Bobby: Saints won it in the trenches!

When you look at the goal-line stand, and how they closed out this game...How ‘bout them Saints?  Hell yeah!  Let me tell you what, the Saints are getting ready to get on a roll, and they're already on a roll when it comes to crunch-time.  They've now won 13 in a row in the month of November.  They've won 11 of 13 games the last four meetings with the Dirty Birds.  So Atlanta fans can talk smack, but the Saints have been putting a whooping on the Falcons as of late.

 

When you look at this one stat, I think it's so important:  The Saints have committed to the run!  When you look at what is all said and done, it makes the difference in the game. 

 

And I have to give props out to our defense.  Before the ATL game, we were giving up 176 yards a game rushing, which was dead-last in the league.  Our defense only gave up 46 yards rushing. 46 yards!  And then on the flip-side, we get 148 yards rushing.  When the Saints have 120 yards or more rushing under Payton, they're 33-2.  So, wouldn't you say, 'Hey, let's rush for 120 yards per game,' and we'll win!

 

A lot of these Atlanta people were coming to New Orleans, and they were ready to torment us...but that wasn't the case!  It's more, "what have you done for me lately?"  If you look at who the Falcons beat, they were beating the bottom-end of the NFL teams.

So, bottom line, if you look at Matt Ryan...They've got a great QB, we've got a great QB.  Ryan is a franchise quarterback, but Drew Brees is a franchise by himself.  Ryan had his first 400-yard game, the first time, but guess what?  It's a LOSS.  Matt Ryan had a QB rating of 100.7.  You know what his record was before today when he had a QB rating above 100?  15-0...Well, now, he's 15-1!

 

So all these things the Falcons were doing didn't matter.  It was on the line of scrimmage and in the trenches, how we ran the ball compared to them. When all is said and done, they had 16 rushing attempts...whereas the Saints had 29.  And in the turnover ratio, we ended up at zero, both on the game and the season.  
 

This is going to be critical going forward: If we end up on that plus side of the turnover battle, I truly believe we're going to win it.  The year we won the Super Bowl, that was the only year we were on the plus side in the turnover ratio. 

 

You know who turned it around when we were down by 10? Chris Ivory!  That was a top-5 run in Saints history!  The timing of that run, to me, man, one of the best runs in team history.  Perfect.  You look at what was on the table right then, and how we needed something to change that momentum, to get the crowd back into the game...from that Ivory run onward, it was all good.

 

Another time I was concerned:  It felt like deja-vu, where we had an 11-point lead, and I was like, "Don't let this be another KC Chiefs game!"  But, no, it was very fitting for our team to have a goal-line stand at the end of the game. 

 

Looking ahead, the Saints are not intimidated by the Raiders.  Look at when the Saints have gone to Oakland, we've crushed the Raiders!  I know it's cliche', but you got to take it one game at a time.  

I think it might truly take 10 wins…so I hope we keep that streak going in November, and maybe make it 14 in a row!  WHO DAT! 

Photo by Chris Bennett