The Saints were playing at home Sunday. They never lose at home – not in 2 seasons. In fact, Sean Payton personally hadn’t lost a game in the dome since it was still the Louisiana Superdome – bounty year aside, the Saints hadn’t lost at home since the 2010 season. We were on a 2 game winning streak and had been playing well since the bye week. The playing well part pretty much continued – the home winning streak, not so much… The first interception was blah… and kind of expected. This is the season of the pick for Brees. Short field score was whatever. Even getting down 14-0 early wasn’t cause for complete despair. Being down 21-10 wasn’t cause for despair. No, despair only showed up when after watching Brees throw a beautiful TD pass to Cooks, we had to watch him throw into triple coverage and get picked because we don’t know when or how to use our freaking time outs. This is the second time this season he’s been picked like that. We get a great turnover on a sack/fumble and have solid field position with a minute on the clock. Worst case scenario, get into field goal range and cut it to an 8 point deficit going into halftime. In a span of just a few seconds you got to see Good Drew/Bad Drew – Good Drew takes a bad snap, somehow picks it up and fires complete to Graham on the second play of the drive. We use our first time out with 37 seconds left. Let’s count – we get 3 time outs per half. We just used our first time out. How many do we have left? OK, keep up because this is where it gets tricky. Brees passes to Cooks at the 22. We are now WAY within field goal range. We have 2 time outs. The clock is ticking… tick…tick…tick…. Call the timeout! We have 2 of them left. Burning one here doesn’t do you any harm. You are second and 2 at the 22. Get a good play in; take your time. Get it right. No time out. Next play starts at 17 seconds. So we ran the play and the fire drill and took 20 seconds. And we throw the interception on the goal line. Into triple coverage. While in field goal range. After a takeaway. In baseball, you never make the first or third out of an inning at 3rd base – a base hit scores a runner from second base; you would be taking away a scoring opportunity. In football, you never have turnovers in the red zone. Granted we were 2 yards outside the red zone, but the ball was picked on the goal line. I have never seen Brees make so many poor decisions in one season. It’s like he saved them all up for this year. The second half was much better, especially defensively. The Saints stepped up their game and really clamped down on defense. Before the final series debacle, the Saints only gave up 51 yards offense to San Fran in the second half. Meanwhile, good Drew came back. And Mark Ingram, playing hurt, really started to pound San Fran. The 49’ers defense looked so quick all day, but finally the Saints offense got some rhythm and began to move the ball better, mostly due to the (FINALLY) commitment to run the ball. Ingram looked a step from coming out for good all game, but he gamed out for over 100 yards again. And Cadet really played big as well. Saints finally take a lead on a huge, beautiful pass to Jimmy Graham. Good Drew shows up again to save the day and erase the 2 picks. We can all go home happy……. Or so we thought. Kaepernick incomplete on first down. Overruled completion on second. Incomplete on third. It’s 4th and 10 at the San Fran 22. Another baseball analogy – when you are up by one late in the game, you cheat your first & third basemen over to the line a bit because you don’t want to give up a double down the line. That’s an easy way to end up with a runner in scoring position. The football equivalent is on 4th down and long with a lead you don’t let receivers get deeper than you. I guess we could add to that figure out a way how to not give the quarterback about 45 seconds to throw the ball too… That play started with 1:34 left on the clock. We called a timeout after the play at 1:05. That play took damn near 30 seconds. OK, we didn’t call time out until we started running up the field to get into position, so I’ll say 20 seconds. Either way, few plays in the NFL from snap to whistle take 20 seconds, and usually if they do, it’s a doozy of a run or catch and run. There might be reasons, but there is absolutely no excuse for that guy to be that wide open. It’s unfathomable. So they go from their 22 to our 27, where we “hold” them to a field goal. The Saints are always good for at least one big blown defensive play a game. It’s our hallmark. This was not the right time for that hallmark. The Graham push off – nice acting, yeah. But it was something of a push. Even though the refs swallow the whistle on Hail Mary’s, it’s only so if the penalty comes in the scrum for the ball. Graham was alone with that guy and it was too wide open. No gripes though – Graham doesn’t know how alone he is, he’s tracking the ball. The score is tied and it’s the last play of the game – you’re going to do whatever it takes to score the TD. OT was painful. Big play to Stills and a gift penalty and we still couldn’t do as much as get into field goal range on the opening drive. This after moving the ball well in the 4th quarter. Brees almost throws his 3rd interception too… The fumble – what can you say? It’s a coverage fumble. Armstead blocks his man way wide, giving Brees plenty of time to scan the field both ways. It’s at least 5 seconds Brees looks downfield. He doesn’t get rid of it quick enough. You could say he should have thrown it away, but it’s a hard call to make there. Sure, he doesn’t protect the ball well, but he was getting ready to pass. Kudos to them on a good play. The field goal was academic. This team is much better than the team that wore Saints uniforms before the bye, but they still can’t finish. Giving up an occasional big play isn’t good, but it happens. But what can’t happen is the mental errors of throwing a ball into triple coverage, not using good clock management with your time outs. Looked like some old Les Miles crap. There are tons of plays every game and each of them have some bearing on the game, but you can look at that and easily say that particular play was a game killer. It’s the type of thing right before halftime that really can set the offense in a bad place – have that happen and then go stew on it for 12 minutes. Fortunately they came out well in the second half. Look, the Saints played well enough to win. But they played a good team. San Fran has been in the NFC Championship game 3 straight years. They are banged up a bit but still good, really fast on defense. Kaepernick is not a great QB, but he gives them chances to win. They will implode after this season likely – Harbaugh will probably not come back given all the criticism and talk and they may try to see if there are any takers for Aldous Smith, who has been in trouble a few times now. But for now, they are still about as good as Seattle (however good they are…) save for running back. At least this time the Saints didn’t get beat by a powerhouse like the Browns (first person that says but the Browns are in first place just slap yourself and say it’s from me…). But a loss is a loss and it’s the main thing in the NFL. The good news – our division sucks so bad, we’re still in first place… Yay… I think…
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 11:57:47 +0000
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