When the Saints are at halftime tomorrow against the Tennessee Titans, they will effectively be at the halfway point of the NFL’s new 17-game schedule.
They will have played 8 full games and half of another, in the locker room preparing to officially start the second half of the season. And if they are to be successful moving forward, this team needs to channel its performance from one specific quarter. The final one against the Falcons last week (yes, even in a loss).
The Saints trailed 10-0 at the break of Week 9. New Orleans failed to score in the first half despite several trips into Atlanta territory. In the second half — mostly the 4th quarter, the Saints played with a sense of urgency that will be needed the rest of the season.
I’m not saying they didn’t play with a sense of urgency in the first half, but the numbers are the numbers.
The Saints flourished with 267 yards through the air in the second half compared to just 34 in the first. They had 10 more first downs in the second half than they did in the first. The Saints had 259 more total yards in the second half than in the first. It was a totally different team, offensively and defensively.
Yes, let us not forget the effort of the defense in the second half, which held the Falcons to 2 net yards rushing. The Saints defense that did not harass or sack Matt Ryan in the first half, sacked him twice in the fourth quarter and applied pressure on many other occasions.
To be fair, the Saints were equally as bad on third down in the second half and had the exact same number of penalties (5) in both halves. But the fact remains there was a better sense of quickness between plays and an overall sense of “now.”
Trailing 24-6 with 10-minutes to play will do that. Thus, that’s priority one: Don’t fall behind 24-6 … at any point, really.
This team is not built for those types of comebacks on a regular basis. They need to pound it on the ground as they did in the first quarter against Atlanta, rolling up 69 yards between Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram.
The passing lanes will open up if they can pound it a little consistently. After that great first quarter on the ground, the Saints were held to 40 yards over the final three.
The final 9 games are a kind of a roulette wheel of guessing which team the Saints will face. The Titans at 7-2 have won 5 straight and are playing with a ton of confidence. Beyond that it depends on which team actually shows up. Will it be the Dallas team that beat the L.A. Chargers and Minnesota on the road? Or will it be the Dallas team that lost to Denver at home? Does New Orleans get they get the Buffalo team that beat Kansas City by three scores? Or do they get the Bills squad that lost to Jacksonville 9-6? What if the New York Jets team that beat Tennessee and Cincinnati shows up? And finally, three of the Saints final four games are in the division. What will those games mean in late December and January? Hopefully nothing much to their opponent, as they could be ultra-important to the Saints.
But time will tell, and if the Saints can match the energy and urgency of last week’s fourth quarter, they’ll be in the playoff picture. Given what this team has been through, that’s a significant accomplishment in and of itself.
To be clear: I didn’t say simply making the playoffs will be enough to be satisfied. I said significant.
