In a playoff clinching performance the Saints travelled to Nashville and defeated a fine Tennessee Titan defense, an opportunistic offense, and another over-zealous officiating crew in moving to 10-3 with their 5th straight win.
Wait – it’s not just me that thought the game was horribly ref’d:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Adventures-in-Officiating-Do-some-refs-care-mor?urn=nfl-wp13646
In the midst of the endless parade of flags, the Saints continued their balanced attack. That’s the good news. My theory is that if they make it to the NFC Championship game, almost surely at Lambeau Field, they will have to run the ball, control the clock, and still have some aerial success to beat the Packers.
The bad news is that they will have to score more than they did against the Titans.
The defense played well, coming up with enough big plays to win. Amazingly Drew Brees stretched his streak of games with a touchdown pass to 40, second only to Johnny Unitas. His two TD passes to Marques Colston in the 4th quarter brought the Saints back from a 10-9 deficit. Chris Ivory filled the Mark Ingram role (or is Ingram filling the Ivory role?) smashing the ball into the line on numerous occasions. Pierre Thomas played his usual steady game and Darren Sproles had a spectacular punt return called back by a phantom holding car.
So now they travel to Minnesota where the Vikings have lost close games all year. With the rest of their games in doors, the Saints offense should flourish.
Around the League:
The Cardinals helped the Saints out by stunning the San Francisco 49’ers who are returning to earth, and will hopefully continue to slide so the Saints can overtake them for the second seed in the NFC. The Tebow Juggernaut continues in Denver in concert with a terrific defense. My Super Bowl AFC pick, the Houston Texans, are down to their 3rd quarterback and hanging on. In Dallas Jerry Jones has figured out everything about the NFL except the head-coach-hiring part. Good news Jerry, Norv Turner should be available soon and you should scoop him up. The Bears are doing a Dallas-like implosion and the Falcons and Giants look destined for the playoffs. The Patriots, Steelers, and Ravens are sure playoff bets. In other words, not much has changed lately in the NFL, except the officiating.
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