Conservative playcalling from Ron and Shula cost us this game.

[PantherFanOne]

We dialed up the blltz to late  and  only sacked Brees twice and he connected on 30 of 42 passes for 313 yards and four touchdowns.  End of story.

 

[dave-o]

I didnt read the whole thread but it sure didnt seem like the coaches changed up anything after halftime... 

[davos]

Yep, the defensive game plan was poor, our receivers CANNOT get open, and Byron Bell was Byron Bell.  

 

 

[Khaki Lackey]

I think we should have used short passes to Tolbert, run Deangelo outside more and play action.

[mbarbour21]

Brees costed us this game. We hav no excuses. We can't possibly rely on 4th down conversions if we wanna go deep in the playoffs. We had 1st, 2nd, & 3rd down ALL night long. ZERO turnovers by either team. We had chances to score, we didn't. Should RBRon hav went for it? Yeh, but it shouldn't always have to come to that to win.

[OneBadCat]

Brees costed us this game. We hav no excuses. We can't possibly rely on 4th down conversions if we wanna go deep in the playoffs. We had 1st, 2nd, & 3rd down ALL night long. ZERO turnovers by either team. We had chances to score, we didn't. Should RBRon hav went for it? Yeh, but it shouldn't always have to come to that to win.

We shouldn't have to but that's what it has come down to. We don't have the talent on offense regularly convert. We have to go for it those situations. It was literally pointless to have taken that 2nd field goal.

[jtm]

No team in the NFL would have beat the Saints last night the way they played...relax, Panthers are fine.

[mav1234]

No team in the NFL would have beat the Saints last night the way they played...relax, Panthers are fine.

 

I don't agree with this at all...

 

We don't have the offense to keep up with Brees, but there are teams that do. 

[holycrikey]

Yea and all season long we have thrown underneath and its nuetered Cam in the worst way. We have no downfield passing attack anymore.

 

To be fair, Cam had his opportunities vs. NO. He had open guys long downfield and over or under threw them. He is certainly not blameless for this.

[SevenSixes]

This was a team loss and the whole team needs to be held accountable.

Each part of the team had a failure that they can work on to make this club better going forward.

 

All hope is not lost, we still have a good team that can win games and beat respectable opponents.

Nobody who comes here with any consistency should be surprised that  our secondary, OLine, and WR's need help.

 

But..

 

We have a winning team, with a winning record who is going to make the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

Finally, we have a GM that knows how to evaluate personnel and that should lead to less bad contracts and bad draft picks.

 

I for one am pretty pleased about how they have been playing and I expect them to get some much needed playoff experience in January.

[Newtcase]

Didn't read the whole thread so this may have been covered...

 

I have no issues with the first two field goals.  The first one, a sack to 4th and 11 made it a no brainer to kick the field goal.  Our defense then forces a three and out.  Another good drive by the offense ends with 4th and 6, at this point you've driven the ball with ease on two possesions and forced a 3 and out on your only defensive series.  Again, I think a field goal was the right call here.

 

Now, the third attempt is a different issue altogether.  At that point everyone knew we needed to score points, down 15 and the Saints were very likely to put more on us, which they did.  There was zero chance of winning that game with traditional decisions at that point.  Ron and the staff let us down there.  During the streak Ron made decisions to win instead of what the book would say.  In that situation he forgot what got us to 9-3.  

 

Other than that, the game plan wasn't terrible.  Plays were called that could have changed that game tremendously and just weren't executed.  We burnt downs on deep passes quite a few times and never even came close to connecting.  LaFell's drop a couple mins before the half might have been a 14 point swing.  Cam throwing high damn near every time the ball went to the end zone was a problem.  Ginn getting face mask raped on a return that would have went the distance....Not to mention that we couldn't find an answer for Brees to Colston.  If we blitzed we couldn't get there, and he beat the man to man, if played zone Colston found a place to squat and Brees beat us again.  Hey, the guy is a HOF QB, not surprising.  

 

This loss wasn't as bad as the score indicated.  We didn't execute in some key spots and we let two players, Colston and Graham beat us to death.  Last time I checked, those were two pretty damn good players as  well.  I expect a better game in Carolina.

[Jmac]

They all sucked.....both sides of the ball,....blame everyone, cut everyone, take away their lunch money.

[jtm]

I don't agree with this at all...

We don't have the offense to keep up with Brees, but there are teams that do.

Like the Patriots? Didn't we just beat them?

[panfan32]

The way I saw it was simple. The run was working early on. But we went away from it as soon as we had sucess with it. Cam has been off all season long on his deep throws. So why in the world would you try to go deep. Yes I know the Aints were without 2 of the CB's. But damn. Use the run that was working to setup the playaction pass. I watch several drive where all they did was pass.

 

If you have an aggressive defense, you use screen passes and draw plays to keep them honest. You use three step drop passing plays to get the ball out of your QB's hand fast. Not letting him sit in the pocket that is collapsing nonstop.

 

Point blank, the Dline did not do their jobs to help the secondary look better, Dont get me wrong, Ill give credit to the saints and their protection schemes. Whats sad is the kept in TE's and HB's for pass protection and still was able to hit wide open WR's all game. Brees only throws to his WR's 33% of the time. the rest of his passes have been to the HB's and TE's.

 

Saints had a great game plan for our weakness (Secondary) and exploited it all game long. Hats off to them.

 

I kept saying we were more likely to split these 2 games with them. They win at home and then we win at home.

 

 

Someone answer me this. If your not getting pressure with your front four, and your giving up plays in the air, Why then would you send your safeties and corners on a blitz to have a DE drop into coverage?