A lot of people thought that the Saints would be playing into January, but their season will come to an end before the end of 2014 after losing five of their last seven games to crash out of the playoff picture.
The Saints need a win over the Buccaneers to avoid their first 10-loss season since 2005, the year before quarterback Drew Brees and coach Sean Payton arrived in New Orleans and ushered in the most successful period in the history of the franchise. Things have gone off track this year, but Brees doesn’t need any explanations about why he should be confident about the team’s ability to keep that run going in 2015 and beyond.
“This year did not dissuade me in any way from feeling the way I always have about this team and myself and what we have here and what we’re continuing to build here,” Brees said, via ESPN.com. “I’m very confident. I look around me at this team, and I feel like we have all the pieces in place, knowing we’re going to go out and add pieces as well. I’m very confident in our management, our general manager Mickey Loomis to do that, Sean Payton, our entire coaching staff.”
You wouldn’t expect Brees to say that the bottom had fallen out of the franchise, but a messy cap situation and the need to fix a defense that broke down this year top the list of reasons to dim expectations for the Saints’ immediate future. The former is usually manageable, but there are no guarantees on the latter and the Saints have learned in two of the last three years that ranking at the top of the league offensively isn’t enough to overcome a defense that offers token resistance to the opposition.
