WhoDat!656

Remember this?

dizzle88

Honestly, I struggle to watch any highlights now. I used to love going back over the 40 min feature of NFL gamepass and rewatching each game. But now, with the way the season ended by the refs, I struggle to watch any highlights.

CHA_CHING

That was the game that told me we were going to have problems in the playoffs. That was the moment I hit the panic button.

Offense was dominating them in the first half, then did nothing in the second half. Whatever broke in the offense with the Dallas game, it was never fixed. They struggled against Tampa Bay and needed the defense to block a punt just to get life in them to start doing something. The Panthers game was also a nightmare how bad the offense performed, and yet this game against Pittsburgh was at home and it didn't erase our fears.

Defense had to get not one, but two 4th down stops, a turnover AND bailed us out in the end with the last turnover to seal it. The offense needed ALL of that and a tick-tacky pass interference penalty on Haden to get that last TD and just barely escape that game.

Talk about the blown call in the NFCCG all you want, but that game went eerily similar to the Steelers game, being that we blew a two possession lead and were depending on our defense to bail us out (something they had been doing every week prior to that, including against the Eagles where we just barely mustered 20 points despite dominating them statistically). We had a 13-0 and 20-10 lead against the Rams and blew it. The offense really did nothing for the rest of the game after going up 20-10. Brees' miracle bomb to Ginn was the last positive offensive play and yet that was almost an interception.

Every time I think about this game, I believe it was the moment we were doomed. The blueprint to shutting our offense down had been written. Even if we get past the Rams, I seen nothing in either playoff game that told me we would beat the Patriots. They struggled against Philly, they struggled against the Rams. The Pats would've shut our offense down and we would've sat there hoping and praying for the defense to bail us out again. I believe Brees gets us more than 3 points, but my gut has always told me the Pats probably beat us by 10 if not more.

dizzle88

Excellent post my friend.

100% why I wanted WR addressing in the draft or free agency, as soon as teams focused on Kamara and Thomas we were doomed. Kirkwood, Tre'Quan, Carr, Arnold and Lewis all failed to step up when we needed them the most.

Just goes to show how well our D played to be honest, considering the Offense just continually put them in bad spots late in the season.

Demario Davis got us the ball at the Rams 12 yard line and we finished with 3 points. In the Rams game especially we were lucky that our D played well, otherwise we wouldn't have been in that game at all considering how many times the offense stalled.

We were especially lucky that Jeffrey had a butter fingers moment, otherwise we were one and done.

Your bonehead creator picked a fine chapter to omit from your memory bank....let me ask you, does a machine like yourself ever experience fear? - Vegeta, DBZ

CHA_CHING

Thanks for the kind words, appreciate it. I tried to make posts like this on another Saints board (where I had been a member for some time) and I got banned while a bunch of angry people insisted I was trolling after I pointed out how bad the WR corps was. This was the worst WR corps in the Payton era and that's not an insult - that's judging by stats and production. I don't care that they went 13-3, it was the first time they ranked outside the top 5 on yardage stats. That is how bad we tanked after the Dallas game in offensive production. The Saints ranked 30th and 31st in offensive stats for week 11, 12 and 13 (vs Dallas, Tampa and Carolina), that is pretty damning evidence that something went wrong.

I want to go back and re-watch both our playoff games cause there is so much we missed. I 100% agree with you that we were almost one and done, and I say that from looking back at every game following the nightmare in Dallas.

Honestly, I think Payton called a bad game against the Eagles and cause we won, no one thinks about it. We came out throwing from the beginning and Brees' first pass was an interception. The defense really saved the day cause we had those early turnovers and yet they held them to 14 points. Not just that, they completely shut the Eagles offense down holding them below 80 yards for 3 quarters.... and yet the offense just barely scored 20 points. Brees was obviously struggling from the beginning and yet we ran the same game plan through the whole game. If not for the defense, we would've got blown out.

Going for the long field goal at the end of the game nearly backfired on us too. It was out of Lutz' range and I think it would've been better to punt and pin them deep. If you pull the yardage stats, we thoroughly dominated Philly yet just barely scored 20 points. That game looks like a blow out if you look at the yardage stats alone.

I 100% agree and think the defense deserves a lot of credit for last year, cause they were the MVP of the team trying to move heaven and earth to bail out the offense when they struggled at the end of the year. Against Pittsburgh, they did move heaven and earth to win that game.

This right here - if we get a TD right there, we're up 17-0 and are blowing them out.

I heard someone on the radio say a while back that it was like the Saints had them at the edge of a cliff and just couldn't push them off.

Brees also missed a wide open Ted Ginn who would've gone for a TD, instead going for a checkdown to the TE. Ginn was uncovered and that would've been the final score to seal the game.

Looking back, Brees did not play all that well in either playoff game despite racking up impressive yardage stats and completion rate. We know when Brees has shaky games and when an INT is predictable, he's a similar quarterback to Peyton Manning who had this same problem (Irony of Saints fans always calling Manning a choker is that Brees has compiled a playoff record that is similar to his with flukey losses). Brees' INT in OT reminded me of Manning's INT in OT of the 2012 playoffs vs Baltimore. It was coming and you knew it. Brees was nearly intercepted on the bomb pass to Ginn that was our last positive offensive play in the second half. The controversial non-call play too, could've been an INT.

Something broke with our offense in the Dallas game and they never recovered. I think it was because we really didn't have any other weapons beyond Kamara and Michael Thomas. Payton seemed to know this too with how he tried to kick the tires on washed up Brandon Marshall and Dez Bryant - two WRs that no one wanted and we only signed out of desperation.

I don't think we would've beat the Patriots. A lot of people got angry with me on the other Saints forum last year for constantly telling them the Patriots defense was underrated and there was statistical evidence to make a case for them having the best defense in the AFC playoffs after Baltimore went down. People wrote New England off all year long cause Brady had a down year and "the AFC East is the only reason they are good", and yet they absolutely crushed the Chargers whom people picked to upset them (The Chargers were overrated as hell last year). The Pats had the Chiefs completely shut down for the first half of the AFCCG. The Chiefs only began to move down the field after they made several adjustments for Mahomes to target other receivers. Kelce and Tyreek Hill were completely shut down in that game.

New England would've ran the same gameplan Dallas did against us (every team after week 11 ran Dallas' gameplan) and they would've had the personnel to really wreck havoc on our offense. They would've took Kamara and Michael Thomas away and tried to make Brees beat them with the cast of C grade receivers we had. We watched Brees struggle for the rest of the year after teams began doing this, so I believe we would've continued struggling.

On the other side of the ball, I think our defense would've had a big problem with New England's offensive line, which was one of the best last year. When we lost Rankins, our pass rush declined. We had 0 sacks in the playoffs. Brady also has a history of performing really well against zone defense where his QBR usually is over 100. The Pats probably would've carved us up using Gronk and Edleman up the middle routes and they would've got Sony Michel involved in screen passes. People put too much stock into the Rams holding them to 13 points. Wade Phillips has a history of giving the Pats issues. He beat them a few times in Denver and usually can hold them down below 24 points (and yet the Pats still ran all over the Rams defense that day).

Last year's team reminds me a lot of the 2014 Broncos. Denver started the year off hot and weren't bothered at all about their horrifying SB blowout loss (even going into Seattle and Manning mounting a big comeback to force OT and nearly beat them). Manning was the front runner for MVP that year too, kinda like Brees was right there with Mahomes last year. He fell off a cliff late in the season after they played the Rams in week 11 (same week we faced Dallas). Something went wrong with the Broncos offense in that game and they never recovered.

After that Rams loss was when Denver transitioned from a heavy offensive juggernaut into a team that relied on their defense to close out games. Manning's stats tanked the end of the year and Aaron Rodgers ran away with the MVP (Manning was ahead of him in every stat prior to his collapse). The Broncos limped into the playoffs and went one and done to the Colts in a game where their defense did everything trying to bail them out (getting multiple turnovers and key stops) but the offense just couldn't do anything. If you go back and watch that playoff game, the Colts would've lost if Denver's offense had woken up. That defense was playing so well in the 4th quarter, all they needed was the offense to get it together.

Our Saints did the same thing last year. Offense tanked after week 11 and the defense stepped up and began closing games out like Denver's did that year. I just hope we can be like the Broncos from 2015 and end up winning a SB with a historic defense. That's actually my dream for this year - the Saints to become a dominant defensive based team and not having to rely on their aged QB to do everything. Brees is 40 years old, we can't ask him to throw it 40-50 times a game anymore.

QBREES9

XLIV, The NFL N reaired the Super Bowl win!!!! That I love to watch.