This guy… this is not my kind of guy.

Scapegoat of the week? Sure. So what? Know what helps if you want to avoid being made a scapegoat? Competence. Try it sometime.

Better yet, just have a fuckin’ seat. Over there. Way over there. No, farther than that. Keep going. Right on the other side of that busy freeway. There you go. Don’t worry, they’ll swerve to avoid you. I promise.

Well, at least we had the first three minutes. Good times. The rest… well… I don’t know what the hell that was supposed to be. Know what’s cool? Things that are not that.

Trap game? Maybe. If "trap" refers to getting your pubic hair trapped in the gears of a transcontinental bus. That’s what it felt like. Trust me, I know. But if it means underestimating an ostensibly outclassed opponent, I can’t buy it. I still maintain that this team has too much character to fall victim to some bullshit like that.

This is the same team that didn’t give up when they were 0-4. I haven’t seen the slightest indication that these guys think they can just waltz out there and roll over anybody. Never have. Not during the Payton/Brees era, anyway. And I doubt I ever will.

On the other hand, I’d love to chalk it up to the Rams having their backs up against a wall too. A badger backed into a corner. The whole "they won on emotion" thing that the 2006 Saints will forever be saddled with. Haslett and Venturi wanting more than anything to stick it up our asses. All that nebulous, intangible bullshit that the guys at The Family Of Networks like to trot out when they can’t figure out why things didn’t go the way they were sure they would.

But what it really comes down to is that this Saints team has holes in it that you can drive a truck through if you can find them.

You can usually find a huge, gaping one surrounding the dude wearing #42.

Oh sure, there are others. But there’s also this one. Ono enawa shuyu. This guy… this is not my kind of guy. At least Michael Hawthorne was tall. At least Keyuo Craver could score you some bitchin’ grass. At least Johnnie Poe wrote some killer poetry. At least Toi Cook… shit, this isn’t exactly going as planned. Time to pull a Peter Finney and end this paragraph. And not a moment too soon.

The point here (making a point being the most effective way to reverse the effect of comparing yourself, even for a moment, with Peter Finney) is that Jason David blows.

BLOWS, I tell you!

Displaying my firm grasp on the obvious, I’ll point out that the larger issue is that the Saints can’t defend against a decent passing offense for shit. It’s not confined to just David, though that doesn’t excuse his mindboggling level of incompetence. It seems like the only chance the Saints have in pass defense is getting a good rush (and of course it didn’t help that Charles Grant and Brian Young were out Sunday) and/or the relative incompetence of the opponent.

The other huge hole is that the offense only has two settings: On and Off. And when it’s off, we don’t stand much of a chance.

A lot of people have been taking Coach Payton to task for not running the ball, and it’s perfectly reasonable to expect more than ten rushing attempts in a game. But I don’t blame Coach Payton, I don’t think it’s a matter of choice as much as it is a matter of our simply not being able to play a grind it out offense. Not without Dulymus. Rather, I think Coach deserves a lot of credit, actually, for not trying to stick a square peg into a round hole. There just aren’t any power backs on the roster.

Unless you want to start handing the ball to Karney 10-15 times a game, and who knows, maybe that’s not such a bad idea, the Saints simply don’t have the ability to grind out yards on the ground. There’s nobody particularly suited to that role. Ten rushing attempts is a little beyond the pale, sure, but Coach Payton knows that his passing game is his bread and butter and his best chance to win. I give him credit for not doing something he knows is going to bring limited success at best, just for the sake of doing it. Balance for the sake of balance isn’t going to win us any games.

For better or worse, right now this team is pretty much completely dependent on Drew Brees. If Drew is having a good day, and so far there have been more good days than bad, then the Saints have  puncher’s chance against just about anybody. When he’s not having a good day, the Saints are knee deep in shit.

The good news is that Drew seems to be good enough that when he’s on, he seems to be able to overcome any kind of "blueprint" and beat you anyway. So I don’t think we necessarily have to worry about tanking because anyone figures us out. This offense is good enough, sometimes, to beat you despite any "predictability" factor.

When it’s done on the ground, they call it "lining up and smashing you in the mouth." Or "telling you what’s coming and daring you to stop it." And a bunch of other bullshit macho cliches. When you have a bad day and the opponent punches you back and does stop you, the offensive coordinator gets the "uncreative" or "too conservative" rap.

We have the equivalent of that through the air. But when you have a bad day and the opponent stops that, you get called "too cute" or the dreaded "finesse."

But we are finesse. There’s no point in trying not to be. Finesse offenses can win. But for a finesse offense to win consistently, it has to be elite, and right now, the Saints offense isn’t elite. It’s very good, but it’s not Faulk/Bruce/Holt good.

I’m as guilty as anyone of thinking that the 2007 Saints were going to be a juggernaut. But the cold hard truth is that the Saints are still a work in progress. There are still weaknesses that some weeks can be overcome by our strengths, and some weeks sink us because our strengths aren’t quite strong enough.

Against Jacksonville, Drew’s game was strong enough to overcome the overwhelming incompetence of our pass defense. Against the Rams, it wasn’t. For now, it seems that’s likely to be the deciding factor just about every week. Might as well get used to it, because I don’t know that there’s much that can be done about it. Not this season, anyway.