Well, the game didn't exactly pan out as I had imagined. But after sleeping on it and letting my blood pressure calm down a little I realized one thing: We're gonna win a lot of football games. In the end it just came down to mistakes. We made more than they did, and when you're playing a football team as good as Green Bay, it doesn't matter whether or not you accumulated almost 500 yards of offense.
It really came down to three plays:
1. Colston fumble. Second play of the game and we hand them back the ball with a short field. Not good. Instead of tying it at 7, we're immediately down 14-0. Different ballgame from there on out.
2. 108-yard Kickoff return. I thought with the new kickoff rule we would never see another kickoff return. Well, leave it to the Saints to allow the second longest kickoff return in NFL history. Not good.
3. Fourth and inches. I completely agree that we should have gone for it. But this was 4th and inches. Not 4th and a yard. Inches, and we roll out with Brees.
If you take away just one of those plays we probably win. Just goes to show you cannot make mistakes and expect to win in the NFL.
THE GOOD:
- Drew Brees throws for 419 yards, 3 TD's, 0 INT. You can lose with those kind of numbers?
- 27 first downs. Our offense rolled.
- Darren Sproles is already better than Reggie Bush ever was. He racked up 250 yards of offense last night. Two hundred and fifty. That is about what Reggie used to get in a season. I never want to hear the argument again, "but defenses had to plan for Bush- he was a major decoy." Hmmm...what do I want? Decoy, or producer? Shut up. [side note: I like Reggie as a person. He really helped out the city of New Orleans and he was willing to take a major pay cut to stay here. And he's cute. He just never really figured out the running back thing.]
- Our defense held Rodgers and that potent offense to 7 points in the second half.
- Pierre Thomas looked back to form. Too bad he didn't get the last goal line run.
- Lance Moore was out.
- Jimmy Graham. Top 5 tight end. Period.
- Our can do attitude. No matter how bad it got we were always in the game. For a lot of teams that game would have been a complete blowout.
THE BAD:
- Tackling. Are you kidding me? Both defense and special teams better learn how to tackle, and fast.
- Absolutely no pressure on Rodgers. What was that defensive scheme? How many times did we rush 3 and get absolutely NO pressure? I could have sat back there and completed a pass with that time. Stupid. And as my good friend Austin put it: Has Cam Jordon even sniffed a fart yet?
- Fourth and INCHES and we are rolling out with Drew Brees? Dumb. Fall forward and get a first down.
- Special teams. Eight yards deep in the end zone and we can't tackle him.
- 1 out of 5. That was our TD efficiency in the red zone. Surprising, but true. Just think if we were 4/5.
- Tackling.
One thing is for sure though: Aaron Rodgers is the real deal. His accuracy and arm strength are insane. There were plenty of instances where we had perfect coverage. Unfortunately the perfect back shoulder pass is indefensible. I finally see what all the hype is about. He's right up there with Brees, Brady, and the former Peyton Manning.
In short, it was just the Packer's night. Every time we came up with a stop and seemed to be catching up they'd have a freak play to bust it wide open again. It's a shame when you can point to a number of plays that lost the game. But oh well, that's football. The good news is we will win a ton of games this year. The Saints will be alright. I'm just not looking forward to going back to Green Bay when it's -10 degrees outside.
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.
