The Saints finished in a 4 way tie for 3rd inforced fumbles at 20. Only 7 of which were recovered by us. By contrast Cincinnati recovered 12, Mn and SF recovered 15. NE forced 10 and recovered 11. (That's what it says. Don't ask me.)

Another record we set that nobody is talking about is least fumbles in a season. We only fumbled 6 times all year!! But we lost 5.

We intercepted a whopping 9 passes this year. In the believe it or not dept there were two teams with less. Mn and In only had 8. Pat Rbinson had 4 and no other player had more than 1. But get this, not one safety had an int. That's appalling! Has this ever happened before. Talk about needing to step it up! Malcom Jenkins should hide his face in shame. Harper you expect, we've known for years that he has zero ball skills but Jenkins is supposed be a future star FS. And it's not just the starters I'm talking about either. None of the back ups came up with the ball this year. Scott freaking Shanle had more ints than that whole unit!

Only one other team made the play offs with a negative turn over ratio. (Pitt with -13)

We just have a different definition of 'turnover'. With our unstoppable offense and bend-don't-break defense, a field goal against is actually a turnover, because we are going to go down and get 7.

How many teams in the NFC gave up fewer points than us?
Ready?
THREE! (and 2 of those did not make the playoffs)

Oh, and how many teams out-scored us? zero

It's not that turnovers aren't important. They're very important. But I think ScottF is sorta on to something there. I think people get lulled into thinking that the Saints' defense is REALLY BAD, because they don't have those spectacular amazing plays that make us cheer like they did in '09. But they're NOT really bad (okay, they're not really great either, but when the defense WORKS, it's good enough).

This year there were a lot of dull, uninteresting STOPS where we got the ball back, got the other team's offense off the field, shut a team's particular favorite weapon down, etc. There weren't as many spectacular Sportscenter-type highlight reel plays, just ordinary plays like:

- Jenkins' 3rd down open field tackle on Chris Johnson
- stuffing the falcons on 4th and 1 (huge play)
- porter breaks up the pass on the next-to-last Titans play
- Houston's four drives inside the 20 that resulted in only field goals
- holding the Buccaneers to only 6 points in the whole 2nd half (in the game we lost when Payton went down with the knee)
- the first Carolina game where Cam's final drive stalled out around midfield, giving us the victory
- Will Herring's interception for a TOUCHBACK in the Giants game (somehow, an INT for a touchback is not as sexy as one with a return)

You could do this list for every game... It's like, they made a lot of plays, but this year's plays just weren't as many REALLY AMAZING plays as they had in '09. You don't leave the ramps of the Dome after the game, pumping your fist in the air and cheering wildly about that boring Eli Manning incompletion, on some 3rd down in the 2nd quarter. But that's how we won.

And all year long, the other team would end up having these head-scratching, "what happened to Michael Turner?" "Why didn't Calvin Johnson get any TD catches?" "Where was our GO-TO GUY all day?" type moments. But I think the lack of BIG PLAYS this year, means some people have a hard time getting pumped up about this defense.