New Orleans Saints: Blast from the past

Welcome back to the Saints of the late ‘00’s and early 2010’s.  Who Dat Nation has kind of missed you guys.

Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals seemed to heading in one of several directions. Each team features a defense that contains notable players, and flashes of brilliance. Arizona is only a year removed from playing in the NFC Championship. While the Cardinals struggled this season, they still feature many of the pieces that have made them a playoff contender recently. The New Orleans Saints’ defensive squad is an up and coming unit with great potential.

Or it could have been an offensive assault on the senses. Carson Palmer is still a good quarterback for Arizona and David Johnson is a workhorse back. Both players are a stable of receivers led by the faithful Larry Fitzgerald. Moreover, Fitzgerald is one of the best and most respected receivers in the league. On the other hand, the Saints are led by Drew Brees, a shoo-in Hall of Fame QB who leads arguably the top offense in the league.

In this case, the latter prevailed. If anyone resmebled a defensive purist, one needn’t watch this game. Though some nice defensive plays happened, the game was all about putting up points. In fact, the most plays and points in the NFL this season. This was all about scoring – if you don’t believe that, look at the 4^th quarter alone where the teams combined for 5 TD’s.

The game didn’t always looked to be heading this way. The first quarter left the impression it might simply be another meandering stroll through mediocrity for our side. One game long storyline was the Saints getting handled at the line of scrimmage. On the Cardinals’ first possession they scored a rushing TD on a wildcat play, a 49-yard TD run. The Saints top 5 tacklers were all the defensive backfield. That’s a disturbing stat. Meanwhile two of Arizona’s three linebackers were the top two tacklers. That means their linemen were doing a better job of winning the battles up front and/or keeping their linebackers clean to make tackles. Henceforth,  the Saints front six too often got caught up in the wash of blocking at the line.

Offensively, the Saints scored 48 points. While 48 points reflect a smooth running high powered offense, the fact that this lead didn’t seem safe until Drew Brees’ only pass to Colby Fleener was caught just inside of two minutes, made it a tenuous game.  The Black and Gold scored on eight of their 12 possessions (and two of those possessions were the ends of each half), and their lead was still not safe. That is truly vintage 2010 Saints.

Another reason this reminded one of the old Saints is that the Black and Gold created turnovers.  Two takeaways created two extra possessions and that may have been the difference in this game.

Game observations:

• Sean Payton has been on the hot seat recently. He had another one of those head scratching moments at the end of the first quarter Sunday. With 11 seconds left on the game clock and three seconds left on the play clock. Right before Arizona ran their last play of the quarter, Payton used a time out to allow the guys in the booth time to check to see if there was a fumble. The outcome wasn’t ruled a fumble on the field. As a matte of fact, it didn’t seem there was any outcry from any Saints player that the ball may have been jarred loose before hitting the ground. I understand the thought of catching something they may have missed. Granted though, if your own players seem to be dismissing it as no big deal, maybe it’s better to save that time out.
• Zach Strief has also fell into bad habits too. After Tampa ravaged him last week, he had a couple of whiffs and hurries Sunday against Arizona. His missed block in the second quarter allowed the Brees fumble and recovery for an Arizona TD.
• Must give credit where it’s due – it’s vintage Brees/Payton stuff to strike hard and fast particularly after a defensive TD. Two offensive plays after the strip-sack/TD, Brees finds Brandin Cooks, who had a career day, streaking past a safety and hit him for a huge TD.
• Surely, the Saints are deficient right now due to injuries. With so many corners hurt and no way to replace them, the three safety defense is what they are running as a base. The Saints  have more confidence in DB’s than in LB’s in coverage. Maybe it’s just because of age; maybe it’s because he’s a bit out of position with Kenny Vaccaro being out – but Vonn Bell isn’t our best option in coverage. If we are in a definite nickle situation, the Saints need to bite the bullet and have another cornerback in coverage over a safety. The fact is, it seems too much to give up. Bell was targeted several times in coverage yesterday and beaten several times. As well, he had offside penalties – that simply cannot happen. But to his credit, he was the leading tackler yesterday as well…
• Credit to Tim Lelito yesterday for filling in well for the injured Senio Kelemete.
• Replay giveth, replay taketh away… Brees’ pass to Willie Snead at the 6:22 mark of the 3rd quarter was likely a TD, but because it was called incomplete on the field, it was upheld as incomplete with the replay. However, according to former official and current Fox rules analyst Mike Periera, had they called it a TD on the field, they likely would have stayed with that ruling as well.
• Has Sean Payton learned a lesson? Brees threw more quick passes yesterday than in any of the other games played since Payton resumed play calling duties. As a result there were fewer sacks and hurries and more completed passes and more offense.
• The play that may have turned the game was a tough one. In basketball, it’s probably a no blood/no foul type call at that juncture of the game. The Saints D gets a huge turnover, with Vonn Bell causing a fumble and Ken Crawley recovering, as they are up by a TD.  With 4:29 left in the game, the Saints are driving and needing a TD to salt away the game. Former LSU Tiger Kevin Minter comes up the gut untouched on a six man blitz. As he hits Brees and swings him, he swings him right into the path of an oncoming Sio Moore who gets contact to Brees’ head. Letter of the rules, that’s a penalty. Spirit of the rules, that’s just tough luck. It happens. But it helped lead to another Saints TD and that was truly the game. Just tough that the game could have come down to that call…
• Late in the game the cameras focused on Mark Ingram being beside himself with anger, yelling with Coach Payton. It seems that Ingram might have been upset for having a TD hawked away from him. That would make sense on several levels. From a game standpoint, he’d just come out of the game after a two yard run; he probably felt he didn’t need to be subbed for. Tim Hightower already had a TD, and even though Hightower was playing against a former team, there wasn’t any particular reason to have one back in over the other.  But more importantly are the other reasons why Ingram might have been disappointed for not getting the rock – the selfish ones. He’s only a few yards from 1,000 which is a $100k incentive on his contract. As well another TD would have hit an incentive for him, worth $100k.  While I’m not a proponent of individual awards/rewards in team games, when you’re not going to reach the playoffs, you should at least make sure your guys get their money.

It will be interesting to see how the final 2 games of 2016 play out for the Saints.  Will they continue to show up?  So many young players are looking to solidify their spot on next year’s roster, so many veterans are fighting to show relevance.  Hopefully, they won’t go down without a fight.