Facing the tail end of a season where playoff hopes seem dim at best, many Saints fans are calling for the team to “tank” to boost the odds of grabbing a higher draft pick. However, Saints sideline reporter Jeff Nowak emphasizes that this portion of the season should be all about evaluating the players already on-hand and building a winning culture rather than eyeing uncertainties in the future.
“You can add all the draft picks you want to a team that can’t win games and doesn’t understand how to win games. You’re just going to be a team with better draft picks that still can’t win games,” Nowak noted. “I’ve always felt like the value of learning how to win and creating a winning formula is much higher than the value of picking 4th rather than 8th (in the draft),” Nowak went on to add.
While the bright spots in this Saints season have been few and far between, there are some potentially better matchups ahead that are winnable. Nowak wants to see the Saints win some of those ‘plus ‘matchups. “You don’t have to beat all the good teams on your schedule to be a consistent post-season contender. You need to beat the bad teams and pick off a few good teams on the way. What the Saints need to prove in the second half of the season is that they can beat bad teams, because there are some bad teams in the second half of the schedule,” he emphasized.
The bye week may have come at just the right time for the still-reeling Saints. The winning percentage of the teams the black & gold faced in the first nine weeks of the season was around 700 while the teams the Saints will face during the rest of the season have a winning percentage around 300. That should give the team a proper testing ground for finding out the strengths and weaknesses currently on the roster. Hopefully for Saints fans, the foundation forged during this season will be worth building upon when the next one rolls around.