SmashMouth

As expected, ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer had a lot of insightful thoughts on the upcoming rematch between the New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks -- from the reasons why he thinks Seattle’s defense gets away with being so physical in coverage to his belief that the Saints should speed up their offensive tempo the second time around.

Dilfer was in the stadium for the first “Monday Night Football” meeting between the Saints and Seahawks last month. So I was eager to get his thoughts during a Thursday conference call on what he expects the second time around. Here are the highlights from our Q&A:

On whether the Seahawks are as good as any team in the NFL today at disrupting receivers’ routes:

Dilfer: “Yes, Pete [Carroll] and his staff have done a great job in kind of bringing back the ‘80s secondary play. And I know they’re gonna deny this, but there’s no denying it -- they’re convinced that the refs are only gonna throw about 15 flags a game. And they’re not gonna throw all 15 of those in the secondary. So they might get four to six thrown on ‘em. But they figure, if a team’s gonna throw the ball 40 times and we’re gonna get physical 40 times, they’re not gonna call more than six [penalties]. So they’re really playing the odds with how they play in the secondary.

“I mean, it is a lot of roughhousing -- a term we use in the war room, Tom Jackson, [Tim] Hasselbeck and myself. ‘A lot of roughhousing.’ Which is good. I mean, it’s brilliant what they’ve done. But it makes it very difficult, very frustrating for the quarterback and the wide receivers.”

On whether he expects a better effort from the Saints this time around:

Dilfer: “I think the Saints can play better -- I know they can play better. They have some matchups that are in their favor. In fact, I was talking to John Lynch last night, who’s calling the game with Fox, and we were kind of going over notes. And we both agree that the Saints have some really favorable matchups. It’s whether they can get to them.

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st thomas

it says a lot to me the wimpie coach carrol is a cheat and a cheat will never stop cheating or finding a way to exploit the rules. hope the ref committee sees that article. shows how to ridicule the clowns in stripes.

ikecomp

I used to really dislike dilfer but I do respect his opinions and the time he puts in coming up with them. Very rarely does he say something without giving a well thought out reason as to why he feels that way.

Plus, he pointed out something I've been thinking about seattle's defense for a while. I also fell the same way about the panthers and colts secondary. They do a lot of pushing and holding all the way down the field because they know the simple truth that the refs won't call it all the time. It's like holding. It happens almost every play but doesn't get called at the same rate that it happens.

st thomas

its ashamed that a playoff game has to come down to how many calls a phreaking ref calls.

Beastmode

I can fix this; Severe penalty after the 2nd PI call. Third one is a automatic 20 yd penalty. After that ejection along with the penalty and loss of TO.

Really getting tired of seeing blatant PI and the refs starring right at it. It's not just Seattle either, several teams are using this tactic. It has been out of control this season. I agree with Sherman, they don't do anything unique, just mugg receivers and climb their backs.

Schmohams

I want it to go down like the first panthers game did, The Panthers were pushing and shoving in the secondary, so our secondary clocked 'em in the mouth. Lets show the Seadderal that they wasted picks on trading for Percy Harvin and hold him to 0 catches.

SeahawkDude

Dilfer is a confirmed Seahawk hater. Take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Utah_Saint

Dilfer was one of the few that predicted the Saints would beat the Colts in the Super Bowl.

JayHawk777

Today's NFL is so soft anyway that some CB physical play
against WR's should be condoned.

To think the Hawks hold on every play as ya'll assume is a
bit ridiculous.

A big difference between the teams is the physical play
vs the finesse play which was shown in the Dec 2nd game.

WHODATINCA

Whatev, we jus' gonna have to go all grabby hands, too. Fire with fire. Let 'em play.