New Orleans Saints: Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Bears And The Real Deal

The divisional round of the playoffs came and went this weekend with little surprise, the teams who were supposed to win did with exception to only one.

In Foxborough the Patriots were heavy favorites to roll right over the Jets considering the 45-3 debacle of a game in week 13 in which they laid waste to New York rather easily.

Head coach Rex Ryan famously claimed “It’s personal” when questioned about his desire to beat Brady and the Patriots after such a shellacking, and he did not disappoint.

Ryan’s defense was able to contain Brady and limit the Patriots offense to just three first half points, a season low, and while they were able to inch closer  in the second half by scoring eighteen points, the Jets lead was too much to overcome.

The Seattle Seahawks stunningly beat the New Orleans Saints in the wild card round of the playoffs two weeks ago.

The raining Super Bowl champs were sent packing and ended their bid to become the first back-to-back champ in over five years.

Apparently after such a big win the Seahawks didn’t have much left in the tank for the Chicago Bears who easily disposed of this years Cinderella team.

In his first ever playoff game quarterback Jay Cutler threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more leading the Bears to a 28-0 lead over the Seahawks through nearly three quarters of play.

Unfortunately the Bears defense gave up 21 points in the fourth quarter and nearly let Hasselbeck get his team back into the game late.

Chicago was able to hold on and now will face divisional rival Green Bay for the right to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XLV.

The real deal for fans is that they know New Orleans should have won against Seattle as the Saints have a better team in most all facets of the game, defensively and offensively speaking.

New Orleans beat themselves with penalties, turnovers and an epic collapse on defense. There also could be a cosmic reason for the loss, if you curious to know how then click here.

Facing the Bears at Soldier Field should have been the Saints game, not the Seahawks, and likely had it been the fans of the NFL would have witnessed a much more competitive game.

The Saints secondary would have been able to limit Chicago’s receiving core more effectively than that of Seattle’s, and given how good the red zone defense has been this season, stopped Cutler from running in two touchdowns.

It’s also doubtful that the Bear defense would have been able to blank Drew Brees and the Saints offense for three quarters.

Should have beat the Seahawks, and could have beat the Bears — Saints fans have to sit with that thought now for the next eight months until the start of the 2011-2012 regular season — fandom can really suck.

At least there is some solice in the fact that division rival Atlanta was blown out by the Packers at home in the Georgia Dome. So there is that to think about for  the next eight months too.

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

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