Another dominant win for the Saints, this time against a good team
The Good: Offense and Defense
The New Orleans Saints offense scored 40+ points for the second straight game this season and scored a touchdown on their first six drives of the afternoon against the Dallas Cowboys. They looked both efficient and were able to score on big plays, as they went on touchdown drives of 7, 11, and 13 plays while also scoring two 50+ yard touchdowns. The defense epitomized “bend don’t break” on Sunday, as the Cowboys made it into the red zone plenty of times but only found the end zone once. They sacked Dak Prescott three times and picked him off twice while also getting four tackles for loss.
The Saints have taken a complete 180 from the team we saw last year and in some parts the team we saw in the preseason. How many of us two weeks ago though the offensive line would look this good? How many of us thought we’d be seeing Derek Carr dance like Michael Jackson in the endzone after going up 35-13 in the first half in Dallas? Alvin Kamara has not regressed at all, Rashid Shaheed looks like one of the league’s best deep threats, and Tyrann Mathieu is playing like the best safety in the league. The Saints have legitimately looked like one of the most efficient teams in the NFL on both sides of the ball through two games, and while yes, it is still early, nothing about this has been a fluke, and now they have destroyed a good team on the road in addition to a bad team at home.
The Bad: Small mistakes
I’ll be honest, there really wasn’t anything bad about the way the Saints played on Sunday. But if I have to pick something they did make a few small mistakes on Sunday that may have made the difference in a closer game. Chase Young trying to scoop up a fumble rather than falling on it, a blocked extra point, and a high throw by Carr that led to an interception were about the only missteps the Saints made. Even the one touchdown the Cowboys scored was on a missed tackle, and there were a few sacks that should have happened that Prescott escaped from on third downs. However, the missed fumble was on third down and stopped another Cowboys drove, the blocked PAT was when the Saints were already up 41-19, and the defense took the ball right back after the Carr interception. If there’s anything bad to take away from a 25-point win on the road against a team many people had as a top 10 team it would be these small errors that could have been catastrophic in a closer game.
The Ugly: Penalties
The Saints committed 5 penalties for 40 yards on Sunday, certainly not a bad mark but again, something has to be here and also if these happened in a closer game, they would have been far more damaging. Two Saints penalties gave the Cowboys automatic first downs on incomplete passes that would’ve made it 3rd and long, and one wiped out a touchdown.
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