This just in: The Saints defense wasn’t very good last year. Jeremy Shockey doesn’t play defense.

Well no shit, Sherlock. Good thing we have a couple of squirrels venerable members of the local legitimate media to hip us to these newfound facts of which we were already largely aware. What ever would we do without ‘em?

Clearly we’re all doomed. I mean, what good are the additions of a pro bowl middle linebacker, a situational pass rushing defensive end, a monster first round defensive tackle, another defensive tackle and about ten cornerbacks if you’re just gonna turn around and fuck it all up by trading for a pro bowl tight end? Clearly this administration only cares about offense.

WGNO Sports Director Ed Daniels was first out of the gate with a simpering, poorly-reasoned, deliberately contrarian, fearmongering "Same Ole Saints" steaming pile of commentary.

Ed starts by sarcastically asking those who approve of the Shockey acquisition whether or not they’ve seen the Saints’ defense or special teams at work lately. Well, no, Ed. No I haven’t. Not since they added two DTs, a proven situational pass rusher, a pro bowl MLB, a metric assload of corners, a new defensive line coach, a kicker and a potential kick returner. Why, have you seen them since then? Because you seem pretty sure that none of the aforementioned changes is going to make a damn bit of difference. I suppose passing on Shockey would have been the only thing that could have really helped?

Ed goes on to baselessly assert that Sean Payton has tunnel-vision. He’s concerned only with offense, and that’s "myopic" because according to Ed, the only way to win in the NFL is with quarterback play and defense. And the only way to build a defense is through the draft. Everybody knows that. There’s only one "right" way to skin a cat, and that "right" way can be found in the litany of hackneyed old school football cliches people regurgitate when they don’t care to put a whole lot of thought into it.

Apparently Ed feels like the Saints aren’t trying hard enough to build a defense through the draft. After all, that’s how his anecdotal example of the "right" way to do it, the SUPER BOWL CHAMPION New York Giants did it. The fact that since Payton has been here, the Saints have drafted 9 defensive players to only 11 offensive players (and 1 kicker) doesn’t count. That’s only 43% defensive picks!!! But late round "throwaway" picks skew those numbers and don’t count, right? Well, if David Jones and Josh Lay don’t count, then I suppose Jahri Evans and Marques Colston don’t count either. I guess the Saints should have used those two picks on defensive players to balance it out, eh Ed?

As if we couldn’t already recite by heart the largely irrelevant Giants example, after having endured it being speciously used a half a million times by 99% of the Message Board Guy population over the last six months to bemoan the Saints’ lack of pass rush, Ed then goes on to throw the Colts in our faces. Another popular Message Board Guy truism, lovely. It goes a little something like this: "The Colts had a kick ass offense for years! Manning! Harrison! James/Addai! Wayne! Clark! But they never won a Super Bowl until Tony Dungy got their defense situated."

The funniest thing about the overplayed Colts analogy is that people don’t realize that the Saints have been following the exact same formula with Brees, Colston, Bush, Meachem and…… wait for it……. Shockey! Yet somehow, Sean Payton’s Saints are wrong for laying an offensive foundation precisely the way the Colts did on the way to the Super Bowl.

Never to be outdone, our old pal Pete Finney threw in his one cent shortly thereafter.

Finney also lazily bemoans the fact that Shockey isn’t a defensive player. But it wouldn’t be a Finney piece without seventeen one-sentence paragraphs recapping a bunch of stuff we already know. In this instance, it’s all the reasons Shockey is an asshole. You know, just in case we hadn’t been aware of any of that.

Finney then goes on to take specious reasoning to a whole new level, as only he can. See, Finney thinks that Loomis would have been smarter to pass on improving his team with a player who is in his prime and is one of the top 5 players at his position….. in favor of doing nothing and hoping a future opportunity comes along for a player of Shockey’s caliber who happens to play defense.

Because top 5 players at defensive positions are available for trade during training camp all the time, right? Of course they are! Loomis, you idiot! Why do something when you can do nothing and just wait for something far more valuable to magically appear sometime within the next several weeks?

Finney asks how much Shockey stands to improve an already potent offense vs. what some imaginary pro bowl defensive stud would stand to improve the Saints’ defense. In response, allow me to give Finney a little of his own medicine: "We’ll just have to wait and see."

But at the same time, he seems to think that any comparable defensive acquisition (which exists only in Finney’s mind, as there’s no indication that such an acquisition will be available to Loomis) would bring more bang for the buck, simply because it would be on defense.

My question is, unless this imaginary impact defensive stud who magically comes available during camp is a defensive back or an outside linebacker, wouldn’t you be making the same "how much better is he than what we already have" argument that you’re using to diminish the Shockey acquisition?

The common threads with both steaming piles are:

• Nothing has been done to improve the defense, despite the presence of as many as eight new faces on the defensive roster.
• Any improvement on offense is unnecessary and wasteful. No further improvements on offense should be made until Ed and Pete are satisfied sight unseen that the defense is "good enough" (whatever that might mean.)
• The picks used to acquire Shockey necessarily came at the expense of the defense, because equivalent or greater improvements to the defense absolutely, positively would have come available. If not during camp this year, then the correct thing to do is to join Ed in the "wait until next year" mantra for the 41st time.
• Might as well cancel the season, because we’re DOOOOMED!

To summarize, Ed Daniels and Peter Finney are full of shit. What a bunch of lazy, shallow, baseless, intellectually-dishonest claptrap. Is it too much to ask for the legitimate media to craft their commentaries so that they carry slightly more value than your average contrarian message board rant? Apparently it is.

Squirrels, both of ‘em.