USA Today/Saints Wire: Can the Saints handle the burden of high expectations?
 

Re: USA Today/Saints Wire: Can the Saints handle the burden of high expectations?
 

The defense started strong and the offense was alright until Drew went down. Our defense finally wore down late in the game. Without Drew the game plan changed. It's hard to beat the Rams when your starting QB goes down. We are not the Patriots and don't have Jimmy G in the house.

Re: USA Today/Saints Wire: Can the Saints handle the burden of high expectations?
 

As I said yesterday; the Patriots have and had more depth on offense on than we do.

The team that Jimmy G started on still had a healthy Gronk, Amendola, Edleman and James White. They were loaded with weapons.

All we've got is Kamara and Michael Thomas. Cook was a non-factor yesterday and while I like Murray, it didn't matter since our run game was completely shut down.

It also help that New England is just much better coached than we've ever been. You don't see them committing a bunch of boneheaded offensive penalties with false starts and illegal formations.

The defense is not going to be bail us out of games like they did at the end of last year. Not having Rankins there and losing Okafor has been a big blow. I think the secondary is the biggest issue though. The Rams were torching them when Goff was protected.

Re: USA Today/Saints Wire: Can the Saints handle the burden of high expectations?
 

Actually even with Drew the offense wasnt good...it wasnt good at all. Dropped passes, poor blocking by the o line, and virtually no running game.

The offense has been geared to Brees but now we will need to open it up and get more deep routes going to give TB or Hill some space. Brees had timing and killer accuracy, something that neither of our backups have. The line, WRs, Cook, and AK/LM are going to have to step up big time for us to have a shot at the playoffs.