NFL Films: New Orleans Saints 1983 Highlights- ‘A Little Bit More’

Source:NFL Films– Team film for the 1983 New Orleans Saints.

Source:The Daily Review

“Here we have the 1983 New Orleans Saints recap film titled A Little Bit More. 1983 was Coach Bum Phillips’ best year as head coach of the Saints. He took the team to the edge of their first playoff appearance in team history but couldn’t quite get it done….

From  NFL Films

“1983 New Orleans Saints Team Season Highlights “A Little Bit More”

Source:Sports Odyssey– Bum Phillips, who was head coach of the New Orleans Saints, from 1981-85.

From Sports Odyssey

Source:The Daily Review–

Jim Mora, gets a lot of credit for turning the New Orleans Saints into winners and a consistent playoff team for the first time in their franchise history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And he and Jim Finks deserve a lot of credit for that, because of how the drafted and the teams that Coach Mora brought to New Orleans. That played great defense and ran the ball well with solid quarterbacking.

But the Saints had been very close to becoming a very competitive team and even a playoff team and flirting with the playoffs in the late 1970s, in 78 and 79. And just missed the NFC Playoffs in 1983 under Bum Phillips. Bum, inherited a 1-15 team from 1980 and they just barely missed the playoffs in 1982 and 83. Fell back a little in 1984 finishing 7-9 and then Bum retires at the end of the 85 season.

It was not like Jim Finks and Jim Mora inherited an awful 2-14 team, or something that had almost no talent on either offense and defense. And most the talent that they did have were past their primes. Which is what Jimmy Johnson inherited with the 1989 Dallas Cowboys. Bum Phillips built the Houston Oilers into a consistent winning and playoff team that came within one game of the Super Bowl both in 78 and 79, by putting together strong tough defenses and a power running game with Earl Campbell, with a strong offensive line.

Which is what Bum Phillips did in New Orleans by putting together the best pass defense in the NFL in 1983 that had a very good pass rush as well. With defensive end Frank Warren and rush end Rickey Jackson. And a strong power running game with George Rogers and Wayne Wilson.

The theme of the 1983 Saints was: “A Little Bit More.” Which is exactly what they needed finishing the season with an 8-8 record and coming within one game of making their first playoff appearance and having their first winning record ever. From about 1978-84 or so, they were consistently flirting with having both a winning season and making the NFC Playoffs. 1980 and 81, would be exceptions to that.

The Saints had a strong pass defense and pass rush, but gave up a lot of yards on the ground. Great power running game averaging 150 yards a game rushing, but didn’t have any great receivers. And needed to run the ball the lot to move the ball and score points. This was a team was very close, but needed: “A Little Bit More.” Needed more weapons in the passing game and a stronger run defense. But the Saints under Bum Phillips improved real fast and he deserves a lot of credit for that.

Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge: Anything Goes with Chris Buckley

Great Political Humorist

Source: Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge: Anything Goes with Chris Buckley

Chris Buckley, (and I call him Chris because we’ve never met before) is one of my favorite political satirists along with P.J. O’Rourke, Dennis Miller and now Bill Maher. Since he’s ditched the Far-Left when it comes to free speech and other big government social issues and is still one of the best critics of the Christian-Right and broader Far-Right in America. I like Buckley, because like George Carlin who makes fun of people and things that deserve to be made fun of. He’s not John Fugelsang, who only makes fun of right-wingers when it comes to politics. Buckley makes fun of politicians and Washington in general. I mean it’s a city that doesn’t need any heat and humidity, even though we get a lot of it every year, because of all the hot air that comes out of our 535 member Congress. That has both a House and a Senate.

American politics is very easy to be make fun of. You can literally make a career of doing it and a lot of people like Chris Buckley have. And even if you come to politics with a strong ideological bent and you have a good sense of humor, you’re denying yourself a lot of great material and perhaps employment and financial opportunities if you just concentrate on one side of the aisle. I mean how you only make fun of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump and never take a shot at Dennis Kucinich. Whose the president of the Republic of Dreamland and sees a world that only exist in make-believe. Where there’s no violence, or ignorance, or poor people. Who believes the old hippie saying of Give Peace a Chance should be the our national foreign policy. And that the use of force is never an option even when we’re under attack. “If we don’t hit them back, maybe they’ll get bored and go away.”

Again, something I love about Chris Buckley who I see as a non-partisan political humorist, he’s someone who at least leans right if he’s not a Conservative and yet he looks at politics and politicians for what they are. The George W. Bush Administration, comes into office as what they called compassionate conservatives (as if Conservatives aren’t compassionate) and lives up to that as best as possible. And spends more money than a convention of Irish drunken sailors could spend at their favorite Irish bar. With the two unpaid for wars and the seven-hundred-billion-dollar Medicare expansion, all of this borrowed. And he didn’t like that about President Bush, as well as going to war on bogus evidence (to be real nice) and the mismanagement of that war even after it was found there were no WMD in that country. And those weapons were probably destroyed by the United Nations, or our own people in the late 1990s. Again, how you not make fun of a President like that?

If you live in Washington and are involved in it politically in some way nationally whether you work, or write about it, it is really the last place you should try to take yourself, or people around you especially your allies too seriously. I’m a Liberal Democrat and I could write something negative and funny about Hillary Clinton everyday. As well as her husband, not that I don’t like Hillary and that I still don’t love President Clinton. But lets face it, they’re both great political characters. Hillary, doesn’t know who she it until she sees the latest poll. Bill, still hasn’t gotten the memo that he’s no longer President and that he’s still ineligible to run for President again still tries to run everything. And I could write something negative and funny everyday about the United States Circus, better known as the Republican Party. And I think that is where Chris Buckley goes. He makes fun of people and things that deserve to be made fun of. Regardless of political affiliation.