The New Orleans Saints; missing in action

Put out an APB. An entire professional football franchise; a world champion franchise at that, is missing in action. The New Orleans Saints are nowhere to be found. Surely these are mere impersonators showing up to play football on NFL weekends.

Today the Saints, who have been winning most of their games with lackluster effort, got it handed to them by the Arizona Cardinals. And consider the facts; this is a Cardinal team that gave up over 40 points twice. This is a Cardinal team that is not lighting up the scoreboard on offense. So poor have the Cardinals been offensively, today they started a non-tested free agent rookie QB. Despite all these advantages, Saints lose and had 2 defensive TD's scored against them. With the exception of one miracle pass so late in the game it really did not matter, the Saints were scoreless and useless in the 2nd half.

And the haunting reminder of our kicking woes bit hard; another missed 29 yd FG, this time by Carney and kick off coverage that is sad, at best. And our punter all of a sudden can't punt.

But the real disaster is an offense that has been almost anemic. I'll acknowledge up front that missing Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas is huge. So what. The mark of the championship team was plug in your back-ups and go from there. But not this year. Of course the starters are not doing anything anyway.

Not being a sports reporter but a fan I'm just expressing my concerns but I think they are well founded. Drew Brees is playing poorly. His o-line is playing poorly. Receivers are not open downfield and have dropped more than their fair share of passes. The running game is only as good as the constant turnovers.

Defensively, not playing all that bad but can you explain making this team today, this QB today look great? I can't.

And today in the fourth quarter, when the Saints needed to make something happen, the play calling was confusing, they lacked a sense of urgency and sort of non-chalantly tip toed around the field.

Who are these guys?

I honestly beleived that it would be years after last year before I would witness such poor effort. We need to find a balanced approach to being so proud and excited about last year while not allowing last year to be a distraction. Drew Brees, Sean Payton and others are still signing autographs, hugging the Lombardi and basking in the glow of a game that is 8 months old.

And for those who want to interpret this as fair weather syndrome; feel free. You can keep drinking the kool-aid. I love the Saints, particularly what they do in and for the community, their attention as an organization to faith and for being Super Bowl Champions. But they get no pass from me, and neither should they from you, for this kind of effort. Outside the excitement of the Vikings season opener, every other game, win or lose, has been painful.

Since they got us a championship let's keep putting our faith in this staff and this team but big wins need to happen soon. And don't look now, the Saints are in 3rd place because both Atlanta and Tampa are playing lights out.

Come on Saints, all of you collectively, get your heads out of your rear ends!