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October 15, 2013
LSU running game hammers UF’s stout defense in win
October 15, 2013
Give any quarterback in the NFL three chances to lead his team to a comeback victory in a two-minute-drill situation and you’ll be hard-pressed to stop him all three times.
When that quarterback happens to be a future Hall of Fame player in Tom Brady, even the best of defenses can falter.
And so it was for the Saints in the team’s last-second, 30-27 loss to the New England Patriots last Sunday at Gillette Stadium, New Orleans’ first defeat of the season.
Brady (25-of-43, 269 yards, one touchdown, one interception) threw a game-winning touchdown pass with five seconds to play to deliver the Saints a tough-luck loss in a game that for a while appeared to be safely in hand.
On two previous New England drives, the Saints had forced a Brady incompletion on a 4th-and-6 play, and then an interception on the quarterback’s first throw of the Patriots’ following drive, only to end up still needing one last stop in the closing seconds.
Instead, Brady made the most of his last chance beginning with 1:13 to play and managed to drive the Patriots 70 yards in 1:08 before finding Kendall Thompkins on a 17-yard touchdown pass.
Patriots 30, Saints 27.
“This one is difficult because you certainly felt like you had a chance,” said Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who finished 17-of-36 with 236 yards, two touchdowns and one interception in the loss. “Coming in at halftime (down) 17-7, we weren’t discouraged at all, although we knew we hadn’t played our best football in the first half. We felt like if we kept hammering away that we could find a way to win.”
They almost did.
Despite tight end Jimmy Graham (no catches) and star receiver Marques Colston (one catch, seven yards) being shut down by the Patriots’ defense throughout the evening, the Saints’ offense found other ways to produce – particularly in the second half.
The running game found some daylight with Pierre Thomas rushing for 51 yards on 11 carries and rookie Khiry Robinson carrying the ball seven times for 53 yards and a touchdown.
Rookie Kenny Stills caught three passes for 64 yards and tight end Ben Watson, a former Patriot, caught three passes for 61 yards.
When Stills made an improbable touchdown grab behind cornerback Alfonzo Dennard in the end-zone with 3:29 to play, it put the Saints ahead for the first time in the second half at 24-23.
But missed opportunities afterward proved to be too much.
When Brady was picked off by cornerback Keenan Lewis at the Saints’ 30-yard line with 2:16 to play and the Patriots were left with only one timeout in their pocket, many of New England’s fans headed for the exits.
The Saints then ran two rushing plays, forcing the Patriots to call their last timeout before the two-minute warning. Brees attempted a pass on a 3rd-and-7 play that resulted in incompletion, forcing a Thomas Morstead punt.
The Saints’ inability to pick up a first down in that situation enabled Brady to have one last crack at the ball.
Then, on the Patriots’ final drive, New Orleans forced Brady into a 4th-and-4 play but failed to come up with a stop as the quarterback hit receiver Austin Collie for a nine-yard gain to the Saints’ 17 yard that took the clock down to 10 seconds.
On Brady’s next attempt, he made the game-winning throw.
“It was just kind of an ebb and flow,” Saints coach Sean Payton said of the final drive. “They made some plays inside and obviously the clock kept going, but they were able to get up and get some chunks. It was at that point in the game where it was going to have to be some bigger plays. (Brady) was able to make enough good throws and the one at the end for the score.”
If given a chance to do it over, Payton said he still liked the decision to be aggressive on third down, knowing a first down would have put the game out of reach.
“Just looking at being aggressive and taking a shot,” Payton said. “That was just a decision that I made, and you kind of go back and forth with that: trying to win it, and then you’re also paying attention to how your defense is playing.”
While the loss was certainly disappointing, the Saints didn’t seem particularly down in the dumps about it in the aftermath.
With a 5-1 record, the team is still pacing the field in the NFC South and has a bye week upcoming to rest injured players and to catch its breath before facing Buffalo at home on October 27.
“We’ll be better because of it,” said Saints right guard Jahri Evans. “We’ll digest it just look we would a win. We’ll get healthier over this next week and come back and get a win.”
Saints safety Kenny Vaccaro said if anything the loss could take pressure off the team now that it has dealt with its first defeat.
“That undefeated monkey is off our back, so now we can just go out and play ball,” Vaccaro said.
New England Patriots rookie wide receiver Kenbrell Thompkins catches the game-winning touchdown pass in the final seconds of Sunday’s game between the Patriots and the New Orleans Saints. The Black and Gold had chances to close out the game in the final minutes, but failed to convert enough first downs to run out the clock. That enabled future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady to conduct the last-second touchdown drive to give the team its first loss of the season.
