Last Saints Report - January 11, 2014

The New Orleans Saints, for the third time in the Payton/Brees era, ended their season in the Pacific time zone.  For the second time, it was a Seattle nightmare, this one ending 23 – 15.  When the Saints lost to a bad Seattle time a few years it was embarrassing.  This time it was just normal misery.

Most games are won in the trenches.  This game was won in the defensive backfield of the Seahawks.  Early, both quarterbacks struggled with the horrible weather conditions, as wind and rain pelted the field.  The Saints were down 16 – 0 after the first half, having lost the field position battle, largely due to a critical Mark Ingram fumble that led to a Seahawk touchdown.

Ah, Ingram, or as he is called by the LSU-heavy Saints fan base, “that Alabama running back.”  Ingram ran hard and well for much of the game, continuing his late-season improvement, but his mistakes were costly.  He dropped one of Brees’ few good first half passes on the first series, then with the Saints still in the game trailing just 6-0, he fumbled as he tumbled.  Perhaps next year will be a year of redemption for Ingram, perhaps because he’s with another team.  That’s a scenario that appears more likely with the emergence of Khiry Robinson, who ran hard and well in this game, and was also fortunate enough to have the Saints recover his fumble.

Unlike the last two trips to Seattle, the Saints defense played very well this time.  The defensive front came out of nowhere this year to emerge as the strong part of the unit.  Broderick Bunkley, Akeem Nicks, & John Jenkins were solid, while Cameron Jordan became a star, and Junior Galette was nearly as good.  Although statistics will show that they gave up some yardage in this game, they really controlled things pretty well, as the Seahawks punted over and over and Russell Wilson was held to 103 yards passing.

It was the Saints offense that got manhandled in this game.  New kicker Shayne Graham showed that his history of struggling in the playoffs was well deserved as he missed 2 field goals, one of which he was forced to kick square on the laces.  Look for the Saints to search high and low for a kicker in the off-season.  The misses were costly.

The Seahawks superiority in their defensive backfield was the key to this game.  We’re used to seeing Graham and Moore and Colston sit down in open spots with a DB 5 yards away.  In this game they were closely covered, and didn’t seem to make the adjustment, so ball after ball got knocked down by a DB.  The receivers aren’t used to having to come back to the ball, but they needed to in this game.  Marques Colston was the only receiver who had a decent game with 144 yards on 11 catches.  Unfortunately, he has been made the goat for his decision on the last play of the game.  After the Saints recovered an on-side kick and seemed to have a remote chance of tying the score with 13 seconds left, Colston caught a side-line pass but instead of stepping out of bounds, which would have left about 5 seconds on the clock, time enough for a hail-mary, he choose an across the field lateral to Taveris Cadet.  It appeared to me this was a designed play, and Colston was doing his job.  Several things went wrong.  First, pressure on Brees messed up the timing of the play, and Cadet got too far down-field, ahead of Colston.  This turned the attempted lateral into a forward pass, ending the game.  The other thing that was wrong with the play, was it was going nowhere, because the Seahawk defense stayed home, and had Cadet covered anyway.  Unfortunately this wasn’t Cadet’s only mistake of the game, as he too dropped a screen pass. 

Which brings me to the player who wasn’t there, Pierre Thomas.  First, he doesn’t drop screen passes.  Second, he deserves to go into the Saints Hall of Fame for just the way he picks up the blitz.  I always believe the Saints would have won the playoff game against the 49’ers in 2012 had Thomas not been knocked cold on the first drive.  I’m going to go ahead and believe he would have made a difference here as well, had he not been inactive due to a rib injury.  The Saints have some running back decisions to make in the off-season and I’m hopeful their priority is Thomas and Robinson.  While Sproles is a terrific weapon, he was not as productive this season, largely because he is just too small to break arm tackles, and the holes aren't getting any bigger.   Ingram and Cadet are going to be the decisions, I hope. 

So, there is some blame to go around in this game.   We are so spoiled by Drew Brees that when he misfires on a pass we yell at our big-screens.  For much of the game, the passing game sputtered.  But, lead by Brees, the Saints bounced back and made a game of it, faring much better than the Monday night shellacking they took in December.  The truth of the matter is this:  In the previous two season ending trips to the Pacific, once they lost to an inferior team and once to a team they were equal to.  This time they lost to a team that was slightly better than them.  I don’t mean the Seahawks would have beaten the Saints in the Superdome.  What I mean is that the Seahawks won because they earned the home field advantage, something that was in the Saints grasp but they coughed up, particularly with losses to the Jets and Rams on the road.   Most teams are built to take advantage of their home field, and the Saints are more just more pronounced in that regard.  They will be trying to remedy that in the off-season at some positions, but guess what – so will every other team in the NFL. 

I guess we can now spend 5 minutes dreaming of how good the Saints would be if they had a defensive backfield like the Seahawks.  The season-ending injuries to Safety Kenny Vaccaro (he’s going to be great), and corners Jabari Greer (he used to be great), and Patrick Robinson (I just don’t know) really proved the undoing of the Saints.  You know you’re in trouble when you’re signing DB’s off the street for the playoffs.  Oh, well, it’s a war of attrition in the NFL, and the Saints aren’t deep enough or fast enough to get back to the Super Bowl just yet.  Maybe they can remedy those deficiencies in the off season.  Let’s hope so.  Linebackers, Defensive Backs, a Left tackle, and another speedy wide receiver would be helpful, and I swear I’ll start saving for a trip to Glendale, AZ.  A Darren Sharper-type acquisition would sure help.

In conclusion, I live in Mississippi for a reason.  I remember when I was a kid, my Dad declined a transfer to move to Seattle because he didn’t like the weather there. 
I still don’t like it.