NFL Games of the Week: Week Twelve

NFL Games of the Week: Week 12 New Orleans Saints v San Francisco 49ers


In a move that astonishes no one, this game is live on Sky Sports 3 starting at 21:25 GMT. It should be a very interesting match up, and a rematch of last year's NFC Divisional game. Circumstances have changed quite a bit since their last meeting, most notably Sean Payton will not be present this Sunday as his ban for the 2012 season continues. The Saints had something of a chaotic off season as well. Drew Brees missed some of the early training camps as he sought a new contract, and they lost players such as Jonathan Vilma and Will Smith for the early parts of the season due to the suspensions after "Bounty- Gate" (Vilma misses the whole year). They made attempts to bolster their line backing unit in the off season, Curtis Lofton and David Hawthorne their big acquisitions. Lofton is in my opinion better against the run and is more of a 2 down guy. Hawthorne is decent against the pass to be fair but it his ability to stop the run which sets him apart. However one could argue that those two off-season signings have been wasted. If one looked at the yardage stats, it would be rather justifiable to say the Saints had the worst defence in the entire league. Bottom in the rushing department, penultimate in the passing department and their redzone defence and 17th in red zone defence. In the first 5 weeks of the season, they conceded 154 points in total, an average of over 30 a game, including 27 to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Saints conceded more points in the first 5 games than the Chiefs have scored in 10 (that probably tells you more about the Chiefs!) so when you consider that nearly a fifth of the Chiefs totals points for the season came against the Saints, you think that their defence isn't great.


Has it improved in the second half? To a degree. They got massacred by the Broncos in week 8, conceding 34 points, their figures in the latter half of the schedule (so far of course) show a marked improvement, we know that the Saints will score a bundle on offense, the question was could their defence do enough to keep them with a shot. They are certainly giving them that over the last while, total points conceded dropped by over 30 points down to 119, their points given up per game average dropping by a whole 7 points. In the last 5 games, the Saints have won two key divisional games by a margin of 7 points or less (beating the Buccaneers by 7 and the Falcons by 4), I recall a notable goal line stand against the Buccaneers, where they stopped the Bucs 4 times from the 1 yard line, after Vincent Jackson made a 95 yard catch (the hustle made by safety Malcolm Jenkins on the 95 yard catch also quite remarkable). The Saints defence has shown some signs of improvement alright, there is no doubting that it has been a key factor in some of their recent wins. It may hold them back somewhat, especially in a highly competitive NFC, Wildcards will be tightly contested by fellow division rivals Tampa (or maybe Atlanta if they are caught........) while the Seahawks, Vikings Redskins and maybe Cowboys could have a say in the race, but if they can keep up their solid effort or even show some improvement, there is no doubt that the Saints will threaten most teams with their offensive might.


The Saints Offense speaks for itself, it has a some incredibly good running backs in Pierre Thomas, Darren Sproles while Chris Ivory and even Mark Ingram are guys who should not be overlooked. Drew Brees is doing what Drew Brees does, make plays for his offense and put his team in a position to win. He is aided by some incredibly good receiving weapons. Most notably Jimmy Graham (he has slipped some bit from last year though) and Marques Colston. Lance Moore is also one of the more underrated no.2 receivers in the league, he has grabbed 4 TDs this year and is the Saints 3rd receiver after the aforementioned Colston and Graham. When you add in Darren Sproles' ability to catch out of the backfield and a few other receivers like Devery Henderson and Joe Morgan, has shown big play ability in limited time. The Saints offense is certainly potent and can put up enough points to challenge any team.