MVN - Most Valuable Network

Saints See Improvement in 2nd Straight Win

Before I try to break down the Saints 22-16 win over the Falcons yesterday, I’ll take a moment to look at their season record.  Two wins, four loses.

That is slightly better, I think, than one win and five losses.  So it doesn’t matter that the Saints didn’t look that good against Atlanta.  The most important result of the contest ended in New Orleans’ favor.  They got the win.

Now that the all-important victory has been noted, let’s try to break it down.

I’ll start with the positives from the offenses’ performance Sunday.  Devery Henderson caught a touchdown.  It was a crucial catch for the Saints confidence — Henderson’s in particular.

Deep passes are vital for an offense’s success for two reasons.  First, it gives the quarterback confidence that he’s hitting his targets.  As soon as Drew Brees completes a long pass, he starts zipping the ball all over the field with dead-eye accuracy.

Second, the defense opens up because it now has to honor the deep ball.  Safety’s can’t creep up to the line of scrimmage for run support as much and they can’t plant themselves in the middle of the field to create congestion.  They have to stay back to help on streaking receivers. 

If you can complete the long ball, you can stretch the field.  Brees and Henderson did a good job of that Sunday.

Another positive the Saints can draw from was the play of the offensive line.  For the most part, they played decent football.  It wasn’t great football, but it was good enough to get the job done.

With this year’s line, I guess you just have to take the good with the bad.  They kept Brees upright the entire game, but they were penalized for holding a handful of times. 

They proved they have depth when Jonathan Goodwin came in and played well in place of injured starter Jeff Faine, but they didn’t open too many holes for Reggie Bush to run through.

It’s a love/hate relationship with the offensive line.  As long as they keep winning, I’ll stay off their back.

The defense showed promise again this week, posting three more sacks and countless more quarterback pressures. 

I like all the blitzing the Saints are doing.  It’s a great strategy if you think about it.  The secondary can’t cover anyone in the first place, so instead of wasting them in pass coverage, Gary Gibbs is sending them on blitzes. That way they at least have a chance to make a play.

Reggie Bush wasn’t spectacular against the Falcons, but he gave what his team needed him to give.  His four-yard goal line run was undoubtedly the manliest thing he’s done this year.

As one of the leaders of this squad, Reggie Bush can set the tone for the team with one single play.  When the rest of the Saints see Bush earn that game-winning touchdown through hell and high-water, they can’t help but be inspired.

This Saints squad is playing with a palpable sense of urgency.  Credit must be giving to coach Payton for getting his team in the right mindset to play good football. 

Let’s see if they can keep it up next week against San Fran. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.