Well wasn’t that just a steaming pile of horseshit?

I’m gonna do my level best here to stop myself from hopping aboard the midnight train to Squirrel City, but unfortunately I can make no promises. I thought I’d feel better after sleeping on it and watching the game again while sober. Instead, it’s just made me start drinking again. Which I suppose will have to suffice as this week’s silver lining.

Perhaps it’ll help if I start with the positives. Here’s the list: Reggie Bush, Jon Vilma. The end. Through two games, Vilma is on pace for TWO HUNDRED tackles. Holy shit. I don’t even want to think about what this defense would be looking like right now without that guy. As for Reggie… well, it’s a little more complicated. It’s still inconsistent. It’s still a bit of a mixed blessing. He still can’t run for shit when he takes a handoff. But the bottom line is that he’s delivering. Color me impressed.

It wasn’t exactly an unqualified success for Reggie. Ten carries for 28 yards is downright craptastic, in fact. Through two games, Reggie has a paltry 79 yards rushing at a career low 3.3 yards per carry. No matter how you slice it, that just plain sucks. His 7 receptions for 63 yards are down from last week too. And if you’re like me, your instinctive gut reaction is to yawn in the general direction of 91 yards of total offense from a "feature" player, regardless of whether he’s a tailback or a wideout.

But with Reggie, as always, the "receiving yards" should be taken as "an extension of the running game" since Reggie rarely runs typical wide receiver routes and usually catches the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage. In that context, 17 touches for 91 yards doesn’t look so bad. That’s 5.35 yards per touch (or "carry" in the "it’s all kinda sorta rushing" context.) In fact, it’s pretty good. Throw in a 55 yard punt return for a touchdown, and that’s a mighty fine game right there. Damn fine.

Now consider Reggie’s "pace" (to whatever extent you can be "on a pace" after two whole games) for the year:

• 192 carries for 632 yards (both career highs)
• 120 receptions/kinda-sorta-carries for 1400 yards (again, both career highs and Pro Bowl "wide receiver" numbers)
• 2032 total yards from scrimmage
• 6.51 yards per touch, or somewhere around 6ish per "carry" if you’re a big fan of the school of thought that all but a few of Reggie’s "receiving" yards are kinda-sorta rushing yards
• And for lagniappe, a punt return for a TD… which might end up being the only one, but wouldn’t you throw a few dollars down on it not being the only one by the end of the year?

That right there is some Pro Bowl numbers, female doges. Just sayin’.

Now Message Board Guy has been screaming since Sunday that Sean Payton still hasn’t "figured out how to use Reggie" because Reggie’s offensive production was down this week vs. last week and the Saints got their asses kicked.

All together now…. "BULLSHIT!"

Seems to me that Payton might actually have finally figured it out. It’s just that Reggie’s big play type of game, by its very nature, simply doesn’t lend itself to the almighty god Consistency. Sometimes a guy like Reggie will pop a 26 yard run, or a 42 yard touchdown on a screen, or like last week, both. Other times he won’t, and he’ll have a long run of 9 and a long reception of 14. And you can never know one way or the other. It’s just the nature of the beast with "Big Play Guy" and as a playcaller, it can make you or break you in any given game.

If you let it. Or if you don’t have any other options.

And therein lies the rub. The latter is false and the former is too often all too true. Get your head out of your ass, coach. You too, Drew. And then try to locate your testicles, because I don’t think I can take much more of 8.9 yards per completion.

Just so we’re perfectly clear on this, that’s not 8.9 yards per passing attempt, where an incompletion counts for zero and blows your average all to hell. No sir, that’s 8.9 yards per completed pass. 13 of Drew’s completed passes were for 9 yards or less. Thirteen! Sixty percent! Holy shit.

Of 33 passing attempts, a whopping 6 of them were for 20+ yards. Eighteen percent! And I’m being charitable here and including the 19 yard pass to Meachem because it was for a touchdown. The Saints completed exactly one pass of 20+ yards, and that one was only for 22. This, one week removed from three scoring plays of 39, 42 and 84 yards.

Let’s just pause for a second and really let it sink in. Last week, 6 plays for 20+ and 2 for 40+ (with one of those being a rushing play, which doesn’t really count because you can’t "call" a big run, those just happen.) This week, they only try to go 20+ yards downfield 6 times.

Peter, Paul and Mary:
Where have Coach’s testicles gone? Long time passing.

Indeed. And Drew doesn’t get a pass on this either. Now don’t get me wrong, even I, armed with an unblemished (and notarized) track record of devout heterosexuality, still more often than not feel a yearning desire to stick my tongue down his throat. But unlike Message Board Guy, I’m not fool enough to think that the view from my couch makes it perfectly clear how much is pansy-ass playcalling and how much is premature checkdowns. Not that I much give a shit which it is. It sucks either way.

But I’m gonna have to go ahead and err on the side of pansy-ass playcalling. Why? Because it meshes well with the late-game third and short "Run Peter Tom up Goodwin’s ass for not quite enough" strategy. And you know who I blame for that?

You.

Well, not "you" specifically. Please don’t stop reading my blog. In fact, forget I ever said you. What I meant was Message Board Guy. And Peter Finney. And everybody else (except you)  (and Jim Henderson) who bitched and moaned and whined and complained about The Reverse.

Careful what you wish for, eh?

I do believe it was the Late 80′s Biker Bar Supergroup, Great White, who prophetically crooned: "Once bitten, twice shy baby."

Perhaps I’m giving the braying masses a little too much credit here. After all, Coach Grapefruits did defiantly drop trou and run the reverse on the first play from scrimmage the following week.

I’d blame Coach Payton for eventually cowtowing to the perpetual hissy fit that passes for public discourse these days, but loathe as I am to admit it, it does have a way of beating you down until you find yourself all alone in a dark room shouting out loud "Aaaaaaaaalright fine."

Football is show bidness, and for better or worse, the reality is that a head coach does have to consider approval ratings and other such nonsense spewed forth from the almighty "FANS WHO PAY THEIR SALARIES!!!!"

And ever since then, the general public sure has gotten itself a heaping helping of the "Play it safe, jackass!!!!!" mindset it clamored for, wouldn’t you agree?

Good call, Saints fans.

"Why can’t you be more like Carl Smith???" Indeed.

I do believe it was the Late 80′s Hair Metal Icons, Cinderella, who prophetically crooned: "Don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone." Clearly they were referring to Sean Payton’s testicles.

Meanwhile, hate to be the one to break it to ya, but this defense still sucks ass. Jon Vilma notwithstanding. Sedrick Ellis is a rookie, so we’ll give him a pass too. Tracy Porter? Also a rookie. And a rookie corner. So he gets a pass and a half.

Someday this defense might not suck. Boy, that’ll be nice.

But for now, it sucks. Horribly.

Sure, they were without Scotty Badass. They were without Roman Harper. They were without Mike McKenzie. They were without Hollis Thomas. Talk about getting fucked right in the ear by the fickle finger of fate, right?

Right. Because this defense kicks so much ass with those guys. Right?

Guh.

The excuses for the defense have been rolling in since last Sunday evening. "Sure they allowed 146 yards on the ground on 7.3 yards per carry, and allowed Fabulous Jeff and Joey Galloway to exceed their recent averages. But none of that matters because they only gave up 13 points, and that’s what counts. The Saints won. The defense looked better. Everything is just peachy." Right?

Yeah. How does giving up 29 work for ya, champ? 

• How about 149 yards rushing?
• How about allowing the opponent 8 scoring opportunities out of 11 possessions? (That includes the two missed field goals.) 
• How about only forcing them to punt twice? 
• How about letting Jason Fucking Campbell lay 321 passing yards on your asses?
• With a completion percentage of 67% (vs. a career 58.1%)
• And a passer rating of 104.1 (vs. a career 78.8)
• Without forcing a single fucking turnover on his part? It’s not like the guy averages one and a half turnovers per game all by himself.
• How about allowing Santana Moss 164 receiving yards? (9 yards short of a career high)

But the truth is that this defense is great, right? It’s just that they were missing four starters.

This just in: Those four starters were not Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, Pat Swilling and Vaughan Johnson. Hell, they weren’t even Dave Waymer, Jim Wilks, Jumpy Geathers and Johnnie Poe.

But it was too hot! And they were on the road! And the offense forced the defense to spend a whopping four additional minutes on the field! And the Redskins were underrated! And they were desperate because they were 0-1 and they were totally more motivated, what with the intangibles and all that bullshit!

No. Testicles are quite tangible. If you don’t believe me, ask Kim Kardashian. She’ll testify.

Look, I’m well aware of all the following:

• Teams lose games. All of them. Even the Patriots.
• This ain’t the last one they’ll lose this year.
• It’s just one game.
• A trap game, at that.
• Injuries are kicking our asses right now.
• The Saints might very well still end up 12-4. Or something.

None of that changes the fact that it was a horseshit performance. That’s what pisses me right the fuck off. And it should piss you off too.