The New Orleans Saints completed a truly magical season with their Super Bowl victory over Peyton Manning’s Colts last season. Now comes the tough part – repeating. The Saints established last season that they are the best offensive team in the NFL, with Drew Brees elevating his play to the level of other current championship QBs like Manning, Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger, and the running game grinding out tough yards mostly by committee. Add in Reggie Bush’s penchant for making electric plays and you have an offense that’s tough to stop. The Saints’ defense wasn’t dominating statistically but helped win games by creating turnovers. Prior to the Super Bowl all the experts predicted the Saints would lose because their defense would not be able to either stop Peyton Manning or create turnovers against the Colts. So what happened? The Saints iced the game with Tracy Porter’s late-game interception return for a touchdown. Conventional wisdom says that the way to stop a team that has a dominating offense and an average defense that relies on turnovers is to run a ball-control run-oriented offense. The idea is to stop the dominating offense by keeping them off the field and limiting their opportunities, while also limiting your own team’s turnovers by moving the ball on the ground and not putting it up for grabs. You also have to play tough defense. There are two teams playing in the same division as the Saints, the NFC South, that have the stout rushing attack needed to play ball control – the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers. The Panthers, however, have too many negative issues (no set QB, losing Julius Peppers on defense, coach John Fox being on the hot seat) to contend with the Saints. Atlanta, with a bright young QB in Matt Ryan, a dominating runner in Michael Turner and a rugged defense, could overtake the Saints depending on how much of a “Super Bowl hangover” the Saints have when the season begins. The other team in the division, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, are young and need a couple of years to rebuild before they are taken seriously, but did play competitively last year and even pulled off an upset win over the Saints near the end of the season.
NFL – Will The Saints Repeat?
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