Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I don't think the last 2 minutes could have been called any better. In the past he would have gone for points just for ego. He saw the game was won and managed the clock. No reason to throw when you don't have to. I love the way he stuck with the short passes and running game, even when the running game wasn't producing.
I hope this is a permanent adjustment. Yes we can always throw the hell out of the ball and score fast if our defense is letting us down but why if we don't have to.

Also defense still sucks. Albeit maybe a smidge improved.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Happy the vikes didn't get a TD
A win is a win, it was frustrating to watch at times but like you said we closed the game out properly

I still think we overpaid for Byrd, not really impressed with the no picks by our D at all.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I agree with you except about Byrd. Malcolm Jenkins has two picks this year including a beautiful lay out diving pick that I had the unsettling pleasure of watching a few minutes ago meanwhile ballhawking Byrd comes here and hasn't really done much.Strange coincidence .Maybe several of our defensive coaches are overpaid.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Thought our team played better after the drew slam, looked like the d finally started flying to the ball.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I gotta admit... I wanted POINTS.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

It wasn't as dominant as most of us wanted, but it was obvious we were the better team.
We still have some issues, but we're on the right track.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Just nice to get the first win of the season :-)

As the Vikings started getting the FG's and continued to nibble away at our lead, I have to admit I was thinking
"Oh no! Not again, another lose by a couple of points looks like it might be looming up".

Thankfully that didn't happen this time! Not the best game and still a lot of room for improvement but its good to get a tick in the win column.

GEAUX SAINTS!!!

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

mitch, something tells me he said it a bit different, lol

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Robinson closed the game with some beautiful runs.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Just wish we had been as aggressive during the middle of the game. Graham catches nothing but short passes and dump-offs these days. Remember when he was catching 30 yarders downfield?

I think we have a good run game, just don't want to overdo it.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Kind of hard when teams make a concerted effort to stop Grahams big catches. And the one chance he had today he dropped the ball

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

But even that was on the sideline. We are not making plays to the deep middle of the field. That's more what I was getting at.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

For whatever reason it looks like Payton is trying to get away from those long strike middle of the field passes. Could be because we lack someone to stretch the field, Bree age, Brees injury or who knows. Looks like he is trying a different approach by using short passes and a strong running game as opposed to the blow out big plays. Sometimes you want the big plays, but sometimes you want to be slow and methodical and I think we have the personal to do that. Stout running game, short passes to big guys along with some big plays from Cooks. I like the Pete Carol approach of not throwing too much unless you have to.
Once you have a comfortable enough lead there is no reason to keep throwing the ball leaving lots of time on the clock.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Byrd did cause a fumble and turnover in the first game against the falcons so he's responsible for at least one. I do agree though, that both he and vacaro can produce and we should expect more.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

On a separate note, I don't think pRob played any snaps today. At least I didn't see him on the field. Only noticed lewis, white and dixon playing CB today.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

White, Dixon, and Lewis played relatively well considering...

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Every team has issues it's just whose better at covering them up an illusion of some sort

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I don't think we can fairly assess Vaccaro and Byrds worth on these past 3 games. Even an all pro backfield will look like **** if the guys up front aren't doing their job. People forget that an offensive player has to go through two lines of defense before they even get into the secondary. Crappy linebacker play and a non existent pass rush does not help their cause much.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I agree with most of that. I think our linebacker play in pass coverage has been really bad and exploitable. Our linebackers are good tacklers and play the run well but they are just piss poor in pass coverage. They're slow and have bad instincts.

But one problem at a time. We corrected a lot of the CB issues today (put in dixon and white instead of pRob, shortened the amount of cushion we were giving wide outs, aggressive swats at the ball to break up pass plays instead of just trying to make the tackle after the catch, etc)

I think you'll start to see us replace some of our linebackers with the 3 safety look if that keeps up.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

We didn't get the game here in Denver but it didn't sound like we played as well as we could have. I'm happy we won. The Cowboys are playing better and it will be another opportunity for us to get better or not. It just seems like we don't have" it" this year.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

We as fans are spoiled.... We want the Saints to run the ball with proficency and when they do it and the game is ugly... It's on the offense... Today they did what was expected. Ugly or otherwise they won.... I think I heard 0-2 teams face something like 20.9% chance of making the playoffs... ( I could be wrong) It's got to be better than 0-3 teams... LOL. Ugly, must get better, who doesn't have to. We are not the only playoff team from last season with a 1-2 record. Today just be thankful for a back body drop Hulk Hogan slam that energized us and allowed us to go to dallas with something to play for.....

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I love the way our defense played, when you CONSIDER that we had to deal with a completely different offense that we had game planned for.

When Matt Cassel went out, I groaned, because he is hot garbage and we knew exactly what to expect from him. Bridgewater is far more unpredictable, and he can run pretty well, and we did a great job containing him and keeping the Crykings out of the endzone.

Our offense, on the other hand, was a fairly large disappointment.....

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

The is exactly what I was thinking right before I lost the stream online and the website URL started pointing to something that looked "governmental" stating the doman firstrowsports had been seized by the ICE (Homeland Security). LOL

:bugeyes:

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Yeah we will; Graham and Hill on the same side, who you going to cover?

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

You can't cover everybody though. I don't think the next time Hill lines up the other defense is going to be like "Oh crap somebody needs to get on #89!!" They've got bigger problems to worry about with Cooks and Graham, and even a slowed-down Colston will still kill a LB in coverage.

We just need to cut down on the stupid penalties. Could've easily scored 30 points in this game if not for a couple of drive-killing penalties. Very sloppy today.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

To say how quickly our offense started, Our O line got man handled after the first 2 drives

There were defenders in the backfield on most running plays and we squandered a 3rd down and manageable when brees couldn't catch lelitos snap

Sloppy performance but a win is a win, our D line needs to get after romo

We can't let him find dez Bryant deep down field

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Agreed, it's a little concerning that this team wasn't as dominant at home though. If they played this game against a more effective red zone team, do we still win?

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

I didn't like the fact that they knew we were gonna run the ball at the end

like last year, when we couldn't get a 1st down to close out a game against NE and NC

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

" We as Saints fans are spoiled "

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

No, we expect the team to play to their ability, which they have not.

Spoiled ain't got nothin to do with it.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Why didn't you like it? They knew we were gonna run and we still cranked out runs to kill the clock.

We averaged 3.4 YPC on that final 14 play, 70 yard, 7 minute drive to end the game, converting 5 first downs.

It was nothing like last year. I'm confused.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

It seems like the Saints have had a problem running out the clock since Deuce was here. It's nice to see them get the ball and keep it back for that long.

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

Dude, very true about lack of pss rush. Been terrible first 3 games, minus after the drew slam in the Vikings game, all of sudden we were getting after the qb. I am hopeful that will continue

Re: Love the way Payton finished the game
 

That last drive reminded me of the eagles game, it was basically who wants it more