yasoon

Sadly, the run is probably over.

The Panthers are better coached and better on Defense than we are. Jake, while prone to some bad throws, is always focused against his former team. Brooks will freak out when Peppers comes his way and either fumble or throw a pick.

Reasons for optimism/keys to win:
Special teams and Defense are the only reasons for optimism. They are the reasons for our current streak. I'm no Brooks hater, but he has looked very bad the last 3 games. Carolina will come at him hard. A reporter from my home town (Hattiesburg American) commented that Brooks has played like a pro and thats why we're winning. Wrong Jeff...Brooks looked better early in the year when we couldn't stop anyone. The D has caused turnovers and held people in the redzone....a big improvement.

We must stop Mushin. He is proving to be every bit as good as Horn and we have to keep him out of the endzone. Also, the run D must continue to be good. We have to get in Jake's face and force him to throw the ball up.

I hope I'm wrong, but i'm going Panthers 31-24.


My weekly McCarthy rant:

They showed him on the sidelines during the Falcons game and he literally looked baffled looking at his plays. The annoucers actually pointed it out .

Gems from the playbook:

3rd and goal from the 3. What do we do? A toss play to our wide receiver. Why is this bad? On the goalline, the D is pushed closer to the line with the goal posts at their back. A slow developing run play around the end can therefore be pounced on by the linebackers and D backs. Stallworth had no chance. AWFUL PLAYCALL.

3rd and 2. Empty backfield, quickpass to Beerman picked off by Brooking. Bad read by Brooks, even worse play call. First, the set we're in showed them we would not run on the play, giving the LB a chance to sit back and jump on a pass route. That's exactly what happened. Second, when is the last time we ran on 3rd and short? It is always that same set with the FB offset to one side and the RB split out. Can we not run for 2 yards? I guess not. If you're not going to run, at least set up in the I to make it look like you may run. Playaction pass if you're going to pass. We actually set up in the gun alot of the time on 3rd and 2. Just amazing.

Another thing....our reliance on bullet passes on the goaline is coming back to haunt us. Brooks tries to fit it into a small space and it gets tipped and picked. I have never understood why we never use the boot near the goaline. Roll Brooks out to the right on 1st/2nd down and give him a TE and WR to go to. (Boo goes three and out, Horn goes to the back pylon.) If nothing is open, throw it away or tuck and run. It's safe and it works.

Danno

I agree.
Lets examine their team vs Ours.
They have
Better D-line
Better LB\'s
Better DB\'s
Better QB
Better O-line
Better Coaches

We have...
Better Punter, barely.
Better Kicker
Better WR, Barely, Mushin is on fire.

Its a wash on...
RB (unless Deuce returns to early 2003 form)

Can we win? YES
Will we win? Not likely.

Panthers 23
Saints 17

SaintFanInATLHELL

I disagree on QB and O-line. I think the DBs are a wash.
Deuce is far superior to Goings. No contest. Even in this off year. Deuce will probably attain 1000 yards and has the possibility of getting more TDs this year than he did last year.
DBs are a wash. No contest on Deuce.
There are some differences since the last time these two met:

Our defense has held teams to less than 20 points for 3 successive weeks after giving up 20 points or more for the previous 12 weeks.

In the last game we held the Panthers to a buttload of field goals. Also the offense did have two long drives against the Panther defense.

The question is the offense going to have the smarts and the patience to play the dink and dunk game against the Panthers\' tough D.

Saints 24
Panthers 17

Saints go to the playoffs.

SFIAH

Super Bowl Championships: New Orleans Saints:1, Carolina:0, Atlanta Chokers: STILL ZERO

Only Atlanta choked in an unchokable situation... Life is definitely good.

yasoon

Hey SFIAH...Where in Atl are you?

I hope you\'re right about the score.

Deuce is one of the best backs in the league, he is just having to work harder for his yards. Our O line isn\'t that good. Watch the GB line clear a hole. Deauce would run for miles behind that line.

I don\'t think Brooks will play well Sunday...he\'s getting worse as the D gets better. I\'m not worried about playing on the road...just the way our offense will play and the plays that we will run.

If the Saints win, it will be due to a special teams or defensive TD/near TD. I think it has gotten very easy to gameplan for our offense and Carolina has just the personnel to cause problems. It scares me

Tobias-Reiper

SFIAH, I am not going to quote every single point, but you cannot say that Deuce is playing any better than Goings... Goings is a freaking 3rd string fullback that was thrusted into playing staring RB because of injuries in week 10, and in the 6 weeks he has started, he\'s gotten 100+ in 5 occasions... Deuce has started 13 games, ok, 12 if you don\'t count the game he got injured, and has 8 TDs... Goings has started 6 games, and he\'s got 6... Goings even has over 100 more yards receiving starting in only 6 games...

... and I don\'t care whether is the system or the player, the fact is that the Carolina running game right now is better than the Saints running game.
..and you just said that the Saints o-line is better than the Panthers o-line..

... so there is a contest...

..on the defense, yeah their stats have improved a bit the last 3 games, but look at the last 3 games... the Saints played a Falcons team playing not to get hurt and the Cowboys with old Vinny thorwing wounded ducks out there... and Tampa, well, Tampa just plain stinks...

..now I am not saying the Saints cannot win, because they surely can, but it is going to be very hard to win in Charlotte against a very motivated Panthers team who feeds on mistakes.... and the Saints sure commit a lot of those...

'Cause the simple man pays the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill

spkb25

carolina is playing probally as good as being the third best team in the nfc right now. i think they and philly would be in a dog fight. for anyone that says we would have been destroyed had we played vick and the other starters i disagree. we didnt get destroyed in the first game. we almost won. but this game is much harder to win. i dont expect to win but really hope we do. hopefully it is just a real close game coming down to the end and maybe we have a chance to win. but boy wouldnt it be nice. i\'d be celebrating regardless of us maybe loosing in the first round. one thing i will say is this team could have packed it in. at least they gavce us an opportunity at the playoffs even though the rest of the season was terrible. give me something to be happy about new orleans. i think ho9nestly our best hope to win rest on deuce. if he has a huge game we should win. 30 carries 120-130 yards we have a good shot. d cant let up more then 20. if we hold them to 20 we have a shot.

Your team stinks

UK_WhoDat

We can win - but will not be favored to do so.

We have to be absolutely mistake free. The Saints will have to be ready to play a time (and mind) sapping defence - and force Delhomme into an error. If necessary we play real conservative; exchanging field goals. Delhomme could break.

Then its our turn! (Dreaming)

Puddinhead

Simple keys to the game for the Saints:

Avoid falling behind by two or more scores early. Sounds like \"Football For Dummies\", I know, but we absolutely could not manage to do it for the bulk of the season. This team (heck, MOST teams) quickly become one-dimensional if they find themselves trailing by two touchdowns or more. The problem for the Saints is that their most valuable offensive asset is probably McAllister, and his value is as a \"grind-it-out\" back who\'s most productive the more he carries the ball. Yeah, I know Saints fans hate all of those runs right up the gut early in the game that go for one or two yards; \"Predictable! Conservative!\" Well, guess who else hates it when the Saints keep pounding McAllister inside like that? The safeties and linebackers of the opposition. He starts getting up to 20-25 carries late in the game, and some of those guys start losing their enthusiam for another collision with a 230 lb guy who runs as hard as he does. My guess would be that McAllister\'s yards per carry is a lot higher on runs 20-30 than it is on runs 1-10 mainly because of this. Remember, the Panthers have allowed 150+ yards rushing six times this season; three times they\'ve allowed over 200 yards rushing. The other thing this does, obviously, is allow the Saints to effectively use their play-action passing game, which, say what you want, can be pretty darned good when the defense has to respect the run. Our offensive line looks like a whole different unit when the defense can\'t just tee off and pass rush because they know we\'re far enough behind that we have to pass every down. And Brooks can look pretty stellar (I know there are those here who disagree, but I feel an unbiased observer would agree with me) when he doesn\'t have a lineman in his face before he can even set up, and can set himself squarely and then step into his throw.

Another key, obviously, is to stifle the Panthers running game at least to the extent that they\'ve been able to manage against the Cowboys, Bucs, and Falcons. Nick Goings has done a fine job filling in this season, but he has still only averaged 3.8 yards per carry. Do a good enough job defending against the run (as they\'ve been doing lately) to keep Goings under that 3.8 ypc average rather than over it, and you go some of the way toward making Carolina one-dimensional...and in a dimension in which they don\'t want to be hanging out. Load up on the run early, and make Delhomme throw the ball to win. Carolina\'s passing game is even more predicated on the play action than is the Saints. The Panthers need the linebackers and safety to freeze respecting the play fake in order to create the little medium-range \"dead zones\" for their receivers to settle into so Delhomme can get them the ball. Even the beat writers covering the Panthers talk about how they get very little run after the catch, and it\'s mainly because the throws Delhomme can make best are the ones on the short to middle \"stop\" routes behind linebackers who\'ve only gotten a shallow drop because they have to play the run game. Limit the running game, and make Delhomme throw often out of a straight drop with something of a pass rush coming at him. Much has been made of Brooks making poor decisions with the ball this season, but Brooks and Delhomme have identical 3.1% interception percentages this year. (By comparison, Tom Brady\'s 2004 percentage is 2.9%) Over his two years as a starter, Delhomme throws interceptions on 3.3% of his passes, compared to 2.3% over that period for Brooks and 2.6% for Brady. Meaning...what? Meaning if you can limit their running game, the Panthers just might be prone to turning the ball over to you a couple of times.

The third key...win the special teams contest. No, I don\'t mean you have to get another return for touchdown in order to win. But you do have to win the battle of field position. The Saints need to do a better job getting field position off of the Panthers\' punts than the Panthers do off of Mitch Berger\'s offerings. Don\'t surrender a big play in the kicking game.

When you sum it all up, it really does sound like Football 101 as taught by Professor Vince Lombardi--establish your running game, force the opponent to rely on his passing game, and win the kicking game. That\'s been the time-honored formula for winning football for a lot of years, and for good reason. And the thing is, there are at least some indicators that point toward just this scenario being a real possibility for the Saints this weekend.