2017 Defense appears more dominant than Saints Super bowl champs

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Only preseason.

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Trust me on this one, they're legit!

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Lol who at LB are you taking over Vilma or CB over Greer?

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was about to post this. or sharper for that matter.

hopefully this unit is better as a WHOLE but as of right now we will have to see if we actually have 3 guys at each of those spots who will be better than the 3 listed in 2009

Preseason bro, chill.

I would read even less into the Chargers game because they have horrible protection

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his group is special, best ball hawking group I've seen from any NFL team in a while

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Based on...? We talking bout practice?

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Lol who at LB are you taking over Vilma or CB over Greer?

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agreed.

Our Dline is really shaping up regardless of the Fairley loss...
We need to draft another Dlineman in the first round next year and we are looking real good.

Every group of the 2009 defense was better than our current team's except MAYBE DT. 2017 would definitely have the DT advantage if we still had Fairley, but as of now I'll assume that both DT corps are subpar.

Jordan > Smith > Grant, but Smith + Grant > Jordan + Okafor or Kikaha.

Harper was a good box S and Sharper was a HoF talent having a career year.

2017 CB depth looks good, but Greer and Porter were really good that year.

Vilma is obviously the best LB of either team. Otherwise, I need to see our 2017 LB's play more to get a gauge there.

But you can't assume the absolute best case scenario with so many unknowns on our defense.

People focus too much on the 2009 team's yards/PPG allowed during the regular season. There was a point around week 6 where the Saints's defense had scored more TD's than another team or two's offenses (Rams, maybe Browns).

They finished in the top 3 in turnovers forced.

Look at the QB's that defense faced in the postseason:
1) Kurt Warner: HoF QB having his, maybe, 3rd best season.
2) Brett Favre: Hof QB having arguably his best season
3) Payton Manning: HoF QB having an MVP season, maybe 3rd best total

They held that trio to 2TD, 5INT.

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Man share the drugs
NOT A top15 D

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I doubt that we do have an above average defense, but the pieces are definitely there.

Lattimore being an above average CB, PJ Williams being OK enough, and Breaux playing like he did as a rookie for 12 weeks = good CB's. I like Harris/Crawley/Moore as 4th-6th CB's.

Vaccaro playing like he did last season + Bell, Williams, or Bush being competent = S corps in the 19-22 range.

Jordan is a fricking stud. He's top a ~7 DE on either side of the line. Okafor has looked good in the preseason, but I don't expect too much from him. I think Kikaha looks good too, and he beasted in his rookie season. I think he'll surprise and rack up 7-9 sacks. I like the potential of our rookies, but don't expect much from them. In total, our DE's should be about average.

I like Rankins/Onyemata, but they too haven't proven much on the field. Davison has proven adequate, but nothing to get my dingus wet.

No fricking clue @ LB.

I could see a best-case-but-still-reasonable scenario where we have a top 10 DE corps and a top 10 CB corps. That coupled with a not-likely-bottom-5 DT/LB/S corps could very well lead to an above average defense.

D-Line & LB coaching looks like a big upgrade(especially LB). Also, the defensive depth on this years team is miles ahead of the past few years.

We haven't had a hard test yet, but looking good so far.

FunBunch posted this in another thread & this sums it up pretty good imo...

"The difference is across the board this year. The have rushers who can create pressure. They have linebackers that are smart and good tacklers. They have a fast and physical secondary.

Just pray the injury bug stays far away from us and this D could surprise a lot of people."