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Impossible to stop offense, opportunistic defense power Saints past Lions

Three observations from watching the New Orleans Saints defeat the Detroit Lions 45-28 in front of a raucous home crowd to advance to the divisional playoff round on the road in San Francisco next week:
The only thing stopping the Saints’ offense at the moment is the Saints’ offense

New Orleans didn’t need to punt once on Saturday night, and the two times it booted the ball away via fumbles, Detroit couldn’t capitalize with much-needed first-half points on either rare occasion.

The Saints, with Sean Payton and Drew Brees, have all three levels of their offense working.

When the Lions played the deep ball well, the Saints simply had their backs hew up yards in the wide open spaces underneath. When the Lions were lulled into closing in on the rushing damage of Pierre Thomas, Darren Sproles and Chris Ivory, Brees’ eyes lit up in seeing easy downfield opportunities to speedsters Devery Henderson and Robert Meachem.

As usual, a big factor in opening up both the short and long was uncoverable tight end Jimmy Graham occupying the attention of linebackers and safeties in the middle of the field. The Lions played “pick your poison,” but somehow swallowed every pill as the Saints posted a playoff record 626 yards of total offense. In the modern pass-happy era, because New Orleans also excels at rushing the ball, we’ve never seen an NFL team move the ball quite like this.

We’re also seeing a glimmer of a much-needed Saints’ opportunistic defense.

The Lions were a big comeback team all season, and were hoping to have one more in them after seeing their 14-10 halftime lead quickly evaporate in the third quarter. The Saints, however, who had only nine interceptions in the regular season, came up with two against Matt Stafford to make sure the game was out of reach.

They were picked apart all game by Stafford, but managed to make the plays when they counted. Going forward against the 49ers and Packers, who rarely give the ball up in addition to taking it away at a high rate, it’s vital for the Saints to be on the winning side of the turnover battle after they broke even vs. the Lions.

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