As a lifelong Saints fan, I've never been that big a fan of the Status Quo. This particular offseason has given me a whole new appreciation, what with the Saints' primary goal having been keeping things as they are, and their having done about as good a job of that as could reasonably have been expected. But now, as the camper vans begin settling in down on Airline for Beastwatch 2010, I'm beginning to remember that sometimes the remake can actually be an improvement over the original. So I'm coming back around to the opinion that… well, screw the Status Quo. Far as I know, there's no rule that says the 2010 Saints can't be even stronger than the 2009 version. Why not?

Oh, I know, I know. We're Saints fans, after all. We're not really equipped to comprehend such notions. It was hard enough wrapping our minds around the concept of being in a position where the soundest offseason strategy was preserving the same ole to the greatest extent possible. Now we're being asked to try to understand that this year's team could be even better than last year's team that WON THE FUCKIN' SUPER BOWL??? (High five!) That the possibility actually exists that it's not all downhill from here? The mere suggestion sets off the bullshit detector like a BP press release.

Hey, I'm just sayin'. Welcome to the New Normal. Takes a little getting used to, no doubt about it. Kinda cool though, don't you think?

Which isn't to suggest that we here at moosedenied have abandoned our position that it'll never get better than February 7, 2010. It won't. That's still our position, and it always will be. I promise I'll stop repeating it just as soon as I'm sure we're 100% clear on that.

Nor am I suggesting that the Saints are gonna go 19-0 and win a second straight Super Bowl. Wait… actually, that's precisely what I'm suggesting. The New Normal. Learn it, love it, live it.

Not that I have a crystal ball or anything (hey, I'm known as Grandmaster Wrong in certain quarters for a good reason) and I've been known to indulge in a little blatant homerism from time to time, for which I will not apologize. So it's not like you oughta take my word for it. (Let's pause for a second while the internet responds with a collective "Oh, no need to worry about that." )

Fortunately for us, we can get a pretty good idea of how it's all gonna play out, without having to listen to me, by paying very close attention to Message Board Guy's scouting reports from training camp.

Oh, I know what you're thinking. We go through this every year. Is Lynell Hamilton the Next Dulymus? Or does Al Woods suck? Is Larry Beavers the Next Michael Lewis? Or do our coverage units still blow? Is Junior Galette the Next Pat Swilling? Or is Jermon Bushrod just a thinly-disguised chump?

All we really know for sure is that Adrian Arrington is most definitely the Next Jerry Rice, and most definitely not the Next Onome Ojo. For real this time.

Oh, and Reggie's putting up 5000 total yards and 46 touchdowns too. You can totally see it in his eyes. He's just so damned focused. No, seriously. Didn't you see how he ran north/south that one time in the Cardinals game last year in the playoffs?

But aside from those stone-cold locks, the problem with camp practices is that because they're going up against one another, every good performance carries the implication of an equally shitty performance by one or more of our other heroes. And which trumps the other (and makes it to the message boards, where it's repeated over and over and becomes "the truth" ) pretty much entirely depends on the personal preferences/biases of the observer.

The guy who hates Bushrod is inevitably gonna be damned impressed with Charles Brown. The guy who hates Shanle is gonna file daily reports on how great Jonathan Casillas looks. The guy who's still obsessed with the largely-debunked 3rd & short issue is gonna swoon over every 2-yard run by Lynell Hamilton. For some reason there are plenty of people who hate Remi Ayodele, so you can be pretty sure that Al Woods will get glowing reviews no matter what. Unless Hamilton is trucking him on 3rd & short, that is. Which of course will bring the inevitable cries of "WASTED PICK!" from the sizable anti-LSU contingent. (And Devery dropped like 6 passes too, by the way!) Jeff Duncan is gonna hype every single Jimmy Graham reception to the rafters.

As long as Drew Brees doesn't show up to camp with a crippling case of carpal tunnel, the offense will be just as productive as we've come to expect. And so, as is the case every year, all eyes will be on the defense.

Since December, the national media has missed no opportunity to remind us that the 2009 Saints defense was mostly smoke and mirrors. That it was entirely too dependent on a takeaway binge that's next-to-impossible to sustain for long periods of time, let alone replicate in subsequent seasons. Especially when almost a full quarter of 'em were produced by a guy who tied a career high at age 34, then hit a wall late in the season. That, if not for the 2nd ranked total of 39 takeaways, the 2009 defense would have been just barely less shitty than the Gary Gibbs defenses of 2006-2008.

Unfortunately, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, there's some merit to that point of view. After all, even with the takeaways, the Saints were still 25th in the league in total defense, 20th in points allowed, 21st against the rush and 26th against the pass. They were also 22nd in the league in yards allowed per drive (31.01)

And perhaps most disturbing of all, the Saints were 28th in the league at forcing opponents to punt. Opponents' drives ended with punts only 38% of the time. God only knows how much lower that might have been if not for 20.85% of opponents' drives ending with turnovers, a bunch of which happened deep in Saints territory.

Now let's set aside for a second the ridiculous (yet popular among the national media) assumption that the bulk of the Saints' takeaways were little more than good fortune. Or in other words, they weren't so much "takeaways" as they were opponents' "giveaways" and the Saints fell ass-backwards into most of them. I guess it's natural to assume that, given the shittiness of the rest of the Saints' defensive numbers. But we know that that's not true. We know that most of them were, in fact, legit takeaways. We know that Gregg Williams had been preaching it from day one, and that tons of coaching and practice energy were spent in an effort to create those opportunities and to take advantage of them. To bring about precisely that result. The turnover binge was most certainly not a fluke, it was the result of a concerted effort.

On the other hand, takeaways are a lot like punt and kick returns for touchdowns. You'd certainly rather have them than not have them, and there's never a situation where getting one is a bad thing. Ever. But you can't really call it a "weapon" because a weapon should be able to be wielded. A weapon is something you can control. And turnovers (much like return TDs) are impossible to wield. You can't pick and choose when you get one, they just happen whenever they happen. You can't just call one up precisely when you most need it. Sometimes the outcome of a game will hinge on one, but just as often, they come when you're already up or down by 21.

Which isn't to say that takeaways (and punt/kick returns for TDs) aren't great, because they are. Nothing bad ever comes of a takeaway. They're just far too unreliable to serve as the foundation of a defense. After all, 6 of the top 12 teams (and 9 of the top 16) with the most takeaways last year missed the playoffs. Meantime, the Colts were 18th and the Vikings were 22nd.

I'm not convinced by any means that the Saints can't come reasonably close to replicating last year's takeaway binge, with or without Frogurt. Gregg Williams has seen to it that it's just a part of the defensive culture now. And it's not like teams can't consistently produce large numbers of takeaways. In recent years, Green Bay, Philadelphia, Carolina and Tampa are just a few examples of teams that have been able to maintain consistently-well-above-average takeaway production from season to season. Hell, if Porter and Greer don't miss 11 combined games and you give them each an additional 2 INTs, and give Jenkins 2 with significantly more playing time at a position that better suits his skillset, you're only 3 off last year's pace.

Oh sure, you have to figure that Mike McKenzie won't be snagging an INT this year, and Chris McAlister won't be forcing a fumble. You also probably don't want to count on Chris Reis to get an INT this year, or Scott Shanle hauling in TWO. And the Meacharound isn't likely to ever happen again. But those are one-offs that can surely happen again this year to guys like Patrick Robinson, Chip Vaughn, JoLonn Dunbar and Alex Brown. And if they don't, the absence of those one-offs is just as likely to be all-but-irrelevant as it is likely to be season-changing. They might not rack up 39 takeaways again in 2010, but I don't see any basis for the assumption that they're gonna drop down into the mid-20s or anything like that.

Still though, if the Saints' defense really wants to stick it to chumps on a weekly basis, what they ought to be concentrating on is doing something about that 31 yard average per opponent's drive, and that downright embarrassing 38% forced-punt situation. Fortunately for us, I'm sure Gregg Williams is well aware of that.

What the national media seem to be conveniently ignoring is that Williams is still in the very early stages of a process. The same kind of process Sean Payton went through with the offense starting in 2006. He got his magical quarterback, found him some weapons at wideout, and they passed all damn day long. That was the quickest route to achieving some degree of success as quickly as possible. Meantime, they set to work on the offensive line and found a couple of mauler guards, allowing them to regain some semblance of offensive balance on the ground. (It also helped that they found an actual tailback.) Then they got themselves a stud tight end (and then another, and now possibly another) to work the middle of the field.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but I'll be damned if it didn't get built eventually. Gregg Williams is now repeating that process on the other side of the ball. Preaching takeaways right off the bat is the same path of least resistance to some degree of immediate success kind of strategy as passing all day every day was for Payton. Might not work all the time, but it sure as hell works better than what the last guy was doing. Now that the defensive backfield looks to be on cruise control for the forseeable future, the process turns to the front 7.

And, much like Hands Christian Andersen and Bob Snagit didn't forget how to catch passes when Sean Payton turned his attention to the running game, nor will the Saints' defensive backs forget how to take the ball away now that Gregg Williams has moved on to the next phase and shifts his point of focus.

See, unlike previous regimes, these guys aren't playing whack-a-mole. They're not applying Band-Aids to gaping chest wounds. They're methodically addressing problems with real, long-term solutions. Payton's been doing it for 4 years, and Williams is now treading the same path. Refreshing, ain't it?

It's the New Normal. Get used to it.