The New Orleans Saints won't be winning any beauty pageants with the type of win they had over the Giants in Week 14, but here's the thing: It doesn't matter.
There's no rankings system in the NFL, it's about wins and losses, and adding another number in that win column is the most important thing for Saints GM Mickey Loomis, as he explained on WWL Radio this week.
“There’s no asterisk behind the wins or losses, that’s for sure," Loomis told Mike Hoss. "You hear the term ugly win and look, call it whatever you want, it was a hard fought game and we made a play at the end of the game to win the game."
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints GM Mickey Loomis in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
Loomis adds that there were also some positives to pull from the game, even if things weren't always pretty.
"Defensively, man, I thought we did a lot of things really well," Loomis said. "I thought we dominated the line of scrimmage. I thought our pass rush was as good as it’s been this year. We had a lot of pressure, a lot of tipped balls, batted balls. I think between the batted balls and the PBUs there were over 13 times when we got our hands on a pass and that was really positive. I think the penalties, I think we had six penalties to their 12, so we were able to reduce that from where it’s been. It was, you know, it’s a tough game in the kicking game because, you know, I don’t know if it translated on television but the wind was a factor and the elements were a factor in the kicking game for both teams, but we made a big play at the end on a designed field goal block and Bryan Bresee made a fantastic play, an athletic play. … That was a great play at the end of the game.”
The Saints (5-8) host the Commanders (8-5) on Sunday for a noon kickoff at the Caesars Superdome. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
More from Loomis
On Derek Carr
“If Derek’s able to play, he will play. That’s just in his nature and, you know, the question for us will be not necessarily, you know, when the time comes is it necessarily about whether he can, it’s whether he should, and we’ll collectively make that decision with him and, you know, we’ll see where that goes, but we’ve got to clear some hurdles here first and we’ll see how the week goes.”
On Kendre Miller
“We’ve known from the moment we drafted him that Kendre can run the football and he’s talented. His difficulty has been being available and being available for a stretch of time. The play that he scored the touchdown on actually reminded me a bit of Deuce McAllister. Deuce would bang into a pile like that and was so powerful, so strong that he could stay on his feet and push the pile himself along with help from offensive linemen. I remember a number of times that he did that. That was a remarkable play because I remember he got hit probably about the 6 yard line and was able to stay on his feet to about the 4 and then all of a sudden the whole offensive line pushed him and carried him into the endzone. It was impressive.”
On Bryan Bresee
“You know, he’s been productive. I think he’s been productive all year long but I think we’ve seen some of these flash plays and we’ve seen some of these things that we liked when we drafted him but I would say that he’s not a finished product yet and I think he would say that he’s not a finished product. There’s things that he can do in the run game, in particular, that he needs to do better and he will do better. But he’s been very productive, he’s got, you know, a lot of sacks for his position – for any position, really – he’s made some instinctive plays, batting some balls down and obviously a tremendously athletic play in blocking the field goal this last game, but yea, he’s making progress and we like that. I think, again, it’s the arrow up. He needs to keep ascending and I think he will keep ascending.”
