The Mora Era (week 1 of the 1986 season through week 8 of the 1996 season) is over. Under Jim Mora's leadership, the Saints had their only winning seasons, their only division title, and their only playoff appearances. His tenure marked an incredible period of stability for the franchise- while the pre-Mora Saints saw nine head coaches in 19 seasons, every NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB team *except* the Saints made a coaching change during the Mora Era.
However, the Saints were never among the league's elite in the decade-plus Mora was at the helm. The team still has not won a playoff game and now appears to be on its way to a fourth-consecutive non-winning season. How should the Mora Era be judged? Let's hear from those most antipodal Saints fans. Returning from a long hiatus, here are Fleur Daly and Aintny Whodat-
FD: Goodbye, Jim, and thank you. You taught the Saints how to win and made
us respectable for the first time.
AW: "Taught us how to win"? We must've forgotten that lesson. Look at us
over the last few seasons- we're a poor-to-average football team. That's
what we were under Bum Phillips. "Respectable"? The whole league is
laughing at how the interim coach position was filled. The only lasting
achievement of the Mora Era is a lone division title (which we practically
backed into, by the way).
FD: Come on now, you can't just throw away those winning seasons. Would you
honestly have rather been a fan of the Buccaneers or the Jets or the
Cardinals over that span? I'll admit that we were never 49ers-caliber,
but Saints fans could've done much worse. Don't you remember how bad
we were when John Mecom owned the team?
AW: Sure I remember, but that shouldn't be the basis for comparison- any
franchise would seem well-managed when compared to Mecom's regime. Teams
don't have to fall into the categories we've discussed so far (always
bad, always mediocre, always good). Look at the Cowboys- they went from
1-15 to Superbowl champs during the Mora Era (thanks in part to the dumb
moves of sacred cow Jim Finks via the Hebert-Walsh fiasco). I'd rather
experience the low lows and the high highs than be 7-9 every year.
FD: Hey, Finks deserves his good reputation- for the most part he made all
the right moves. We went 12-4 in Finks' last year with the Saints and
haven't been above .500 since. Mora had to spend too much time worrying
about off-the-field stuff and couldn't focus on the gameplan.
AW: He should've focussed on firing Carl Smith. Mora's failure to get away
from the good defense / barely-adequate offense mindset was the #1
problem with the Saints in the late-80's and early-90's. That kind of
ball-control offense just doesn't work.
FD: Well, the Giants beat the Bills in Superbowl XXV by controlling the clock.
I think the #1 problem with the Saints is that they have the misfortune of
being in the same division as the 49ers, whose Mora Era winning-percentage
of .750 was by far the best in the league.
AW: Yeah, but they rack up wins by beating up on those weak NFC West teams.
FD: That's simply not true- the Saints, Falcons, Rams, and Panthers actually
played the Niners slightly better than the rest of the league during the
Mora Era (.261 vs. .242). Being in the NFC West puts those teams at a
disadvantage, though, 'cause they have to play SF more than twice as often
as the rest of the league. Let's for a moment dream of a wonderful NFL
in which the 49ers didn't exist. After throwing out all the games played
by the 49ers in the Mora Era, you'd find that only one team (Buffalo) had
a better regular season winning percentage than the Saints in that span.
AW: Well, the expansion Panthers don't need any fantasy scenarios to do away
with San Francisco- the fledgling franchise has won 2 of their 3 games
against 'em. And they're doing it with our guys. Could there have been
a more symbolic end to the Mora Era than Sam Mills stuffing Ray Zellars
on that 4th & 1 play? We've given away all of our best players. Man, if
we still had Mills, and Walls, and Morten, and Swilling, and Early...
FD: We still couldn't beat Frisco.
AW: Will you get over your 49er obsession? Look, forget about the regular
season. The real failure of the Mora Era was the team's inability to win
a playoff game. What's more, our four playoff losses came against teams
that weren't very good- in their 18 Mora Era playoff appearances, the
Vikings, Bears, Falcons, and Eagles won a total of four games against
non-Saints opponents.
FD: You missed my point, which was that Mora never had the talent needed to
challenge the league's elite, especially on offense.
AW: If that's true, again the blame lies with your guy Finks. Mora mostly
coasted using players left over from Phillips' reign (Morten Andersen,
Rickey Jackson, Bobby Hebert, Eric Martin, Stan Brock, Frank Warren,
Hoby Brenner, etc.). The Saints have proven that they can neither
draft well nor compete in the free agent market.
FD: That can change in a hurry if we give our new head coach a good GM.
Looking at the big picture, I see the original, always-bad Tulane Stadium
Saints, then the sometimes-OK Nolan/Phillips Saints, followed by the
usually-good Mora Saints. Now, with new leadership, we're ready to evolve
into the fourth era, featuring the always-kickass Saints.
AW: Even if I believed that franchises evolve in that manner, I refuse to
accept that it takes over three decades to get to the fourth stage you
describe. I've already mentioned Carolina's rapid success. We could've
had their GM, but Benson dropped the ball when Polian was available. The
new leadership you talk about has to come at the ownership level. The only
change we might be able to expect from Benson is the team moving to Texas.
FD: There are plenty of good reasons why that won't happen- the new training
facility, the team's deal with the Superdome, the city's attractiveness
as a Superbowl site, the lack of other local professional sports teams,
etc. Like it or not, Benson's not going to sell. I feel confident that
he'll make the right decisions.
AW: Well, I don't share your optimism. We'll have to wait until after the
'97 season to see who's right.
FD: It's a date.