Saints Keep Marching Along at 6-1

The New Orleans Saints have opened the season with a 6-1 record. That record for most teams would be great, but Sean Payton the team’s head coach made sure his team was not one of those thinking they were great, especially after the team made a number of mistakes in its 35-17 won on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.

He told his team he was pleased with their win, but it was not one of their best efforts as the players made silly mistakes as he called them. Payton, during the game, was visibly upset by penalties, execution errors and substitution problems.

Drew Brees had another spectacular day stats wise with 332 yards passing and five touchdowns. However, he said he was not happy with the first two drives of the game ending in three and out and late in the second quarter, they still were trailing the Bills by three points.

Payton was upset by; the nine penalties his team committed; the two field goals that were misses by Garret Hartley; a timeout that was wasted due to only 10 men on the defense; four sacks that were allowed on offense; and runs that resulted in negative yardage.

The most important thing for the Saints is they were able to pull away and end up with an 18-point win on Sunday.

On defense, the team continued to make great plays and forced Buffalo into three turnovers – two fumbles and an interception.

Brees had two long passes of 42 yards and 69 yards for touchdowns and completed 26 of his 34 passes, while completing passes to 10 different Saints receivers.

Jimmy Graham returned from his torn plantar fascia but with limited to only 20 snaps. Nevertheless, the tight end had three receptions of which two were for touchdowns.

Brees also had Lance Moore back as a wide receiver who had 3 receptions and one touchdown. Moore had been out since Week 3 with a hand injury.

The Saints are getting better on offense each week and players are returning from injury such as Graham and Moore and this will only help how well they play going forward.

The Saints currently lead the NFC South with their 6-1 record by two games over the upstart Carolina Panthers, by four over the floundering Falcon and by six over the hapless Buccaneers.

Brees and his teammates have become so focused that they know with six wins they would be bowl eligible in the NCAA, but all they are looking at is being in the biggest bowl of them all the first week of February.