There's no question that the years under coach Payton in which we've done really well, we have had a fast start and put the pedal to the floor and never really let up. 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, were all fast starts where we were a hot team racking up wins right out the gate. The years where it's a slow start, battling above .500, win one, lose one, win one, lose one, just barely eking it out....those years hardly ever seem to end well for us late in the year.

The exception to this rule is probably last year, where things really didn't seem to start coming together for us until maybe the end of the Browns game, or somewhere thereabouts. But the defense and the offense just kept getting better and better, as things started clicking and the year went on. There were games that didn't look good, but Drew had his Drew face on and Sheldon Rankins danced the robot....even the games we lost, people kinda forget how close and "in it" we always were.

It's kinda agonizing to admit it, but you could almost say that literally the ONLY thing that has kept us out of appearing in the Super Bowl the past TWO FREAKING YEARS IN A ROW, has been two absolute freak, fluke plays, in critical playoff games, one of which wasn't even our fault.

The odds of it happening a third time? I honestly think that the more times that this crazy fluke stuff in Minny and against the Rams has already happened to us, the less likely it is for something absolutely crazy and random to happen to us AGAIN, the next time. The odds have to go down. You can't keep losing on one-in-a-million plays. If we keep trying, then eventually we will have a normal Saints game in the playoffs and really make some history.

No worries ....

4-0 to start the season

The playoffs the last two years will not happen again for us. This is our year. It hurts to know we should have 3 Superbowl Rings and only have one but I am thankful for that one. It's vindication for the years of the Aints!

We will start 19 & Eaux for the season !

No, both were on us because we should've blown those teams away, especially the Rams - when Goff was clearly choking early on, we settled for Field Goals instead of pounding Ingram right down there throats...

Never let it come down to fluke plays...

This.

No game like that comes down to just one play.

I am really sick to death of hearing about the non-call. We have begun to sound like Vikings fans who blame the entire 1998 NFC title game loss on Gary Anderson's missed field goal. Cause it was totally Anderson's fault that Minnesota's defense couldn't do anything to stop Jamal Anderson in that game. And it was also totally his fault that they won the coin toss in OT and immediately turned the ball over. Our loss isn't that different - we also won the coin toss in OT and immediately threw a pick.

We led 13-0 and 20-10 and couldn't close the door on them. IMO the game was lost in the 4th quarter when we didn't have another positive net play after our last TD. Brees' miracle bomb to Ginn was the last positive play of the entire game, and that pass could've easily been intercepted. I've seen people on other sites talk about the non-call possibly being an interception if the DB would've watched the ball instead of shoving Lewis down.

Of the 4 teams in the conference title games, we had the worst offensive production in the playoffs of all of them. Our offensive numbers tanked for the year after the Dallas game and it was clearly obvious that something was wrong.

I said it on here a few months ago that everyone overlooked how bad we played against the Eagles and I didn't think Payton called a good game that night (bad play calling the entire first half and then forcing Lutz to kick way out of his range at the end). We screwed around that entire game and the defense really bailed us out by shutting Philly down for 3 quarters. We could've been one and done last year if Jeffrey don't drop that ball.

Something went wrong for us with the Cowboys game and we never fixed our offense, that's just the truth of 2018 at the end of the day. I knew we were in trouble after the Steelers game and the NFC title game went eerily similar to that (offense unable to do much in the second half, relying entirely on the defense to bail them out).


Seeing other seasons brought up here, I think there are huge differences and things to consider...

2017 - I spent all last off season telling people that our woes were not just the hail mary, but the fact that this offense was not equipped to get into shoot out games. Go back through their games and you'll see the offense relied on a Smashmouth style approach of pounding the ball and we relied on big plays (Ted Ginn ended the season ranked in the top 3 for deep ball percentage completion despite only having 4 TDs). In all of our losses, we failed to go back and forth scoring and would struggle to move down the field. There were so many times Brees would roll around looking for a play and end up throwing a check down to the TE cause no one was open. Our third down percentage was bad in 2017 and it seemed to get worse after all the injuries we suffered.

Never was convinced that we would've got past Philly if the Minnesota hail mary don't happen. Injuries had really crippled us at the end of the season and it was put on full display in the final game against Tampa and then in the playoffs with the Panthers. This team had bad luck having to play back to back divisional foes (Tampa in the last week, then Carolina again) before having to play Minnesota with no rest at all.

2013 - This team was fool's gold all year and looking back at them now, it makes perfect sense why they bombed out the next year. Sure they started 5-0, but they finished the year 6-5 after that. This team drove me absolutely crazy that year, cause they averaged around 34-38 points at home, but on the road? They scored less than 21 points in 6 games. The 27 points scored in the Patriots loss was the most they put up in any road game. This was a Jekyll and Hyde team that was great at home, but mediocre on the road. The defense was never the same again after Jabari Greer's horrific injury. I think people make too much out of them playing Seattle so close in the playoffs.

2011 - Our defense was ranked in the bottom 4 and we played a cupcake schedule of teams that we were able to run scores up on and pad stats. The Saints and Packers BOTH that year played through awful defenses and both of those teams struggled on the road with bad teams (GB lost to an awful Chiefs team. We got embarrassed by the Rams, shredded by a Josh Freeman Tampa team and nearly lost to the Jake Locker Titans). Come playoff time, neither got past the divisional round. We played one top 5 defense all year (Houston) and it was in week 4 (and we needed a huge comeback to win to win that game). From October until January, they had not faced a serious defensive challenge, then slammed into a brick wall with the #1 defense in the playoffs.

I've never been 100% convinced the 2011 team was some team for a Missing Rings episode. Even if we survive the 49ers game and beat the Giants, we have a Patriots team waiting for us in the SB with a version of Brady that threw for 5,000 yards, a healthy Welker, Gronk and Hernandez. If Vernon Davis shredded us, I know the Pats 2 TE sets would've wrecked havoc on us.

No game like that comes down to just one play.

I agree 100% on other seasons but we got hosed last year. Scores go back and forth in this league every day, it’s why they play 4 quarters and is what makes the game fun to watch. It would get boring as hell if we won every game by maintaining a healthy lead all the way through. Us falling flat was within the players control, the no call wasn’t. In a fairly called game good teams find a way to win sometimes in spite of themselves. We still had chance and opportunity to win but instead it was decided by a ref.