Looking ahead!

[truck man]

Hmm, skewed stats. Let's have a discussion on skewed stats. First, it amazes me how there's a discussion taking place here about the ineffectiveness of the Saints defense as if the Falcons defense has lit the world on fire. Last time I checked, the Saints have given up a total of 694 yards of offense while the Falcons have surrendered 712 yards of offense. Seems about the same to me. An offense that looked anaemic last week managed 440 yards against the Falcons. Oh, but the Saints played the Lions last week. Yes, and gave up 231 yards. That same Lions team had 265 yards today against what is suppose to be one of the best defenses in the league--the Vikings.

Second, the Saints have given up 49 points. Very true. But in your own message, you mentioned skewed stats. Well, here it goes. The Lions scored 27 points. One came off a defensive touchdown. 20 points to go. Another touchdown came after a punt return of 43 yards inside the Saints 10. 13 points to go. 3 pionts came off an 87 yard kick return. Only 10 points came from sustained drives by the Lions. Credit the Lions for capitalizing off dumb special teams mistakes. However, the defense held them in check and forced three turnovers on the day. Also, there were times where the defense stopped the Lions only to have a penalty called that gave the Lions a new set of downs. Then, you get an obvious fumbled overturn because the forward progression of the Kevin Smith was ruled down even though no whistle had been blown.

Third, the Saints gave up 391 yards to Kevin Kolb, the Eagles third string QB. Correction Falcon fans, he's their backup QB. But that's neither here nor there. Talk about skewed stats. The guy threw the ball 51 times today. Everyone here should know that when a team is down big in a game, the opponent will play a deep zone in order to prevent any quick big plays over the top. Basically a prevent defense. Inevitably, limiting the big plays over the top that could lead to quick scores and a chance for the team that is down large to get back into the game will allow for that team to complete a lot of stuff underneath. About 180 to 200 of Kolb's yards came in the late third/fourth quarter when the Eagles were down and the Saints were allowing them to complete passes underneath. Otherwise, the Saints defense had one of the better offenses in the league in check. You can say it was Kolb, but he had a week to prepare. It is not as though he was just thrust into action. I was only upset with one play today and that was the blown coverage by Roman Harper. He took the TE inside and Desean Jackson was able to find the soft spot of the defense. Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, the Falcons were playing against Jake Delhomme today. He's hardly a prolific passer. Yet his career sort of rebounded today as he was able to throw for 308 yards in a game where the Falcons were not up so big that his yards came in garbage time.

The Saints defense has FORCED seven turnovers. 3 last week, 4 today. When your defense is playing opportunistic football, and your offense is capable of scoring 40 to 50 points against any defense, then you are going to win a lot of football games.

Finally, the stats of the run defense could be skewed. When you're up big, it is difficult for the other team to run the football at that point. You're right about. Of course, you must then acknolwedge how much easier it is for them to gain yards throw the air by throwing it so much. That said, let me say this about the run defense. A good way to guage a team's run defense is to look at the average ypc given up. Last week, the Saints gave up 1.7 yards per rush. That's pretty d**m outstanding. This week, they gave up an average of 4 ypc though most of the yards came on the Eagles running gimmicky plays. But holding the Eagles to 4 ypc is still pretty solid considering they were able to rush for 185 yards against the Panthers last week. That same Panthers averaged 5.8 yards against your defense so I would not be very careful in my criticisms if I were you.

Your team is 2-0. I give them credit for winning because in this league, there's such a small margin for error, which can make the difference in determining the winner and loser of each game. It's always a few plays here and there, and that's true even in games where there are blowouts. That said, my team is also 2-0 and coming off a huge win in a hostile environment against a team whose defense was ranked #1 after the first week and is suppose to be one of the best. Slight them if you want, believe the defense is still terrible and then we can discuss it each time after the team plays. The Falcons have a very solid coachng staff so I know they want overlook the Saints defense, choosing to embellish some stats while playing the skew game on others. Have a great day! Enjoy your team's victory.

how dare you try to make sense to a Falcon fan. don't you know that Matt Ryan is really the best QB in the confrence? don't you know that every week they play a team who is a Super Bowl contender? all the Saints do is play teams who have rookie QB's