With only two games and 18 days separating the last time these two bitter rivals played each other, the Saints travel to Atlanta to face the Falcons on Thursday Night Football tomorrow night. It’s a very short week and will be a tough challenge for New Orleans. They are coming off of one of their most disappointing losses of the season, falling to the 49ers 31-21. The loss was especially upsetting for one particular reason, among many others. While sitting back waiting for their 3:25 start, everything went the Saints’ way in the 12:00 games. Seattle, Tampa Bay, and Minnesota all lost. All New Orleans had to do was pull out a win and amazingly after an 0-4 start, the black and gold would have found themselves holding the #6 seed in the current standings. It was all for not, as the Saints’ offensive collapse doomed their hopes of putting themselves in the driver’s seat for the playoff race.
Things always get heated between the Black and Gold and the Dirty Birds.
The Saints gave up 21 points in less than four minutes in Sunday’s loss, thanks to two Drew Brees interceptions that were returned for touchdowns. After controlling the entire first half, his first pick-6 came with about a half of a minute left to go in the first half and started a 24-7 run by San Francisco for the rest of the game. The score right before halftime completely deflated the dome and gave the 49ers all of the momentum which they never did surrender. After the loss, the Saints offense dropped out of the top-5 in the NFL, now sitting at 8th. New Orleans is now 5-6 overall and 2-1 in the NFC South heading in to this week.
The Falcons are coming off of a big win in Tampa Bay on Sunday, taking down the Buccaneers 24-23. They still sit with only one loss and we don’t need to remind any Saints fan who that came courtesy of. They are 10-1 overall and also 2-1 in the NFC South. Atlanta’s defense remains middle of the road ranked 14th in the NFL. They welcomed back talented linebacker Sean Weatherspoon last week, whom missed the first meeting between these two teams. The Falcons will certainly have a lot to prove when they take the field tomorrow, as they are on a four game losing streak to the Saints, including a three game losing streak against New Orleans when playing in Atlanta. Their fans’ freshest memory of seeing the black and gold in the Georgia Dome was their epic fail on the 4th down attempt in overtime last season, which led to a 26 yard John Kasay field goal to clinch their loss.
Pass Offense
For the second time in five games, the passing offense looked uncharacteristically stagnate. Drew Brees was under lots of pressure, he couldn’t make his typical throws, and receivers seemed to have absolutely no room to breathe with defenders covering them like white on rice. Brees played his worst game of the season on Sunday while still producing mediocre numbers. He was 26/41 for 267 yards with 3 TDs and the 2 very costly INTs. His 86.1 QB rating was his lowest since their blowout loss toDenverback in October. Drew was sacked five times in the game, all of them coming in the second half. The 49ers ran stunts and twists that seemed to confuse the entire offensive line, including Drew himself, who’s one of the smartest quarter backs in the NFL. Even on the catches that receivers were able to make, they were almost always well covered. Thanks to some garbage time yards, the passing game was able to stay in the top-5 in the NFL, sitting at 5th in pass offense with 290.5 yards per game.
Atlanta’s pass defense comes in to this game ranked exactly where they were three weeks ago prior to their first match-up against New Orleans. They are 13th in the NFL and allowing 221.7 passing yards per game, which is 7 yards less than they were before Week 10. Since then, Atlanta has only made one more interception and has dropped from +8 in turnover differential to +3. Thomas DeCoud still leads the team with four interceptions, while Asante Samuel has 13 pass deflections. As he did prior to Week 10, John Abraham still leads the team in sacks with 9.0, of Atlanta’s 26 for the year.
If Atlanta is smart, they will study what San Francisco did in the second half vs. the Saints and try to emulate it as perfectly as possible. They’ll look to get after Brees and get him to the ground like the 49ers did, which will set up lots of 2nd or 3rd and longs, making the Saints offense much more predictable. The huge part of New Orleans’ three game winning streak prior to last week’s loss, was the success of the running game. When teams sack Brees and drop the Saints in to long yardage conversion attempts, they become one-dimensional.
New Orleans will need to do the opposite. They will need to stay out of long yardages and get back to running the football. They had some early success running the ball in the first half vs.San Francisco, but the quick 21 points and 14 point deficit caused them to get away from the ground game. They’ll also look to sure up their pass protection, even though Atlanta does not have anywhere near the pass rushers that San Francisco has. The Falcons were only able to get to Brees one time the last time they played and it was only for a loss of three yards. Look for Drew to get back on track, as he is always his biggest critic and he knows that he quite possibly cost the Saints the game last week. He’ll be looking to bounce back and there’s no better team to take out frustrations on, than the Falcons.
Rush Offense
It was a tale of two halves for the Saints rushing attack on Sunday afternoon. In the first half, they ran the ball twelve times, but only attempted seven runs in the second half thanks to the deficit. Chris Ivory looked good, averaging 4.3 yards per carry on his eight runs, but Mark Ingram was struggling as he did early in the season. He was only able to muster 2.7 yards per carry on his ten attempts. The rushing offense sits at 27th in the NFL, gaining 91.5 yards per game.
The Falcons have done a poor job stopping the run and the Saints took advantage of that last time. They are ranked 22nd in the NFL in rush defense, giving up 123.2 yards per game. That’s only two spots higher and five yards less than what they were before the Week 10 match-up. The Saints running backs ran the ball for 149 yards on the Falcons last time, led by Chris Ivory and his unbelievable 56 yard touchdown run.
Expect the Saints to get back to running the ball this week. Joe Vitt summed up things perfectly earlier this week, when he discussed how the Saints would prepare coming in to a short week vs. an opponent whom each team knows each other very well. Basically, he said that with the condensed week of preparation, along with the teams’ familiarality with one another, it will come down to execution. Don’t expect much razzle dazzle or anything new that you haven’t seen from the offense already, because there was no time for New Orleans to put that together this week. They’ll try and get back to their rushing success, which will help keep the pressure off of Drew Brees so we don’t see a repeat of last week.
Players to Watch
Drew Brees
While Drew has made his way on to this list more than anyone else, it’s usually been for a good reason. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this week. He is coming off of, in my opinion, his worst performance of the season and one of the worst in his career in black and gold. His decision making was terrible, his throws were off, and his mind just didn’t seem like it was focused on the game. Thankfully, that’s 100% uncharacteristic of Brees and we can comfortably assume we won’t see that happen again for a while. Drew will refocus himself this week and come out ready to go tomorrow night. Look for his quick decision making, crisp throws, and tremendous leadership to be on display when the Saints need it the most.
Mark Ingram
It was kind of a toss up between Ingram and Ivory, but the reason I selected Ingram is because I believe he has a higher ceiling and a lower floor. Essentially, I can see him having a bigger game than Ivory, but I could also see him having a worse game. Ivory has been pretty consistent, gaining around 40-60 yards and between a 3.5-4.5 yards per carry average. Ingram has the ability to get near 80 yards on any night, but he could also come out like he did last week and fizzle to a 2.7 yards per carry average. Of course, I believe that situational play calling plays a huge factor in Ingram’s production, but I have a feeling he has one of his good weeks and gets rolling this week. The Falcons rush defense is very susceptible to the run and Ingram has the talent to get in a groove and gash them.
Jimmy Graham
If you watched these teams’ Week 10 game, then this comes as no surprise. Graham torched the Falcons, hauling in 7 catches for a career high 146 yards and 2 TDs. Atlanta’s best linebacker Sean Weatherspoon will be playing this go-round and may have the duty of covering Graham at times, but it still doesn’t mater. He’s just that good. Drew will look for him early and often and rely on him during crunch time in what will be the Saints’ most important game of the season.
Prediction
I’ve been back and forth on this all week. While the Saints have been dominant in this series since 2006, their performance last week truly scares me. The defense, which seemed to be improving, had tons of trouble stopping a second year quarter back making his first ever road start. His first ever road start was in the Superdome AND HE MADE IT LOOK EASY! On the flip side, we still have #9 under center. I personally went to Atlanta for this game last season and watched the better team win the game. Even with a five game separation in the standings, we are talking about one game and the separation in the standings for that one game between these two teams is one and it’s in favor of the black and gold. My belief all along was that going in to last week,New Orleans needed to win two out of their next three games to make the playoffs. Well, they used up their loss early, so the five game winning streak to make a playoff run begins now and I think it can happen.
Saints – 34
Falcons – 30
Who Dat?!
