New Orleans Saints Keep Finding Ways To March To Wins

The New Orleans Saints have made it their business to live on the edge as of late.

After Week 4 of the 2009 championship season, the Saints had a combined score of 144 to their opponents’ combined score of 66 points with an average score of 36 points to their opponents’ average of 16.5 points scored a game.

Now granted, Matt Stafford, Kevin Kolb, Trent Edwards, and Mark Sanchez were leading their respective teams and none are really considered elite although Sanchez managed to reach the AFC Championship game with the Jets.

However, this season, the Saints have scored 79 points to their opponents’ 72 points with an average of 19.7 points scored by the Saints and an average of 18 points by their opponents.

Not too bad from a defensive standpoint since the team has faced the Vikings, 49ers, Falcons, and Panthers and there are three new starters on the “D” after the departures of Scott Fujita and Bobby McCray and the injury to Darren Sharper.

But from an offensive standpoint, it’s terrible, at least it is for an offense that is accustomed to being the best in the league. With basically the same offensive unit, the team went from averaging 36 points to averaging just 19.7 points in a year’s time and now, with all of the mounting injuries, the team is in worse shape than ever.

Just as an offense can’t always win games, niether can the defense, especially when it’s starting to lose players due to injuries.

The biggest seperation between the Saints’ and their opponents score came in the season opening 14-9 win over the Vikings with a difference of 5 points.

Close games are usually physical, and physical games lead to injuries. That’s what we’re starting to see with this team.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a good defensive game, but the offensive unit has to share the burden, it has to carry it’s part of the load.

Drew Brees agrees, but is glad that the team still has a pretty good record, “”If you play B- football and are 3-1,that’s pretty good. Imagine how we will be when we play at the level we know we are capable of,” he said.

But that’s how you can tell the champions from the 8-8ers. They find a way to win.

The team should’ve won the Falcons game, evrn after the injuries to Brees and Pierre Thomas, they still had a chance to win. Even after Garrett Hartley missed the short field goal, they had a chance to win. And then when Matt Bryant came on to kick the game winning field goal for the Falcons, they blocked it.

Had the timeout not been called, it was still possible that they could’ve walked out of the Dome at 3-0.

In the words of Brett Favre, don’t bet against this team, they have a way of getting things done.

Just believe dat!

Check out Keith Null’s weekly article about the Saints on NFL.com by clicking here.

Get WhoDatDish.com three ways,subscribe to the RSS feed,become a friend of WDD on Twitter,or enjoy the new iPhone and Android app by searching for Who Dat Dish in your phone’s app store,it’s free!