METAIRIE, La. – Days after losing to Dallas, New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams sat his charges down and gave them some cautionary advice.
Success is a lousy teacher, Williams told them.
Now, more than 24 hours after the Saints sustained their second straight loss, that advice might become even more pertinent.
Once is an anomaly.
Twice begins a trend.
And for the Saints (13-2), four games of less than par play has left them in the precarious situation of a must-win game at Carolina on Sunday to clinch the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
Now is the time to look within.
“Even if you think you’re taking a good hard look at yourself after those wins, you might not be evaluating yourself as critically as you should be,” outside linebacker Scott Fujita said. “These are two hard losses we’ve had the past two weeks so hopefully guys finally take a hard look at the mirror. I know I will.”
Indeed, looking within could bring out the one common theme that seems to be permeating the thoughts of those in the Saints’ locker room – the team has lost a little bit of focus.
“I really think it’s about the details,” right tackle Jon Stinchcomb said. “It’s not one thing you can put your finger on. You can’t point to, ‘Ah, this is the main culprit.’ It’s the details across the board. You’ve just got to focus in to a man across the board to what can you do to get us back to that point.”
Early in the season when the Saints broke to a 5-0 start, they were pasting teams by rolling up yards and, more importantly, holding opponents on defense.
But in the past two games, the offense has been held in check and the defense can’t get off the field.
As Stinchcomb said, it’s the little things that make the difference and focus is a big part of that.
The question is how does that focus return?
“That’s something we have to look at a little more closely today, tomorrow and get ready for Wednesday’s practice,” middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma said. “You just can’t find the magic solution overnight, especially with two losses. We’ve got to get something corrected to get back t our winning ways. We have to find out what it is.
“It’s not going to be one night and poof, we’ve figured it out. We’re going to have to sit down and think about what we need to do to get better and start winning again.”
The key, Head Coach Sean Payton said, is to get the corrections made now and not before it’s too late.
“We have to find the corrections and not view it as a positive, but view it as an opportunity for us to get things corrected before it becomes a more important game, and that’s what we’re going right now,” Payton said.
