Last Saints Blog - January 14, 2012

The New Orleans Saints still have never won a road playoff game as they lost a 36-32 thriller to the hated San Francisco 49’ers Saturday. A Saints team which could have gone down as their best ever ended their season with a premature burial when 49’er QB Alex Smith hit Vernon Davis with a touchdown pass with 9 seconds left. After a week of listening to how the Saints don’t like playing outside, or playing on grass, blah, blah, blah, we finally found out exactly what it is that they don’t like about being away from the dome – the football – it appears to be a might more slippery outside of Louisiana.

One of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is that sometimes it’s the early things that count. The Saints really lost this playoff round when they lost inexplicably to the winless Rams early in the season. Thus, they didn’t get a first round bye. Thus another west coast trip. Thus the 49’ers had a week off to heal and prepare while the Saints were in a dogfight with the Lions. Both Saturday games were won by the teams that had first round byes, miracle quarterbacks not withstanding, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens Sunday. Despite these disadvantages, hats off to the Saints for making it a barnburner.

Early Things. Last year, in a very early-season game, Garrett Hartley missed a field goal that would have beaten the Falcons. It ultimately cost the Saints the division and a first round bye, and sent them to Seattle for a playoff game, which we’d rather forget.

Moving to Saturday, no score yet, the Saints driving, and Pierre Thomas is running towards the goal line when he gets a head crushing blow at the 2 yard line and was probably out cold before he coughed up the ball. The dominoes began to fall. Instead of a 7-0 lead the Saints began stumbling and fumbling and soon found themselves down 17-0. Worse the Saints suddenly found themselves a running back short and it began to look like last year’s Seattle debacle all over again.

Without Pierre Thomas, the offense becomes predictable. Ivory goes in, he’s running the ball most of the time. Sproles in, the Saints are probably passing it. (He set a playoff record with 15 catches.) It doesn’t take a genius to figure these tendencies out, and from there on, other than maybe 37 yards rushing, it was on Brees, just like last year. He’s chunking it, and he’s chunking it under duress. In both games he did all he could do, but throwing 60+ passes rarely results in a victory. Equally apparent is that Pierre’s blocking would have reduced the duress – another domino.

With Thomas sidelined, the Saints were afraid to use Sproles on kick returns, so in goes the next domino, Courtney Roby, who hasn’t returned a kick all year, and he promptly fumbles one away. Sproles, who was otherwise electrifying, fumbles a punt himself, his first turnover of the year. Add Brees two interceptions, and you have 5 turnovers, Got to give it to the Saints, they sure don’t punt much.

Despite all these dominos, the Saints are still in it. The defense is blitzing Alex Smith, sacking him, rushing him, and holding their own while the Saints claw their way back in to the game. They hold them, kicks get fumbled, and they hold them again.

Miraculously, the Saints take their first lead 24-23 on a 44 yard Sproles catch and run for a touchdown, with just 4 minutes left. Now all the Saints defense has to do is play as well as they have all day. Except they don’t. Within two minutes the 49’ers transverse the field and take a lead 29 – 24, capped by an improbable 28 yard run by Alex Smith. That score came too quickly.

Can the Saints score again in 2 minutes? No, they score in about 30 seconds, too quickly as it turns out, when Graham makes a 66 yard circus catch and run, the Saints make a 2 point conversion and now up 3, the defense gets a second chance.
They squander it quickly when they let the 49’ers tight end Vernon Davis torch them twice, the last time with 9 seconds left for the TD that we’ll see many more times in our lifetime.

Nine seconds is not enough for even Brees to go 80 yards, and the Saints burial of a most promising season is complete.

Thus, the Saints squander the most productive offense in the history of football. Guess you need four running backs. With Ingram healthy, the Saints are better. Not because he’s a better runner than Ivory, but because he’s a better blocker and pass catcher, and the Saints are less predictable when he’s in the game. Our four headed monster if fantastic, but telegraphic in its intent. That usually doesn’t matter, but against a great defense it does.

But, the offense isn’t the problem. Brees, like last year, almost pulled off a west coast miracle. His 435 passing yards while under this duress is amazing. Like last year, the defense couldn’t come up with the stops.

The defense’s problem can be summed up in 2 words. Roman Harper. He’s a great player, but he led the team in sacks. When you can’t get pressure, or sacks, or turnovers forced, from your front seven (see 49’ers, Giants) you may have occasional success with blitzes, but in the end you’ll get burned by a Vernon Davis, or a Calvin Johnson. When your sack leader is a safety, you get an A for creativity, but a C for defense. When your defense gives up almost 300 yards passing to Alex Smith, you’ve got problems that can’t be masked anymore.

The best pass defense is a pass rush. Pass Rushing Ends, and faster linebackers are the priority going into the offseason. This is the critical time for a coaching staff. It’s time to replace some pieces that aren’t working anymore. Will they remain loyal to fading players, or cut the cord? It will tell you a lot about next year.

While we drown our sorrows for the next few months, we’ll be watching this and:
The Brees and Colston negotiations
The future of Gregg Williams
to see if there’s a Julius Peppers out there somewhere

We’ll wait til next year. Again. This time the unfulfilled promise just hurts a little more.