SmashMouth

The New Orleans Saints (5-1) overcame a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Baltimore Ravens, 24-23, on Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium.

The Saints are now on a five-game winning streak, but this might be the most impressive victory of the season as they scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter against the NFL's No. 1 ranked defense. Heading into Sunday's game, Baltimore had not allowed a touchdown in the second half this season, but the Saints offense proved how lethal it can be.



The Saints almost let the game slip away at the end, but they were lucky Ravens kicker Justin Tucker missed an extra point after John Brown caught a 14-yard touchdown with just 24 seconds remaining.

Here are some highlights from the game:

What went right: Drew Brees had an incredible game. It was great game for Brees statistically as he was 21 of 28 for 208 yards with two touchdowns with a 119.3 passer rating.

More impressive, though, was the way Brees made some of his plays as he evaded what looked like sure sacks multiple times.

The Saints defense also played much better in the second half, until the last drive.

What went wrong: The Saints' first possession was one of the history books, but not in a good way. It was an impressive drive up until the end, featuring a fake punt and two other fourth-down conversions. Then, on their fourth attempt at a fourth down, a fourth-and-1 at the Baltimore 4, the Saints didn't convert as Taysom Hill's attempted pitch to Alvin Kamara resulted in a fumble that Baltimore recovered. The end result was a 20-play, 69-yard drive with no points. This was just the second time in the Drew Brees and Sean Payton era the Saints had a drive of 20-plus plays.

One consistent problem in the first half for the Saints was the coverage by cornerback Ken Crawley, who had issues against Ravens receiver John Brown throughout the game. Brown had five catches for 103 yards at halftime. Crawley and the Saints did a better job locking down the back end in the second half.

Thomas had two uncharacteristic drops, and the run game mostly struggled as New Orleans averaged just 3.4 yards per carry.

Player of the game: Drew Brees

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SmashMouth

Hard loss for the Ravens kicker... but it is what it is. The Saints have been there before.

spkb25

still haven't got over it

ChrisXVI

Via PFF:

Terron Armstead thoroughly handled the veteran Terrell Suggs in this one. The Saints left tackle didn’t allow a single pressure all day and did work on the Ravens’ linebackers in the run game.

Drew Brees outperformed his stat line in this one, as he simply wasn’t missing on his targeted passes. The Saints quarterback was accurate on 24 of his 27 targeted passes on the day.

Marshon Lattimore had easily his best game of the season, as he was targeted six times and only allowed one catch for 11 yards (although he also added a pass interference penalty). He broke up three of those six targets and could have had two picks on the day if it weren’t for drops.

David Onyemata quietly had one of the best pass-rushing days of his career. He only registered two pressures but could have had a handful more if it weren’t for Joe Flacco‘s quick release.

"When you get into one of these groups, there's only a couple of ways you can get out. One, is death; the other, is mental institutions."

gumbeau

Lattimore overplayed the under route on the last touchdown. That one is on him.

jeanpierre

No, Vonn Bell, the safety was, again, too slow to react and take the hand-off in coverage - a common theme with our safety play this year...

gumbeau

Bell was on the right hash at the snap (21 yards from the pylon, Brown was 15 yards from the same pylon) and moves right with the Tight End (Hurst), obviously shadowing the Tight End. Davis is in position to cover Hurst as well.

Lattimore dropped Brown for Hurst and Bell immediately tries to fix Lattimore's mistake but there is no way he can close the gap.

Lattimore's mistake all the way.

Unless you think the Saints design a safety to cover 21 yards in the time it takes a WR to cover 15.

rezburna

It’s Cover 2 bro. Lattimore is supposed to be in the flats. A receiver was making his way into his zone so he came up like he’s supposed to. He drifted for a little while like he should then came up when somebody came in the flats. That was all on Bell. He got caught trying to watch the QB eyes. Nobody was coming up the seams to hold him at the hash for that long.

foreverfan

If he wouldn't have their TE would have got the 1st down. The LB should have rolled with the TE but the cover two zone had the LB not extending that far out. The safety was took far away in the cover two.

Everybody did the right thing. It was a perfect call against that defense.

K Major

Saints are a good road team .