Saints outgun the Cardinals in a 48-41 shootout

The Saints came up two weeks and a Dollar short on the offensive side of the ball as the hung 48 points on the Cardinals defense. Two weeks after laying eggs against the Lions and the Buccaneers the Saints dominated a Cardinals defense that is better than either unit. This is yet another case of this year’s Saints being inconsistent. Still a win is a win and there are plenty of positives (and negatives) we can take away from this game.

The Saints have struggled with consistency as a team more than anything else this year. Every unit, every position, every area of the team has struggled over the course of the season and they have VERY rarely all been on the same page at the same time. The Saints secondary was lit on fire by Carson Palmer all day, and while the run defense was solid in the first half the defense as a whole totally collapsed in the second half. The Same defense that held down the Bucs to 16 points last week gave up 34 to the Cardinals (7 was a fumble returned for a TD), now the Bucs are a mediocre offense at best…but the performance gap between the two weeks is much more on the Saints total lack of consistency than the difference in opponent.

The Saints offense may very well have responded to the yearly ‘splash’ reports about Sean Payton being traded, they may have rallied around Drew who was quietly awful the last two weeks, but in my opinion the reawakening of the offense and the passing game was largely due to the offensive line not being terrible all game. The last two weeks they were physically dominated throughout the game and this caused a lot of problems for the Saints. The line playing better also contributed to the Saints having a functional running game this week which helped setup play action passes and to keep the Cardinals honest on defense. The balance truthers will be out en masse this week, but there is credence to complimentary football being best. What fails to be acknowledged at times is that running for the sake of running doesn’t bring you anything, but running EFFECTIVELY makes all the difference in the world. The Saints offensive line has been as inconsistent as any other part of the team this year, but when they can create lanes the Saints offense has looked great.

Observations:

• Brandin Cooks has been knocked for his road performances of the last couple of years, and some of that has been absolutely warranted. He responded today with a pair of huge TD’s en route to a 7 catch 186 performance. I’m not a huge fan of his outburst, or his agent/friends leaking it to the media in the first place, but he’s produced which is the only acceptable way to respond to the criticism he brought on himself.
• Mark Ingram threw an absolute temper tantrum late in the game as Tim Hightower got a late game goal line carry that put the Saints up 2 TD’s. Presumably Ingram was infuriated because he got passed up for getting the carries after picking up the first down that got them in position for it.
• The Saints did a lot of yelling at each other today, and that isn’t totally surprising from a losing team. The one difference for me is that Mark is a productive veteran so him losing his mind can be attributed to passion…B.W. Webb is a walking mistake factory so he can be quiet.
• The Saints have no starting caliber corners. None. Atlanta is going to score 700 on us.
• Nick Fairley continues to be a playmaker for the team, and I continue to advocate locking him up with an extension as soon as the season ends.
• The Saints defense showed the same issues they have all year: Their corners are poor, they are slow on the edges, and there is an abyss of mediocrity opposite Cam Jordan.
• The Special teams is still terrible and embarrassing. There were no disasters today, but the coverage, tackling, and performance in general was still awful.