re: Do you consider this season a success?

Saints did something they've never done before and that's winning a playyoff game on the road in a very hostile environment.

This season is definetley a success based on that. It gets the funk of not winning playoff games on the road out of the minds of our team and our fans. That's huge for next season when we've upgraded our roster and primed it for a super bowl run.

I would say it was a success. The ending is disappointing. They really had a chance to beat Seattle if not for some mistakes, mainly from the coach and qb. Those games are harder to get over than games when you just lost straight up to a better team.

Seattle is an overall better team, but it would have been easier to take if the Saints had played their best and been beat.

But the goal should be to make the playoffs. After that, it's pretty much a crap shoot as to who wins the title. The goal should be to get in the tournament to give yourself a chance.

Plus, we have quite a few guys who could be easily upgraded on defense to keep us consistent at least, or better. And this offense, even with holes, will always be at least good, and is probably a decent center and wr away from being more consistent next year. Think they could fill both of those holes in the draft.

Success only from a defensive standpoint. Offense lacked diversity of HC related strategy involving targeting Graham too much to the point that running game AND downfield passing game to WR's (especially vs Seattle in playoff game) were sacrificed. Not a success as offense digressed as Brees gets older.

Super Bowl or bust equates to some of the sorry LSU fans who deem anything less than a national championship as failure.

High notes: We won @Chicago. We beat San Fran. We creamed Dallas and set records while we did it. We only lost one divisional game. We got our first road playoff win, in cold Philly. We saw some great defensive play and Rob Ryan turned out to be an excellent hire and one more thing to laugh at the Cowboys over, which I love to do. And, of course, we had a good 11-5 record just the next year after Payton's suspension.

Despite that, I'm going to buck the trend here and say I am disappointed with the way the season fell apart in the end.

We started off hot, going 5-0 and feeling great--we beat 2012 division champion Atlanta, won a close one against Tampa, beat up on undefeated Miami, kicked butt at one-loss Chicago, etc.. But in the end, those teams ended up having garbage seasons, and only one of those 6 wins was against a team with a winning season--Arizona. We had a painful punch in the face with the loss at New England, reminding us that this season wasn't going to be exactly like 2009. We won some great home games in the upcoming stretch, so I hate to be negative, but we went 9-2 and then got completely laughed out of the stadium by Seattle in a 2-3 record to close the season. That's a disappointing collapse to me, only redeemed in part by the Philly away playoff win.

However, despite the disappointing finish, and despite some big time WTF moments from Sean, I think we can look at this team and confidently say we know exactly what pieces we need to move around to make a championship team. 2013 was successful if you view it from the perspective that it will likely be a huge building block to greater success in 2014. But if you view it on its own, it was pretty disappointing IMO.

Brees had one of his best years ever. is being older had nothing to do with our struggles on offense.

Didn't mean be personally digressed. But the offense DID due to lack of blocking ( sacks and rushed passes ) and lack of fast WRs . And the saints need improvement in those areas before Brees starts on a downward trend in a few yrs ( as all good players do). Never once stated that Bree's personally had a bad year. Payton however did. Too much concentration on TE ( who doesn't help the weak OL( for met of yr.).