Featured Discussion Saints @ Eagles Game Day Thread

[SmashMouth]

The City of Brotherly Love hasn’t been very brotherly to the New Orleans Saints the past two seasons.

Well, unless you want to say the Eagles have treated the Saints like little brothers the last two times they welcomed them to Lincoln Financial Field.

It’s been two trips to Philly and two losses over the past 24 months, a streak the Saints desperately need to snap Sunday.

There was a 24-21 loss in December 2020 in Jalen Hurts’ first NFL start. Then a 40-29 setback in November 2021.

This version of the Eagles team is much better than those two though, with the Eagles (13-2) entering the game with the best record in the NFL.



Any chance of the Saints keeping their slim playoff hopes alive starts with them pulling off what would be a giant upset against a team that has given them fits recently.

“I don’t think the past two times have any bearing on what happens in this game,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said. “We have to go there with our game plan and a focus on doing whatever it takes to try to win this game. We obviously paid attention to the tape (from the last two games), but we are really focused on what’s right there in front of us and not what’s happened in the past.”

So what is it that’s in front of the Saints?

Well, first, there is still the chance to win the NFC South, a division so woeful that the Saints still have a shot to win it despite sporting a 6-9 record as the calendar flips to 2023.

The Saints, of course, need some help, starting with the Carolina Panthers beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, an outcome that wouldn’t come as a surprise considering how the two teams have been playing down the stretch. The Saints also have an outside shot at a wild card, but that’s going to take a lot of complicated scenarios to take place.

The most complicated part of it all is the challenge staring the Saints right in the face.

The Eagles are nothing like the Atlanta Falcons or Cleveland Browns, the two team the Saints beat the last two weeks for their first back-to-back wins of the season. The Eagles are talented on both sides of the ball, regardless of whether Hurts plays or not. He sat out last week’s game against the Dallas Cowboys, but the Eagles — with Gardner Minshew playing quarterback — still managed to put up 442 yards in the loss.

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And the Eagles will be highly motivated, needing a win to lock up the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC and the NFC East title. If that’s not motivation enough, there’s also this: The Eagles own the Saints’ first-round draft pick from the trade in the 2022 draft. So Philadelphia would like nothing more than to hand the Saints another loss to make that draft pick even better.

To the Saints’ credit, they haven’t quit on their first-year coach in a season where they very well could have, especially after the late fourth-quarter collapse against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. Instead, the Saints went into the bye and won two straight games to give themselves a chance.

“We’re trying to play playoff football,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. "I think we’ve really been in that mode the last couple weeks. Obviously it’s not looking great for us, but we still have a chance, so we’re trying to approach these last two games as if they’re playoff games.”

A win Sunday would easily be the Saints’ biggest win of the season and also the biggest of Allen’s coaching career.

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The New Orleans Saints (6-9) are pretty sure what they'll see from the Eagles (13-2) on offense Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. That doesn't make it much easier, though.

The Eagles scored 34 points against Dallas in their last game, despite committing four turnovers, so the Saints will need to be more than solid if they hope to take down the team with the best record in the NFL.

1. HOG THE BALL: No secret here. The Eagles have the highest-scoring offense (29.7 points per game) in the NFL and one of the best ways to affect that is for the Saints to have an advantage in time of possession. And the best way to do that, is to run the ball effectively. In the last two games, both victories, New Orleans ran 62 times for 286 yards and two touchdowns. Alvin Kamara accounted for 41 carries for 167 yards, and the Saints will need more of that from Kamara (he missed practice Wednesday and Thursday due to a personal matter, and returned to practice Friday). Also, Taysom Hill (16 carries for 86 yards and a touchdown in the last two) may receive some heavy use. However they do it and whomever they do it with, New Orleans needs to keep its hands on the ball and keep Philadelphia's explosive offense watching.


2. PRUNE GARDNER: It's unlikely that Jalen Hurts, listed as doubtful on Friday, will play. That's certainly not a bad thing for the Saints. In two previous matchups, Hurts has completed 30 of 54 passes for 314 yards and a touchdown, and ran 36 times for 175 yard and three touchdowns. It's no shame that New Orleans would prefer to see Gardner Minshew, with Hurts playing at an MVP level. Minshew threw for 355 yards and two touchdowns, with two interceptions, and ran for five yards and a touchdown, against Dallas. But the Eagles turned it over four times against Dallas, and Minshew is much less likely to hurt a defense with his legs than is Hurts. The Saints' defense may be able to get to Minshew and, better, force him into a turnover or two.


3. COVER AND SMOTHER: Philadelphia has one of the best receiving corps in the league. A.J. Brown, Devonta Smith and Quez Watkins are difficult to deal with, and it'll be interesting to see what New Orleans' plan is to handle them. The best plan is to harass the quarterback and disrupt timing, but when the time comes to cover, cornerbacks Alontae Taylor, Paulson Adebo and Bradley Roby not only have to play clean, but they need to be spotless in situational downs. The Saints don't need to give up first downs via defensive holding or pass interference when they're able to get the Eagles in third-and-7 or more, and otherwise have made the play to get off the field. It's critical to get off the field clean in those situations.

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