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Saints rope Texans, brace for Titans

Jaime Oppenheim
assistant sports editor

September 19, 2003-- After a disappointing loss in their season opener, the New Orleans Saints got the 2003 season headed back on the right track with an impressive 31-10 dismantling of the Houston Texans.

Houston looked poised to secure their first back-to-back wins in franchise history in the first half, controlling the game with their stout defense. Even though the Saints often stacked their offensive line and flanked tight ends to block incoming cornerbacks, the Texans held running back Deuce McAllister to 28 first half yards. Quarterback Aaron Brooks and the rest of the passing game floundered with receivers Jerome Pathon and Donte Stallworth roaming the sidelines.

Fortunately for Saints fans, the first half proved to be an aberration as New Orleans dominated the rest of the way. Once Head Coach Jim Haslett checked Stallworth and Pathon into the game, the Saints' spread offense baffled the once impressive Texans' defense. Brooks found new life in the third quarter, throwing for 111 yards, and finishing the period with a near perfect QB rating of 156.2.

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, the defense also got into the act in the fourth quarter, with two interceptions and two sacks against Houston's David Carr. Carr, who went unsacked for the first time in his career against the Dolphins in week one, took five of them against New Orleans.

"I feel like we came out the second half against Houston a lot better and got what we needed to get accomplished," Aaron Brooks said during the Saints weekly press conference. "It was much needed. We weren't going to let a team come in and take away our season opener at home and that was something we really took pride in."

How New Orleans performs will be in Coach Haslett's hands. Against Houston, Haslett was committed to running the ball against the Texans' strong run defense and struggled early. It was not until he spread the field with his receivers that the Saints offense started putting up some points. We will see if Haslett has learned his lesson this week against the Titans.
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Scoring by quarter:
NEW ORLEANS- 7 0 10 14

Looking back at our offense last year, I think the Texans game is a perfect example of why we struggled on offense far too often.

As usual, McCarthy comes out in the first half with a 2 tightend - 2 receiver set - and a fullback. The result was we scored a total of 7-points in the first half.

Deuce ran for a total of 28 yards in the first half, with 24 of those yards coming on one run. After going to the spread offense Deuce finished the game with a total of 96-yards rushing. That's a significant improvement!

Also, in the first half, our passing game and points out of the passing game were virtually non-exsistent. But, after going to the spread offense, we able to dominate in the passing game.

What also happened is we forced the Texans to have to pass the ball to keep up with our high scoring offense which allowed our defense to apply pressure on David Carr, forcing him to make mistakes.

IMO, we should have never allowed the game to be that close in the first half. I think when McCarthy saw our offense wasn't effective, he should have gone to the spread offense much sooner. I also think he stuck to pounding the ball up the middle in too many games after the Texans game.

Let's hope we use the spread offense far more often this year!!