Closing out the New Orleans Saints regular season
By Tony Twillie
San Francisco
If you weren’t a fan of the Saints or Niners, this game was probably fun to watch. Lots of offense, high scoring. As a Saints fan, it was highly disappointing.
The offense which had gone dormant for the middle portion of the season woke up. The Saints moved the ball very well. However, the defense, which has been the Saints’ glue the last three seasons, took a bit of a step backward.
Honestly, both teams played poor defense in this game as each offense moved the ball well. The Saints moved the ball a bit more conventionally, while San Francisco had a good few splash plays. In fact, San Francisco had three “drives” of less than three plays for touchdowns.
The game was back and forth late. The Saints took the lead with a late TD, and only left 53 seconds for San Francisco to work with. That was too much time, and the Niners moved the ball into field goal range and took the winning kick.
That kick was the difference in the Saints having a bye this year or not. Though San Fran ended up losing again later to the Falcons they took the top seed. Both teams shared the same record but losing the head-to-head to the Niners lost us the opportunity for a top-two seed.