There’s no place like home.
When your team’s home is the Superdome and your team is the Saints it
becomes the Bermuda Triangle. Sunday for
example, when I walked in I was 65 years old and I walked out 68.
Yea, the Saints insist on taking years off
your life. They won their Divisional
Round playoff game over the Eagles 20-14, but only after taking a standing 8
count.
Just for fun….Brees throws an interception on the Saints
first play. The Saints play the first
quarter like they are still on their bye week.
With 4 minutes to go in the first quarter, the Eagles had scored 14
points, and the Saints had not gained a single yard yet. I was aging rapidly.
With the Eagles driving again, pointing to a third score,
Marshon Lattimore intercepted Nick Folse and the offense began to find their
sea legs, but it took two gutsy 4th down calls by Sean Payton to get
them back in the game. First there was a
fake punt deep in his own territory.
Taysom Hill picked up the first down.
Then, the drive culminated with a 4th down 2 yard pass from
Brees to Kirkwood.
It was about this time that the crowd took over. The Eagles couldn’t know it, but they were
not going to light the scoreboard again.
The deafening roar fired up the Saints defense and injected just enough
uncertainty into the Eagles’ minds that their confidence diminished along with
their execution.
The Saints added a field goal before the half after a nifty
two minute drive and when the Saints went to the locker room at halftime down
just 14-10 the color was beginning to return to the faces of the Saints
faithful. It could have been so much
worse
The third quarter saw the Saints launch an epic 11 minute
drive, the longest in post season history.
On the stat sheet it will say 92 yard drive, but with penalties,
including a called back touchdown pass from Hill to Kamara, it covered at least
150 yards. It was epic and it’s a drive
that will live in Saints lore forever, no matter how the rest of the
post-season goes. It mostly featured
All-Pro wide receiver Mike Thomas making clutch catch after clutch catch,
including many long third down conversions and the finishing touchdown pass.
The Saints added another field goal to take a 20-14
lead. The Saints drove down trying to
desperately add a field goal to ice the game, but a great play by Michael
Bennett of the Eagles tackling Kamara pushed the Saints back to where Lutz
would miss a 52 yard field goal and set the Eagles up with a chance to win it
with their last drive. The Saints had
dominated the second half, just like they had last year in Minnesota. That last play disaster was inching into our
minds.
But a Folse fastball went through Alshon Jeffries’ hands and
right into the waiting arms of Lattimore, for his second interception of the
game. The Saints picked up a first down
to put the game away.
There are a couple of key points. It must be said that Sean Payton has the
Eagles in his back pocket. This was his
third playoff win against them, starting with the 2009 season when the Saints
beat the Eagles before losing to the Bears in their first trip to the NFC
Championship. His experience on the
Giants and Cowboys coaching staffs meant he knew those old Eagles very
well. (I would also say the Payton struggles with the Cowboys and Rams
since he came to New Orleans, not the most reassuring thing I could say going
into next week.)
So what will happen next weekend when the Rams come to play
in only the 2nd NFC Championship ever in New Orleans? Two injuries are key. The Rams have lost Cooper Kupp, a great
receiver. The Saints lost Sheldon
Rankins in this game to an Achilles tear.
The Rams pounded the Cowboys with their running game, so I’ll be
watching the middle of the Saints defense, to see if they can hold up. It will be another barn burner, the kind that
takes years off your life.
The Super Bowl teams will be determined next week. Will it be the Young Gun Quarterbacks, or the
Old Guard Quarterbacks, or some combination facing off in The Big Game? All I know is I’m not getting any younger.
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