the grade. (Teaser for next week’s “Dennis Allen Must Go” blog.)
No need to talk any more about the defense this week. You can just go back and read this:
https://girodstreetendzone.com/the-allen-defense-big-time-chokers/
Remember at the end of the Bucs game, after DB PJ Williams pick-six to clinch the game, Allen ran all the way down the sidelines and titty-twisted HC Sean Payton in celebration? Payton was smiling, sure, but Payton, customarily ebullient in late victories, wasn’t nearly as animated. Maybe he knew we just got lucky for a change. Hell, for all I know, PJ was out of position on the play and he was supposed to be on the other side of the field so we could give up a 30-yard catch-and-run.
*****
Among the Beatles great songs are “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Money.”
Can’t say they didn’t have portfolio diversification.
*****
It is difficult to be optimistic about the road game against the Titans on Sunday. The Titans just savaged several good teams (KC, Buffalo, the Rams) in the first half of the season, and as seems to happen to us every year, we are again losing players like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail loses limbs.
Meanwhile, this week we definitely without DE Payton Turner, LT Terron Armstead is obviously hurting, I am sure that RB Alvin Kamara won’t play, we’ve already lost WR Michael Thomas, QB Jameis Winston, and likely RG Andrus Peat, for the season, and DB CJGJ is out for at least a week.
Yes, I know all that no respect/next man up/nobody believes in us shit works some time, but it’s no way to make a title run — while it’s all romantic, there’s reasons why road games like Gallipoli, Gettysburg, Custer’s attack at Little Big Horn and the German invasion of Russia didn’t actually work out all that well.
My fear is that we hang in there and crack and lose by 2-3 scores and are left with a million questions. Unless the offense plays turnover-free football (unlikely given who we are and who they are), this could well be a blowout that, unlike the Carolina game, will be a true gauge on where this team is.
And yes it’s on the road. But I’m not going to stop watching too early. Because when I think it looks bad, I always hope I’m wrong.
You never know, you might miss something.
WHO DAT.