SmashMouth

Here's the scary thing about the New Orleans Saints.

A quarter of the way through the 2018 season, they haven't come close to playing their best football, are still trying to find their identity on offense and defense and appear to be operating at about 60 percent efficiency.

And yet despite all of these things, they will enter the month of October with the second-best record in the NFC and alone in first place in the NFC South Division.

The Saints recorded their third consecutive win Sunday (Sept. 30) in a methodical 33-18 drubbing of the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium.

It wasn't the prettiest or most dominant performance. At times, it was difficult to watch. The Saints converted just five of 13 third downs and were only 2 of 6 in the red zone. They committed untimely penalties and allowed Eli Manning to complete 31 of 41 passes for 255 yards and a touchdown.

And yet they still managed to control both lines of scrimmage and finish with an authoritative fourth quarter.



"I thought we played one of our better complementary games," Saints head coach Sean Payton said. "It was a good team win."

These Saints are far from dominant. Not a single aspect of their play is particularly consistent right now other than Drew Brees' passing and Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas' playmaking.

They don't rush the passer or cover opposing receivers all that well and their rushing attack comes and goes. They commit a lot of maddening penalties and can often make pedestrian opposing quarterbacks look like future Hall of Famers.

But they somehow keep finding ways to win football games.

They won an offensive shootout in Atlanta on the strength of Brees' brilliance. On Sunday, they leaned on a stout defense and powerful ground game to dismantle the Giants. It was the second time in three weeks that they had held an opponent to 18 points.

"Teams that find ways to win are hard to beat," former Saints tackle Zach Strief said shortly after leaving the radio play-by-play booth.

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