Dreamland. The Saints
dolphinated the last remaining undefeated NFL team by beating the Los Angeles
Rams 45-35 in a rocking Superdome. Make
no mistake. The Saints are only half way
through their season. My prediction of
being 8-0 at this point looked pretty stupid after that first game loss to
Tampa. But the Saints have ripped off 7
straight wins to reach the half way point at 7 – 1, and if the post-season started today they would have home field
advantage throughout the playoffs. But
that’s a long way off. Their seeding in
the playoffs may well depend on those two December games against Carolina, whom
they beat 3 times last year. NFC South is the best division in the NFL and by the team the teams get down beating on each other, they may well put 3 teams in the playoffs again. The Saints have a lot of red-hot teams in their future.
Sunday Night as I left the Superdome I marveled at what I had
witnessed:
- A Flawless Drew Brees
- The loudest crowd I've heard in years.
- Michael Thomas set the all-time single game receiving yardage record for a Saint at 211 yards, including a 72 yard ram-breaker to put the game away
- Alvin Kamara show his incredible versatility. Todd Gurley is an MVP candidate, but Kamara was better on this day.
- Mirror images on the other side of the field. With Goff and a coach named Sean, the Rams will win some Super Bowls, and yes maybe even this year. They are that good.
- Two offensive lines that dominated. I thought the key coming into the game was if the Saints could control the Ndamukong Suh/Aaron Donald line. They did.
- Defensive Secondaries struggle, but the Rams struggled a little more than the Saints.
- No Sacks. Both quarterbacks were kept clean.
- The Saints move out to an improbable 35-14 lead, only to see the Rams come back to tie. The Rams comeback foreshadows a great future.
- Amazing team speed on the Rams, especially at receiver. The Saints are thinner at wide reciever, and will need a top-notch Ted Ginn return to lock down a playoff spot.
But my overwhelming thought leaving the dome was about the thrill
of having 13 years of Drew Brees. Considering how well Drew Brees has played
during his Saints tenure, it is an amazing statement to say that he is in a
zone like we’ve never seen before.
I started writing this blog in 2006, and I’ve chronicled every game in the Brees/Payton era. Because of course, when they came to town I
knew they would be what they have become!
Ha. No, I thought they were just
another in a long history of hiring mistakes – a Saints wing and a prayer. Bad Wing on Brees, and an unknown prayer
named Sean Payton, whom I had ever heard of. On the heels of Hurricane Katrina I said “here
we go again.” Then we started 2-0 on the
road in 2006, came back and reopened the dome to Gleason’s punt block, and
Payton was coach of year as we made our first NFC Championship appearance. About a few games in I asked a friend of mine
about Brees, “did you know he was this good?”
And for 13 years, it’s been a renaissance as Brees has gotten better and
better. He’s been terrific and
consistent and will hold all the passing records when he retires. After 40 plus years of agony, the wing and
the prayer won us a Super Bowl, had some tough playoff runs, then bottomed out
with three straight 7-9 seasons. Except they didn’t fall off as much as Saints
fans are used to, like 3-13. They rotated through several defensive coordinators, survived a year with Payton suspended, then
had several good drafts, and voila, the Saints are completely rebuilt. Today, they have a great offensive line, to
protect Drew with a running game, some great skill position players, and they
are peaking again in 2018.
Drew Brees is not only the best player in Saints
history. He has been their best
citizen. His Brees Dream Foundation is a
model foundation that has made a huge impact on the community.
But we are the ones living a Brees dream. I’m a sucker of a sports fan. Oh, what I’ve spent as a sports spectator in time and money- Super
Bowls, Sugar Bowls, playoff games in every sport, even Hockey, well over 100
Saints games. But the sustained and
overlooked excellence of Drew Brees is an unrivaled thrill. The benefits of the confluence of events that
brought Brees to our region should not go unappreciated. The end is near, but it looks like it will be
a peak, not a fade.
We're living the dream. The Brees dream. I don't know how much longer this will last, but I plan on savoring every second.
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