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Question on the Saints.
As the proverbial "dome team", do you feel it's the Superdome or domes in general?
Also, what exactly happened in St Louis this year?
That is really a great question, because dome teams and field teams always get mixed together, and its not an accurate way to figure out a trend. Its better to look specially at the coach, QB, or team to see how they do indoors or outdoors.
I think you could say the Colts are the ultimate dome type team with PM, and coach included. 17pts in florida SB, and countless low scoring games in Foxboro.
The SuperDome pretty much had to be built in the 1960's,because the humidity, heat, mosquitos, and constant summer storms. LSU and Trulane just don't have the money to do it. After all the city is in a swamp.
I can't speak to other dome teams, but we are not affected by being indoors , outdoors, the sun, wind, or rain. We put 36 pts on Seattle in Jan in 20-30 degree weather, and we all saw the GB vs NO opener this year. So there is no problem scoring in those environments.
Our problem is field conditions, and extreme cold -10 degrees, icy or muddy field. 2006 vs Bears ( -15 degrees, they resodded the field before the game, and never covered it, so the the field froze over ). Caddlestick park has a bad field conditions, its very muddy and damp. Ericsson Stadium...etc..
To answer your question, Saints can play in any dome or outside. As long as we have a decent football field , and don't loose footing, because we are built as a brutal speed and short play team that aims at mismatches. So when we play someone like the raven, bears, steelers, etc.. old hard nose defenses , its similar to a expert fencer fighting a talented Boxer , your not going to get close enough to lay a punch.
Now you make them both fight in knee deep water and we have a problem
I believe every warm weather team is affected by -minus degree weather regardless of how they try to spin it. Its a blood thing.
I lived in NE and florida, and even in florida after 3 years, when winter hit and it got to 60 degrees, I almost froze to death starting my car,lol. The blood changes.
Brees isn't affected by weather or field conditions , but our team is and that affects his passing, because we can't get separation, push the line, protect, etc..
our mismatches become useless.
Rams,,, hmm,, new right tackle , center, so Zach strife, David thomas were also out 2 of our best blockers, graham still doesn't block well. There still isn't a excuse for it. It was a complete OL melt down. Brees was sacked 6 times I believe.
The new OL really didn't start to gel until after that game. Losing our center goodwin to SF and stinchcomb RT, had a bigger impact than we thought.
The OL looked confused at times. No time to pass, and no run game.
Its a problem with SP's complicated plays. You can't just plug someone into OL and expect them to pick it up, especially with no training camp.
But, I prefer to see the Rams game as another defensive melt down, like seattle.
they should have been able to keep the Rams, with a 2nd string QB, to 24pts, thats just silly. Problem with Gregg Williams is that he can call a brilliant defensive games (steelers 20-10, Falcons game MNF, Colts, Giants, etc.. ), and then he can call 1-2 real stinkers a season. He's a little arrogant and I think that rubs off on our defensive players and they get a little arrogant vs easy teams, and then they get torched.
hope that helps
interesting year old article on dome teams
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tom_verducci/02/02/verducci.domes/index.html
