Professional football in Louisiana

As hard as this is to believe, the New Orleans Saints are, dare I say, professional.

I mean professional in the sense that they don't do dumb things. They don't have dumb penalties. They don't make dumb mistakes. They don't beat themselves. They don't do all of the things they have done for so many years making them what fans have come to know them for.

And for that I say Sean Payton has to be the NFL's Coach of the Month for the first month - if such a thing ever existed.

Payton has gotten rid of the malcontents. He has put together a team of hungry players, some with more talent than others. He has also instilled a discipline to this team that was sorely lacking in the Jim Haslett Era.

That, being said, it's only three games. But, .500 ball the rest of the way would put the Saints at 10-6 and probably in the playoffs.

The 3-0 start means 6-10 won't be the satisfactory improvement from 3-13 it would have been. Instead, it will be a disappointment. So let's up the satisfactory improvement standard to 8-8.