Saints at Patriots

They did call their last timeout at the 2:10 mark, which makes the clock actually stop. Then we ran the 2nd down play and the clock went down to the 2 minute warning. Then the 3rd down play ran off 40 more seconds before we had to punt. Thus Brady only had 1:13 in which to operate.

Fox mistakenly showed New England with 2 timeouts after they failed on 4th down. They actually had all 3 timeouts left. I wonder if that was possibly confusion from earlier when Sproles got hit really hard and a Pats player was injured and they went to a commerical at that point. Maybe Fox thought the Pats had to use a timeout for an injured player.

So the Patriots 2 consecutive timeouts on the running plays by the Saints, leaving them with 1. Then Payton made the fateful (in a very bad way) decision of calling a pass play. It went incomplete and the Pats were able to keep their last timeout. One that used to give Brady a chance to come and win with. If we run on 3rd down, Brady has between 5 and 15 seconds left in which to get a TD, 70 yards away.

 

We had this discussion about this on a Saints forum I frequent.

Technically not the 10 second runoff, which is reserved for only certain penalties:

False start
Intentional grounding
Illegal forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage
Throwing a backwards pass out of bounds
Spiking or throwing the ball away after a down (unless after a touchdown)
Any other intentional act that causes the clock to stop

But alternatively, if there is any kind of offensive penalty with 10 seconds or less to go in the game, it is deemed to be the end of the game.

Here is the example back in 2010, first game of the season (MNF I think) between the Cowboys and Redskins. And ironically, it was ended on the same type of block (arm around the neck of the defender rushing the QB):

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2010-09-12-redskins-cowboys_N.htm

"The Cowboys had four seconds for the final play, and by NFL rule a game ends on an offensive penalty with 10 seconds or less on the clock."

Down 13-7, it appeared the Cowboys were going to win the game on a TD pass by Romo with 4 seconds left on the clock. But it was nullified due to the holding call, and the game was ended without another play being run.

Eerily similiar to the Saints/Pats game, down by less than 7, almost the same exact yard line (13 vs 17), and a TD that had a flagrant arm around the neck of the rushing lineman. One was called, the other was not.

 

I'm still physically ill from the game knowing that the ref "missed" the blatant holding on the Patriots left tackle. And the way the defense was aligned on the play not to protect the back of the endzone (Bush should have played as a 2 deep safety, he chose the inside receiver instead who had not reached the 10 yard line by the time the ball was released). We essentially had trail technique on man to man coverage with no help over the top. Tony Dungy criticized the defensive play call and stated that he could not understand what we were doing on that play, and Rodney Harrison wholeheartedly agreed with him.

I think what bothers me is the loss to New England made me relive the San Francisco loss in the 2011 Playoffs. Both scores were 17-7 at half, we were behind. Both of the 2nd halfs, the defense played much better and stopped the opponent to only 2 FGs (one FG in each game was due to Saints turnovers) and then came the collapse. In the San Fran case, we collapsed on two successive drives on defense. In the New England case, they got 3 shots at coming from behind to win the game. I don't think a team in NFL history has ever had 3 shots with less than 3 minutes to go in the game of trying to engineer a game winning TD drive. It's certainly unheard of.

 

Mike Pereira, the ex NFL head of officiating tweeted that New England should have been called for encroachment instead of a false start on New Orleans.

 

I thought the Chicago game for Colston was an anamoly, but now I have some concern. Yes, the bright spot from the game for me was Khiry Robinson running and Stills' huge catch in crunch time in traffic (it was the strength of his game coming out of OU to catch in traffic, it showed here). Kid has to be brimming with extreme confidence right now. And Brees can start to rely on him more. Toon would have had a TD catch as well, if not for the one in 100 chance that Brees misses a wide open receiver. You won't see that the rest of the season from Brees. Unfortunately it cost us 4 points.

People don't realize how great Brees truly is. He threads the needle on more passes and has probably the least seperation of his receivers from the defenders out of any of the top QBs in the league. Rarely do you see a wide open receiver unless the play call is genius or Brees does a phenomenal job working the safety. Brees is off the chart great.

I was disappointed in Payton's playcalling and game plan in the first half. Early in the week leading up to the game, I had predicted the Saints would rush for a season high 140+ yards on 32 carries. We only ran it 23 times with our backs (for 119 yards). Just think if we had run it those extra 9 times in the first half, when we were stuggling trying to pass it on almost every down. The Patriots were playing to stop the pass. We obliged by calling pass plays. It's one of the few weaknesses in Sean's playcalling, is that he will stick with the passing attack even if the defense is giving us the running game.