Into the Fire: Beat the Baltimorons

Posted by on in , ,

The Saints are coming off of their most complete team win, dissecting Washington piece by piece as Drew Brees entered his name in to the record books as the NFL’s all-time leading passer. The bye week provided the Saints an opportunity to let the gravity of that record sink in a little bit extra while also getting their best cover corner through the concussion protocol. Now the Saints face a very different challenge from what they have seen so far this season: an actual defense that does not allow teams to score points.

Baltimore is the NFL’s #1 rated defense in points scored against and in yardage given up per game. The Saints will need to prove those statistics are just happenstance instead of a personality trait of this Baltimore football team if Drew Brees and Sean Payton are to get their first career victories over John Harbaugh’s football team. People like to say, “you are what your record says you are.” Baltimore is a 4-2 football team, but calling them the NFL’s best defense does not exactly paint an honest picture of the personality of this football team. While Baltimore does have a victory over the Steelers, the rest of their games have been against all bottom tier offenses, except for their loss to the Bengals who are 6th in scoring. Baltimore’s wins and “great defense” have come against some of the more anemic offenses in the league. Wins against Tennessee, Denver, and Buffalo hardly prove your defense is some kind of intimidating force to be reckoned with. The game against Cincinnati was of a loss of course. Baltimore did hold the 24th ranked offense of the Browsn to 12 points but they lost that game. The truth about Baltimore is they are phonies and there is nothing to be worried about if the Saints do not beat themselves this Sunday.

New Orleans is coming off of an emotional and team building win. It was an impressive. Beating a mediocre scrub team like Washington the way New Orleans beat them is impressive and telling of who that team is. The Saints can pick teams apart with what counts in today’s NFL; high powered offense. While the Baltimore defense is putting up uncommon numbers, it is an anti-defense era which is exactly why you cannot worry about the Baltimore defense, because you should not worry about anyone’s defense in the NFL in 2018.

If the Saints play a simple, turnover free game on offense, they will get theirs. As for the defense; we all know the Saints have had their struggles in the secondary, but the Ravens offense is not a top ten offense and it should take a lot of bending before they can break you. Simple mistakes like letting their one deep threat, John Brown, get behind you should not happen. The Ravens offense is one of the easier offenses the Saints will get to game plan for all year. This game is not a must win for New Orleans, since it is out of conference and they are one of the few 1 loss teams in the NFL right now, but losing this game would mean losing a foothold in the home field advantage race they find themselves in with the Rams right now and you know they aren’t losing many getting to play in the NFC West. The Saints do not need to win, but they better beat the Baltimorons if they are going to live up to their full potential this season because in this NFL, a good offense should beat any defense on every single Sunday.

– Alan Michael