New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - Article Biggest game of season

Today's game between the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers has a playoff feel to it.

Neither team can afford to lose this game.

The 49ers (6-3 overall) are trailing the Seattle Seahawks (9-1) in the NFC West and another loss would put them in a difficult spot to catch the Seahawks for the division title.

Everyone in the hunt — Seattle, San Francisco and New Orleans — wants those playoff games on their home turf.

The Saints (7-2) lead the NFC South today, but the footsteps they hear are coming from the surging Carolina Panthers (6-3).

Anyone who watched the games between the 49ers and Saints in the 1980s and 1990s know there is no love lost between these two one-time divisional rivals.

As good as those New Orleans Saints teams were with "The Dome Patrol," Bobby Hebert, Dalton Hilliard, Eric Martin, Morten Anderson, Jim Wilks, Wayne Martin and Bruce Clark, so were the 49ers with Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Charles Haley, Bill Romanowski, Deion Sanders and Ronnie Lott.

It seemed as though the Saints were at 19 in blackjack and the 49ers always had a 20 to beat them.

In the 2011 playoffs, the Saints lost to the 49ers, 36-32, with a team that in my opinion was better than the 2009 Super Bowl winning squad in a heartbreaking game.

Last season, two big interceptions turned the tide for the 49ers and gave San Francisco a 31-21 win in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The Saints rushed for just 59 yards on 21 carries against the vaunted 49er defense.

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