…Well, that was ugly. We’ve just had our first re-watch of the tape from last night’s Green Bay game, and it truly was bad. Bad. We could spend all day breaking down for you quite how bad it really was. On defense, there were frequent breakdowns in the secondary (Messrs Wilson and Dixon), blown coverages in the secondary (Messrs Baptiste and Warren), and some truly atrocious play at linebacker (Messrs Franklin and Anderson). On offense, Garrett Grayson’s decision-making made him look like he was still a High Schooler in Washington state, rather than an NFL QB. I suppose the one positive was that the only casualty on the day was Sean Payton’s blood pressure – other than a few wounded egos, the Saints escaped Lambeau injury free.

In any event, you’ll be happy to hear that with roster cuts now imminent we will be sparing you a full breakdown of the Green Bay game (not least because a large number of the participants will (thankfully) be clearing their lockers by the time we have fully analysed the tape).

Instead, we’ve decided now would be an opportune time for us to “look forward” rather than “look back”. So for the first (and last) time this preseason, we are delving into the murky world of projecting the 53. All such projections should of course be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Even at this late stage, there remains huge questions over what the Saints will do with injured players like Spiller, Ellerbe, Lewis and Byrd. The extent of their injuries is still not really known. Our projection below is based on all 4 of those being members of the active roster from day 1. Any injury-based transaction would obviously change the picture significantly, rendering this projection pretty worthless. In addition, at positions like TE/CB the Saints may find extra depth from outside the current 75.

That said, it’s a neat way to summarise our take on the 2015 preseason, so below is the Boila’s 53:

Editor’s Note – Click on the picture below to open the enlarged full-size version in a new tab/window (makes it easier to read!)