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The Saints are not good enough, not physical enough, not balanced enough, especially for an outfit that battled back to 5-5 after digging themselves out of an 0-4 hole.
In losing 31-21 to San Francisco on Sunday, the Saints proved they could play as well as they're capable of and still are not good enough to suggest there will be able to find a place among playoff hopefuls.



In a game that saw the 49ers return two Drew Brees passes for touchdowns, the Saints came up with enough positives to make it a 28-21 ballgame well into the third quarter (on the second of three TD passes thrown by Brees) before being overcome by a better opponent.

Brees' first pick had to rank among the worst of his career. His second bounced off the hands of sure-handed Marques Colston to hand the Niners a 28-14 lead.

For the Saints, there was the good and the bad, but not nearly enough good to handle possibly to deal with as good a team as there is in the league.

San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh talked about one of the keys being quarterback Colin Kaepernik's ability to extend plays while being pressured by the Saints' rush.

"There were a couple of big throws he made getting outside the pocket that really helped us,'' Harbaugh said. "The biggest adjustment we made was just getting back into the huddle faster to handle the noise level. Colin did a great job managing the game, speeding up the tempo.''

Brees had no excuses for the pick he threw just before halftime.

"You can't let them get an easy one like that,'' he said. "(Ahmad) Brooks did a great job. He caught that thing on his fingertips. I was trying to fit it in there to Jimmy and he made an athletic play. It was a big momentum swing. We faced a lot of pressure in the fourth quarter when we were in a down-the-field pass mode. Prior to that, our guys did a great job, balancing it all out with the run game and protection. We were able to get some balls downfield and make some big plays. When we got it back to 28-21, we got some opportunities offensively, but we weren't able to take advantage of them.''

Credit the 49ers.

"I think the 49ers are one of the best out there,'' Brees said. "We knew how physical a team they are but I felt we matched that physicality. We just weren't able to put it all together.''

Joe Vitt did not feel the interception before halftime "changed the game.''

"Football is one play at a time, one series at a time, one quarter at a time, one half at a time,'' he said. "In football, you're judged on how you play for 60 minutes. If we let one play affect us the rest of the game, we're unprofessional. We've overcome things like that before. It's the nature of our game. It's not a perfect game played like perfect people. We had our opportunities. I've got to coach better and we've got to play better.''

To Vitt, the challenge is obvious.

"We play a Thursday night game in Atlanta,'' he said. "That's the only thing we're looking forward to right now. A short week is always a challenge. So what. You go on. We're going to do all we can do to win a football game. And then another one.''

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TheGambler

LOL @ Brees......"he caught that thing on his fingertips".......Because it looked to me like Drew threw it right to him.

TheOak

Author is a dolt.

CharityMike

Right...don't mention the fact that there were 4 defenders right there by the receiver. Bone headed decision, bottom line.

Danno

We're certainly balanced enough and physical enough to beat Atlanta, Tampa, NY, Dallas and Carolina.

We've already beaten two of those 5 and Dallas doesn't scare anyone and NY is hot/cold, and Carolina isn't exactly a juggernaut.

I'm not buying this line of thinking at all.

We just got beat by the most physical team in the NFL and take away two uncharacteristic pick 6's by Drew and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, would be predicting we run the table and finish 11-5.

Vrillon82

What I want to know is.....

WHERE THE **** DID THE SCREEN PASS GO?

Thats something that would come up in a few situations in that ball game that was completely absent.

SmashMouth

Pete Finney?

Mardigras9

Two Pick 6's and a fourth string O-lineman against probably the best D in the league? Eliminate the mistakes and we win the game.

TheOak

To write that cr4p. Yes.

What Danno said is exactly what went through my mind when i read it.

dizzle88

"Brooks made a great play"

No brees, he just stood there and caught the pass you threw directly to him

Our defense is playing a lot better, when you watch them play they are actually quite fast and physical, definitley getting better

Our offense on the other hand.....there's a reason people say we are a finesse team, that's all due to our offense
We don't run people over, we make bad decisions and just look weak out there, the D always looks physical against our offense