Vrillon82

2011 was also another year where it came down to 1 play. Had they beaten San Fran they would of certainly beat NY.

CHA_CHING

2011, 2017, 2018, take your pick.

We don't even talk about the Beastquake run anymore. God, that one was humiliating too.

SmashMouth

Can you imagine a Saints team with 4 Super Bowls? Brees with with 4 rings? Think of the conversation now of the GOAT at QB, not to mention SP..

CHA_CHING

I can't imagine it, cause those types of teams don't exist anymore. The era of NFL dynasty greatness really ended in the 90's. The Patriots are the anomaly of the NFL and even counting them, it still took them 10 whole years to get ring #4. They could've had it in 2006, 2007 and 2011, but it ended up taking them a longer period of time.

On the topic of 2011 - I never believed that team was going to win it all that year cause their defense was so god awful. I've re-watched that painful loss to the 49ers a few times, and I generally think Payton was out-coached that day.

Brees put on his best heroics trying to pull that game out with a win but failed in the end. I knew we were going to lose when the Niners ran that bootleg run play with Alex Smith for a 30 yard touchdown. That was straight out of Tecmo Super Bowl and was showing how awful our defense was

Sometimes I have to wonder with Payton, cause I believe he's been out-coached in most of these embarrassing playoff losses (or does something stupid like his SKOL clap on the final play vs Minnesota). Even this past year, I thought he made some questionable and weird play calls in the Eagles game that nearly cost us. The defense pulled a miracle with Lattimore's INT after the missed Lutz kick gave Philly great starting field position for a final drive. We barely scored 20 points in a game where our defense held the Eagles to below 90 yards for 3 quarters. Looking at the yards stats, you would think the Saints had scored 30+ points and destroyed them, but they didn't. They screwed around the whole game unable to push Philly off the cliff.

Even against the Rams, I felt something was off with some of the play calls and Brees didn't have a good game that day. We had a 13 point and a 10 point lead late in that game, but like the week before vs Philly, they just couldn't push them off the cliff and finish them for good.

Vrillon82

Problem with that game was more the injuries the Saints had that year though. I have to go back to look at the injury report but I think we had to sign a RB off the street, I think our starting TE was out as well, we were in bad shape entering that game. 2011 was the best team we fielded IMO and should have been in the SB. Something about the old NFC Western division rivals where the Saints cannot beat them. We have lost to all those teams in the playoffs with exception of Rams in 2000.