The Saints are nationally televised for this heart stopper of a preseason game in Indianapolis today. I say “heartstopper”, mind you, not because of the excitement level but because it’s preseason and these games are flatlines with no pulse. In fact, I’m not certain these preseason games mustered a feint pulse to begin with. So maybe the heart never stopped. Maybe it was just nothingness to begin with. Ok, this is getting weird, I’m looking for 5 things per usual:
1. Injuries
Surprise! Did I catch you off guard? If so, thanks for coming on the blog, you must be a first time visitor. Preseason = an opportunity for key players to get hurt and nothing better. If guys are going to go down, I want it to happen when it matters. That may be selfish of me, but I spend the majority of preseason games counting down the seconds until the starters call it a day.
2. Just say no to double digit penalties
Sean Payton was so pissed at his team for getting 10 penalties in the first preseason game on the road that they corrected things by giving him 22 at home. Seriously, if this wasn’t addressed ad nauseam at every practice this week – and corrected – there might be some cause for concern. I fully expect the Saints to play a much cleaner game because on the whole I believe they are extremely well coached and pretty disciplined. These issues have to be outliers. You know they put an enormous amount of emphasis on this at practice this week so if we’re not seeing fruits of that labor on the field something is wrong.
3. Shaking off rust
This one is mostly reserved for Drew Brees, who plans to play. Is he rusty? Does he look like he hasn’t missed a beat? I’m a little curious how he performs in this one given the time off. This doesn’t just apply to him, though, as Jairus Byrd, Champ Bailey, Ben Grubbs, Jahri Evans and a few other vets have missed a lot of time and will get a chance to finally get some live reps. I can’t imagine most of these guys on the mend are going to play on 4 days rest for the fourth preseason game, so this is it for them. I know the Saints will feel better if they look solid in the limited work they get.
4. Kicker, quarterback and center are still a battle
The best battles continue to be Shayne Graham vs. Derek Dimke, Ryan Griffin vs. Luke McCown and Jonathan Goodwin vs. Tim Lelito. All three feature the proven veteran against the young up and comer with potential. This is another game under the lights for these guys to make a statement. I still maintain that Graham, Griffin and Goodwin (the three G’s if you will) maintain narrow margins but anything can still happen including injury. I’ll be watching these six closer than most players. Less exciting, but I’ll also throw Greg Jones vs. Austin Johnson as another one. It’s looking more and more like Erik Lorig won’t be ready for the season opener, and if that’s the case there’s a starting job at fullback for somebody to win.
5. Does Jimmy Graham Dink or Dunk?
I feel like the Saints may actually go out of their way to make sure Graham doesn’t score in this game. If he does, though, will he really be able to refrain from dunking? You know he’s dying to. As much as the Graham talk all offseason is tired and boring, I challenge you to (ice bucket!) come up with better preseason game interest.
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