NEW ORLEANS—Three observations from watching the New Orleans Saints defeat the Detroit Lions 45-28 in front of a raucous home crowd to advance to the divisional playoff round on the road in San Francisco next week:
The only thing stopping the Saints’ offense at the moment is the Saints’ offense
New Orleans didn’t need to punt once on Saturday night, and the two times it booted the ball away via fumbles, Detroit couldn’t capitalize with much-needed first-half points on either rare occasion.
The Saints, with Sean Payton and Drew Brees, have all three levels of their offense working.
When the Lions played the deep ball well, the Saints simply had their backs hew up yards in the wide open spaces underneath.
"We saw a defense that was very, very patient," coach Sean Payton said. "Sometimes that can be frustrating, but they sat in coverage and periodically would break that shell.
When the Lions were lulled into closing in on the rushing damage of Pierre Thomas, Darren Sproles and Chris Ivory, Brees’ eyes lit up in seeing easy downfield opportunities to speedsters Devery Henderson and Robert Meachem.
"The big plays in the second half really helped us," Payton said.
As usual, a big factor in opening up both the short and long was uncoverable tight end Jimmy Graham occupying the attention of linebackers and safeties in the middle of the field. The Lions played “pick your poison,” but somehow swallowed every pill as the Saints posted a playoff record 626 yards of total offense.
In the modern pass-happy era, because New Orleans also excels at rushing the ball, we’ve never seen an NFL team move the ball quite like this.
Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-01-07/saints-beat-lions-drew-brees-matthew-stafford-passing-yards-darren-sproles#ixzz1iqnsBJTJ
