Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

The New Orleans Saints starting to look like contenders in 1979 finally drafting well and had a good head coach in Ted Nolan to get this team to play well and even make a playoff run in 1979. But falling short of their first winning season and playoff appearance finishing 8-8.

The 1970s Saints didn’t fail to make the NFC Playoffs or even have a winning season, because of their quarterback Archie Manning. As Archie said on this show, a quarterback is only as good as his talent. A lot of that is true, but great quarterbacks have done well and even great with average or above average talent. John Elway with the Denver Broncos comes to mind very fast. But the Saints up until the late 1970s didn’t even have average talent around Archie on offense. They had a lot of players that most other teams didn’t want and who didn’t play very long in the NFL.

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