The New Orleans Saints said all the right things through the first 7 weeks of the season, but there was no denying some of the frustrations. This team knows exactly how many playmakers it has and that its capable of putting up points.
That's what made the performance in Indy for a 38-27 victory over the Colts so satisfying, as Dennis Allen explained this week on WWL.
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints head coach Dennis Allen in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
“I think it was a good team win," Allen told WWL's Mike Hoss and Bobby Hebert. "Our team had to fight through some adversity in that game to start off the way that we did and start off with a deficit like that, and for us to be able to come back and ultimately win the game on the road in a hostile environment I thought spoke volumes for our football team."
For the third consecutive week the Saints defense allowed 17-plus points in the first half, and the Saints found themselves in an early 17-7 hole after a forced fumble on Derek Carr. But they bounced back with big plays from Taysom Hill, Alvin Kamara, Mike Thomas and a bomb from Carr to Rashid Shaheed.
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The 38 points scored was a season high, and the most in a game since a 39-point effort in the win over Seattle in Week 5 of last season. The next step: Keep getting better.
"Obviously it was good to see the results of the fruits of our labor in terms of what we were able to do offensively," Allen continued. "Over the last couple weeks, you were saying you’re close, you’re close, you’re close. ... Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as my dad used to say. So we needed to make it happen and it was good to see it happen.”
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MORE FROM DENNIS ALLEN
On Alvin Kamara
The Week 8 win over the Bears marked the 11th time in Kamara's impressive career that he's logged both a rushing and receiving touchdown in the same game. That feat ties him with Jim Brown for No. 5 on the NFL's all-time list.
"No. 1 is, any time your name comes up in the same breath with a guy like Jim Brown and you talk about the history of our league, that’s really an impressive feat," Allen said. "That says a lot about you as a player. I think the thing that I’ve been most pleased with Alvin, you know, is really the way that he’s played this game physically. Man, he’s running hard. He’s doing a really good job in protection. He finished off the route for a touchdown, the run after catch was outstanding there. And so I really can’t say enough good things about what he’s been able to do, but I think the physicality that he’s bringing has been outstanding for our team.”
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On Andrus Peat at LT
“For him to step in last Thursday night against a premier rusher in our league and hold up the way that he did without having played that position in a long time and then come back this week and play the way that he did this week. I saw a marked improvement in his play this week from where he was the week before," Allen said. "So hopefully he’ll continue to improve. I do think our offensive line stepped up to the challenge. We said earlier in the week that this game was gonna be won or lost up front. I thought those guys responded. I thought they created a lot of holes in the running game and they created a lot of really good pockets for our quarterback to step up and throw the ball into.”
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On Chris Olave's performance
“I think Chris Olave is going to make a ton of plays for us as we continue through this back half of the season," Allen said. "He did some really good things in the game. Are there some plays that we want to be better at? Yea, absolutely there are. And those are all things that we’re going to continue to work on and continue to get better at. So I don’t look at it as receiver 1, 2 and 3. I look at is as we’ve got receivers 1A, 1B and C. I think they all have things that they can do really well. They all have ways that they can help us win games and we’re going to utilize all of them.”