Let Them Underestimate The Saints' Offseason Improvements All They Want!

I have read a some 2009 season prediction-based articles from people who are all obviously at least familiar with the overall strength and competitive nature of the modern day NFC South, but still outside the inner circle of the Saints faithful mind you, where the consensus seems to be in full support of the Falcons winning the division.  They also either have the Panthers or the Saints (the majority going with Carolina) winning a wild card berth with both of these teams' respective predicted final records falling somewhere just short of the Dirty Birds' predicted final record.

General consensus among these articles' writers also seems to be unanimously in favor of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being heavily into “rebuilding” mode and, barring the completely unforeseen (which tends to be more of a rule than an exception to it in this particular division as of late), pretty much out of contention as a possible playoff participant for the 2009 season at least.

I am noticing that many of these articles' predictions are being based fairly heavily on just a few common factors. Numbers posted by the teams in this division from last season are a big consideration for many of these predictions, as are the teams' 2009 draft picks as well as any coaching and/or scheming changes made and their offseason personnel moves via free agency up to this point.

This all makes perfect sense to me (what else are you going to base your predictions for a team's next season on anyway, right?) but I am also noticing that all of these articles are biased, at least in some small part, to one team or another's favor.

While all four of the teams in this division each have a fairly significant laundry list of question marks heading into this brand new season, these authors in question all seem to place a higher significance on the questions surrounding the Buccaneers and the Saints than they do either of the other two participating teams for whatever reasons.

A major factor affecting the authors' predictions appears to be in full agreement among all of them with respect to the Saints' running game with Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas the obvious heirs apparent to the team's current offensive backfield which will permanently be missing the familiar number 26 for the first time after the eight straight seasons prior to this one.

As far as the questions regarding the Saints' offensive backfield, I truly think the issue has already been successfully addressed, at least in part, with the acquisition of free agent FB Heath Evans to replace released FB Mike Karney in that department.

Evans just fits like a glove into Sean Payton's offensive game-plans whereas Karney didn't and had been used less often over the last three seasons.

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