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The Saints have a new ad campaign this season: "This year, we're
made of Iron." The season-ticket application comes with the tag
line, "Wimps need not apply." All this flapdoodle is due to the
hiring of Iron Mike Ditka as coach. During his Hall of Fame
playing career and Super Bowl-winning coaching stint
with the Bears, the glowering Ditka was the embodiment of all
that is good and right about the machismo of pro football. The
man had an aura, and the Saints are more than happy to have
exhumed it.
But amid all the hype, it is instructive that the banner
headline across the top of the front page of the New Orleans
Times-Picayune the day after Ditka was hired quoted the new
coach: you won't be embarrassed watching these guys play. Even
the most over-the-top marketing blitz can't obscure the sorry
history of the 'Aints and the low self-esteem of their fans.
This is, after all, the only NFL team (aside from the newly
incarnated Baltimore Ravens) never to have won a playoff game, a
franchise so woebegone as to make brown-paper-bag headwear chic
in the Superdome.
Aside from Ditka, most of the preseason talk in the Big Easy has
centered over center, on the quarterback position. After months
of promising an open competition for the job, Ditka had a
revelation while on a religious retreat in May and decided to
cut his incumbent, Jim Everett. The Saints then installed as the
starter ex-Redskin Heath Shuler, for whom they had traded in
April. The third pick in the 1994 draft, Shuler has not
delivered on his promise. He didn't throw a pass the entire 1996
season and hasn't started a game since Dec. 17, 1995.
Perhaps reflecting their lack of confidence in Shuler, the
Saints burned their '97 fourth-round pick on Heisman Trophy
winner Danny Weurffel of Florida, a gutty player to be sure, but
lightly regarded as a pro prospect.
Further complicating the status of the passing game is the
decision to cut the Saints' two leading receivers from last
season, Michael Haynes and Torrance Small, mostly for salary cap
reasons. They will be replaced by blue-light-special free agents
Andre Hastings and Randal Hill, as well as Daryl Hobbs, acquired
in a trade with the Raiders. Those moves are a wash, at best,
but the aerial attack should benefit from the return of tight
end Irv Smith, slowed last year by a knee injury, and the
arrival of fourth-round wideout Keith Poole, a potential sleeper
from Arizona State.
There is tremendous pressure on the passing game to succeed,
because the Saints are, in the words of Ditka's predecessor, Jim
Mora, "absolutely terrible running the football." Mario Bates
and Ray Zellars have hardly been stars, but third-round pick
Troy Davis, second to Weurffel in the Heisman balloting, could
surprise.
The offensive line should be solid with All-Pro left tackle
William Roaf and the 10th pick in the '97 draft, Chris Naeole—a
bulldozing right guard from Colorado. Says Roaf, "We didn't have
a lot of success running the ball because our attitude wasn't
right. We have to have a more aggressive approach."
So too does the defense. There is some talent here, and Ditka
hopes to exploit it with an attacking 4-3 scheme. The line is
solid, especially on the right side with tackle Wayne Martin and
end Joe Johnson. Run-stopper Darren Mickell will move from left
end to left tackle; his old spot is likely to be filled by
hard-charging if undersized rookie Jared Tomich from Nebraska.
The linebackers have the potential to be an explosive unit,
particularly with fast and nasty Mark Fields playing on the weak
side. The Saints are counting on Renaldo Turnbull, who is moving
from defensive end to backup strongside linebacker, to be more
of a force from sideline to sideline. He has had just 13 1/2
sacks and 52 tackles over the last two years.
The secondary will be tested often, with two talented
youngsters, left corner Alex Molden and free safety Je'Rod
Cherry, stepping into the starting lineup alongside a pair of
reliable vets, Eric Allen and Anthony Newman.
Whether or not it will show markedly on the field, the Saints
are being recast in Ditka's image. He hasn't been shy about
clearing out the deadwood veterans, and in the first draft of
the Ditka era the Saints plucked big-name solid citizens from
powerhouse programs.
"Our goal is to win," says Ditka. "It's not to win later. It's
to win now. I want to create a greater sense of pride in what
this organization is all about." Right now the Saints are all
about Mike Ditka. That makes for a good ad campaign, if not, at
the moment, a very good football team.
—by Alan Shipnuck
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