If we only knew about Brees, Leinart, etc. beforehand

	With Drew Brees at QB, the 5-1 Saints have become the NFL's feel-good story of the year -- much to the chagrin of Dolphins Nation. John David Mercer/US PRESSWIRE
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NFL Week 7 is upon us. And I'm thinking back to the long offseason and the early autumn and wondering, since hindsight is a beautiful thing: If we only knew then what we know now. How decisions can be so wrong, how assumptions can be so far off:

If Nick Saban only knew last winter that Drew Brees was going to heal up so thoroughly and play this well, surely the Dolphins coach would have signed Brees instead of Daunte Culpepper.

Trust me, it's not like Saban didn't agonize over his decision. I talked to him about it in June, and even with Culpepper way ahead of schedule in his rehab (boy, was that misleading), Saban was still uncertain if he had made the right decision. "I love Drew Brees,'' said Saban, who coached against Brees in the Big Ten when he was at Michigan State and Brees was at Purdue. "But here you've got a throwing athlete with a shoulder injury.'' Saban played with the pinch of chaw he keeps inside his lower lip and shook his head. Tough call. He went with what appeared to be the safer play and here he is, approaching late October with a 1-5 record, while Brees has led the Saints to a 5-1 mark.

This is not entirely shocking. Brees has been a courageous winner at every level of football, despite suggestions that he was/is too small, too weak of arm, too hurt. Saban made the wrong call and the Dolphins are paying in a big way, while the Saints are the story of the young season.

If only the pundits and at least nine NFL teams only understood last April that Matt Leinart didn't win all those games at USC with a weak arm or a weak stomach. Leinart, cool five o'clock shadow and cool entourage in waiting, was allowed to drift embarrassingly close to the middle of the first round because it had been determined by the draft machinery that he lacked arm strength, foot speed and some other intangibles (toughness, intelligence ... which of these things had Leinart not proven over and over again at USC?) of some sort.

Two recollections: First time I talked to Leinart. He was a couple weeks shy of his first start as a sophomore at USC. Taking over for Carson Palmer, Leinart was walking into the plains of Auburn, untested, thrown to the Tigers. I talked to him and he was as cool and confident as he is today. Didn't seem to mean much at the time, but you look back and there you go. It was no act.

Right after Leinart's senior year, I spent time with USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow. We watched some of USC's dismantling of Oklahoma in the national championship game and Chow, who would soon leave for the NFL, raved about Leinart's progress as a quarterback. Still, nine teams saw a weak-armed Cali-boy.

If only we in the media -- and that's all media -- were a little more patient and not so quick to build and then jump on bandwagons, we might see the flaws in early-season flashes.