New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - know who to pull for: week ten

Its week ten for the NFL and the halfway point for all but two teams. Every team has played eight games but for the Texans and Giants who have played nine. They get their bye weeks this week. After this week there will be no more bye weeks in the regular season.

The Saints had a couple odditiies in their schedule. One was that they played four New York teams in a row, the Bills, Jets, Giants and Dolphins. The second oddity was that the Saints did not play a division game until their seventh and eighth games. In those games they hosted their most dangerous division rivals this year, the Falcons and Panthers.

Playing division games at home is akin to serving in tennis. In tennis if you do not hold serve, you are in trouble. In the NFL, you better win your home games against division foes. Lose at home to a division team and you have to beat them away or lose the head to head tiebreaking advantage.

These first two division games were the most important to date for the Saints on their schedule, yes even more important than the Giants win. The games were not exactly pretty, but as they say in golf there are no pictures on a scorecard. In football at the end there are only W's and L's. Who woulda thunk the Saints would have eight W's? If you answered TheBayouBullet you are right and he gets major props for his prognosticative prowess from kwtpf.

The contenders and pretenders are starting to emerge. Going forward with kwtpf we will focus on games with those teams with reasonable propsects to reach post season play. There are three teams in the NFC today who look like they might advance to the superbowl: the Vikings, the Cowboys, and the Saints. Wait, did I just say Saints and super bowl in the same sentence? Somebody pinch me. These three teams have separated themselves from the pack. In predicting future performance, recent play is a better indicator than early play. That is why the Cowboys made the list. They are playing very well recently. The Giants are heading in the opposite direction. The saints and Vikings have been steady all year.

The next tier for me would include the Falcons, Cardinals and Eagles. These six teams might very well be the playoff teams eight weeks from now. You can not rule out the Giants, Packers and Bears. Any other teams would be long shots. This week does feature some interesting games:

4-4 Chicago at 3-5 San Francisco - Pretty much a must win for both teams. If the Bears drop to 4-5, they would have to win five of their next seven games just to get to 9-7. 9-7 is no guarantee for a wild card spot anyway. To get to 9-7 the 49ers have to go 6-2 over their next games. The Bears gave up a lot for Cutler. The problem is they waited too long to get a decent quarterback. They no longer have the dominating defense that made them so good the last few years. Pull for SF.

5-3 Atlanta at 3-5 Carolina - This is no walkover for the Falcons, although I think the Falcons should thank the Saints for softening up the Panthers. Had the Panthers held on to beat the Saints and not lost Thomas Davis, they would be sky high for this one. Now they might be in meltdown mode. This game features two very fine running backs in DeAngelo Williiams and Michael Turner. Thse big guys can move and have created question marks about the Saints run defense going forward. Pull for the Panthers. Its a big division game and a Falcon loss gets us closer to clinching the South.

1-7 Detroit at 7-1 Minnesota - The only hope I can give you is that Tampa did beat Green Bay last week (Why is it you might say Tampa beat Green BAY but would never say Tampa BAY beat Green?) Minnesota has a very favorable schedule now and we really do not want to travel to Minny for the NFC championship game. Pull for Detroit. It could happen. Then again monkeys could fly out of my.......

3-5 Seattle at 5-3 Arizona - If Arizona wins this game and the 49ers lose to the Bears, you can pretty much stick a fork in the West. Arizona will have three game leads over both San Francisco and Seattle. Neither of those teams look to remotely have the mettle to make up that sort of deficit. There will be no wild card out of the West unless SF makes an unlikely run. You can not count Arizona out as a contender to reach the super bowl either. They surprised everyone last year. The one characteristic shared by the contenders is good quarteback play. Warner has been there. Arizona is a team the Saints might very well see in post season play. We want the Seadoves to win this one.

6-2 Dallas at 4-4 Green Bay - Easily the biggest kwtpf game of the week. When Dallas was 2-2 the popular refrain among talking sport's heads was that Tony Romo was the most over rated quarterback in football. Now he is back to next to sliced bread status (I figure the genesis of the saying "next best thing to sliced bread" must have been after some dude invented sliced bread. Sliced bread? Is that really some big invention? Maybe we should say "next best thing to mini skirts", a much better invention.) Romo is what he has always been, a not great but better than average quarterback with good feet and a quick release. Green Bay has been a disappointment, but they certainly can beat Dallas if they play well. The Saints play Dallas and do not want to be in a position where a loss to Dallas loses home field advantage. We very much want for Green Bay to win this game.

5-3 Philadelphia at 5-3 San Diego - You always pull for the AFC team in a match up like this and we had to pull for San Diego against the Giants last week. I have to confess I ended up pulling for the Giants. Heresy? No, I just knew if Rivers threw a pass to win the game he was going to run around like a little school girl(which he did). Philly is the biggest Jekyll and Hyde team in the NFC. They can lose the the Raiders one week and two weks later romp the Giants. Of course we want Philly to lose. I will just have to change the channel if I see another Riverdance coming.

8-0 New Orleans at 1-7 St Louis - I know some fans have us 9-0, but the last three games have exposed a weakness for the Saints. You can run the ball on them. That is bad because the clock runs and the game shortens. When you have the better team and better offense you want longer games, not shorter games. St Louis does have some good players. That being said, the Rams are a profoundly bad team. Seattle beat them by 28, Green Bay by 21, Minny by 28 and SF by 35. If the Saints struggle in this game it will raise questions as to just how strong this Saints team is. You have to be happy that the Saints have found ways to win the last three weeks. They have not been the team they were the first five weeks. Let us hope the last few games are not indicative of a trend. I think this game will at least answer that question. If the Saints are as good as their press this year, this game should be over early. That being said, I will take 9-0 any way I can get it.
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