The Saints 42-17 victory over the Vikings last week was second only to their 62-7 thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts when it comes to beat-downs. \u00a0Despite two early turnovers, the Saints led the Vikings 21-13 by half and punished them throughout the second half, scoring at will. \u00a0Here’s the lowdown on how the various Saints units played.<\/p>\n
Saints Passing Offense: \u00a0A+<\/strong><\/p>\n The chorus reminding us of how the 2011 Saints offense resembles the 2009 offense is starting to no longer ring true: this unit is just simply better. \u00a0Drew Brees continued his record-breaking season, throwing for a ridiculous 412 yards and five touchdowns.<\/p>\n Lance Moore caught two touchdown passes and Jimmy Graham and Marques Colston caught seven and eight passes respectively as the Saints passing game decimated the Vikings defense.<\/p>\n Rushing Offense A-<\/strong><\/p>\n The Saints running offense had another fine day, gaining 161 yards on 38 carries for an average carry of 4.2 yards. \u00a0With Mark Ingram sitting out again because of a toe injury, Chris Ivory stepped up to lead the way with 74 yards on 18 carries. \u00a0Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles also chipped in with 8 carries each, with Thomas netting the sole running touchdown of the day.<\/p>\n Passing Defense : A-<\/strong><\/p>\n The Saints harassed Vikings rookie QB Christian Ponder throughout the day, leading to him only completing 14 of 31 passes for 120 yards and an interception. \u00a0Ponder was constantly under pressure and was sacked 4 times. \u00a0The Saints covered well down the field, especially when preventing big plays; Minnesotta’s longest pass play of the day was 16 yards.<\/p>\n Rushing Defense: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n The Saints held all-pro running back Adrian Peterson in check, limiting him to only 60 yards on ten carries, 39 of which came on one run. \u00a0The only weak spot was a few scrambles from Ponder in which the defense seemed a bit aloof.<\/p>\n Special Teams: B<\/strong><\/p>\n Considering the Saints were ahead and heavily-favored, it’s hard to understand Sean Payton’s decision to go for a second-quarter onside kick, that, though well executed, wasn’t recovered.<\/p>\n Saints kicker Jon Carney had an uncharacteristic miss, though he did nail six extra points, and punter Thomas Moorestead saw little action, only punting once.<\/p>\n Darren Sproles had a few decent returns, but nothing spectacular.<\/p>\n Coaching: A<\/strong><\/p>\n It was another statement victory for the Saints. \u00a0The offense played spectacular, the defense held its own, and the Saints appear to be truly in the zone heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Saints 42-17 victory over the Vikings last week was second only to their 62-7 thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts when it comes to beat-downs. \u00a0Despite two early turnovers, the Saints led the Vikings 21-13 by half and punished them throughout the second half, scoring at will. \u00a0Here’s the lowdown on how the various Saints […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pelicansreport.com\/saints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}