Despite all of the love of James Anderson here....

[panthers55]

The defense did not play well. We gave up 400 yards of offense. Worse we missed a number of tackles so that a no name group of backs rushed for over 120 yards. If it weren't for 2 fumbles by the Saints we would have been down 24-7 at the half. Sure they were on the field all day but that was as much thier fault as anything. They gave up 27 first downs. They allowed the Saints to convert 60% of their third downs. Brees finished with 70% completion rate. If not for the fourth quarter when he missed 6 passes. He was set for a completion rate of 80%.

Our secondary was awful. We were flagged for interference penalties and could have been flagged for at least 3 more.

By comparison we had less than 300 yards offense with 118 running and 133 net yards passing. We converted 30% of our third downs.

Honestly the offense was awful and the passing game was poor. Most of those passing yards came on one busted play throw to Stewart. Otherwise he threw for around 75 yards. Truth is that this was an awful game and we played poorly. If it weren't for the Saints letting us hand around this game would have been decided by halftime.

The lack of clarity around here is amazing. Folks this is a bad team and this offense is the worse we have even fielded through 4 games. The worse ever!!!! Even Weinke was better than Clausen at this point. At the end of his first 2 games our offense was averaging twice what is in under Clausen.

[Brooklyn Bully]

The defense did not play well. We gave up 400 yards of offense. Worse we missed a number of tackles so that a no name group of backs rushed for over 120 yards. If it weren't for 2 fumbles by the Saints we would have been down 24-7 at the half. Sure they were on the field all day but that was as much thier fault as anything. They gave up 27 first downs. They allowed the Saints to convert 60% of their third downs. Brees finished with 70% completion rate. If not for the fourth quarter when he missed 6 passes. He was set for a completion rate of 80%.

Our secondary was awful. We were flagged for interference penalties and could have been flagged for at least 3 more.

By comparison we had less than 300 yards offense with 118 running and 133 net yards passing. We converted 30% of our third downs.

Honestly the offense was awful and the passing game was poor. Most of those passing yards came on one busted play throw to Stewart. Otherwise he threw for around 75 yards. Truth is that this was an awful game and we played poorly. If it weren't for the Saints letting us hand around this game would have been decided by halftime.

The lack of clarity around here is amazing. Folks this is a bad team and this offense is the worse we have even fielded through 4 games. The worse ever!!!! Even Weinke was better than Clausen at this point. At the end of his first 2 games our offense was averaging twice what is in under Clausen.

You didn't mention Moore. Go back and edit. Wait...you did, in a way. My bad. Carry on.

[TylerDurden]

The defense did not play well. We gave up 400 yards of offense. Worse we missed a number of tackles so that a no name group of backs rushed for over 120 yards. If it weren't for 2 fumbles by the Saints we would have been down 24-7 at the half. Sure they were on the field all day but that was as much thier fault as anything. They gave up 27 first downs. They allowed the Saints to convert 60% of their third downs. Brees finished with 70% completion rate. If not for the fourth quarter when he missed 6 passes. He was set for a completion rate of 80%.

Our secondary was awful. We were flagged for interference penalties and could have been flagged for at least 3 more.

By comparison we had less than 300 yards offense with 118 running and 133 net yards passing. We converted 30% of our third downs.

Honestly the offense was awful and the passing game was poor. Most of those passing yards came on one busted play throw to Stewart. Otherwise he threw for around 75 yards. Truth is that this was an awful game and we played poorly. If it weren't for the Saints letting us hand around this game would have been decided by halftime.

The lack of clarity around here is amazing. Folks this is a bad team and this offense is the worse we have even fielded through 4 games. The worse ever!!!! Even Weinke was better than Clausen at this point. At the end of his first 2 games our offense was averaging twice what is in under Clausen.

Great post for the most part. But, the first paragraph about the defense is a lot of 'what ifs.' Yeah, it could've been 24-7 at the half, but we DID create those fumbles. I know it doesn't negate how they were driving at will before that, but it still happened. You have to give the guys credit for that yesterday - when they actually hit the guys, they were slobber knockers.

Other than that, I agree with everything you said. That's why I posed the question I did in my thread 'Clausen vs Bradford." I have no personal agenda for who starts here, I want the best guy and whoever can win the game for us to play. But, I don't get all the praise everyone is giving Clausen. I've seen several plays where Smitty was crossing the field on a drag or slant and he had already locked onto a receiver and got rid of the ball quickly even when there wasn't any immediate pressure on him.

As I've mentioned several times, he doesn't appear to want to take any chance throwing downfield or letting a play fully develop... To play the 'what if' game here, if the Saints didn't think our offense was laughable that they completely ignored JStew coming out of the backfield and blew their coverage, Clausen wouldn't have thrown a TD yesterday. As you said, without that pass, his stats are fairly bad.

It's hard to tell what exactly it is, but no doubt, there's a combination of things contributing to how bad this offense is, and until some of that gets cleaned up, I'm not sure what Clausen is capable of, and I doubt anyone else is either...

[pantherclaw]

Yet he was the best linebacker on the field yesterday.

Why didn't you bring up Beason being owned? Oh, cause he's the god. Right, how could I forget.

[SOJA]

Zod is right Thomas Davis is definitely better. The real questions are:

-Will Davis be the same again?

-If Davis is the same, who is the odd man out, Connor or Anderson?

Although I love me some Dan Connor I believe Beason moves back to the middle and Anderson and Connor rotate at the SAM

[Carolina Husker]

But Ethan Horton named him MVP on yesterday's broadcast. He has to be awesome.

[slideez]

if davis comes back healthy we have 3-4 talent a the LB position, if the season is a wash they really need to experiment with hybrid packages with all four of them on the field and 3 big DT bodies as NT and DE to get a pass rush going...cause our DL is poo

[Mr. Scot]

There's no question Davis is better than Anderson.

The actual question is what would be the best configuration.

Possibilities:

MLB Connor

SLB Anderson

WLB Beason

MLB Beason

SLB Anderson

WLB Davis

MLB Connor

SLB Davis

WLB Beason

MLB Beason

SLB Connor

WLB Davis

There are other possibilities too, but those are the ones I give the most credence.

For the record, Anderson and Davis have each played both outside positions in the past. Anderson is currently strong side while Davis was slotted for the weak side (he played there last year) before being injured again.

[rico6]

Don't they play on opposite sides?

lol yes.

[Montsta]

If, and that's a big if, Davis comes back 100%, then this time next year we will be having the same arguments that we have this year about running backs. We'll have a huge talent in Connor that is just sitting on the bench. And any of you who think we have LB talent to play 3-4 know nothing about 3-4 defense. Norwood is about the only LB we have that even has a 3-4 OLB build, and he never sees the field so we don't even know what we have there.

[Gazi]

He'll develop but he's not playing in T's spot right now. Connor/Anderson rotating.. Icing on the cake

[Ruff]

He was also caught out of position on several runs and allowed big gains. Brown had the edge contained, James was late in getting outside the tackle, result: 10-15 yards.

Every player in the NFL is going to get out of place at some point during the game. No defensive player is going to be able to stop every single play, be in the right place every single snap, or make all the amazing plays every single time. Not James Anderson, not Ray Lewis, not Mike Singletary, not Lawrence Taylor. No one.

He had 16 tackles, a forced fumble, and two fumble recoveries. The dude is good.

[Chaos]

Our 3rd down defense makes me cringe. 3rd and 8, they get 9, 3rd and 12, we'll give up 14. I guess our blitz just isn't very effective.

[Zod]

Davis, Connor, Beason would be the best starting LB core in the league.