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January 17, 2019
Sposito lauds colleagues as she leaves chair role
January 17, 2019
It wasn’t always pretty.
Heck, sometimes, it was downright ugly.
But the New Orleans Saints are still alive in the NFL Playoffs.
The Saints outlasted the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14 on Sunday afternoon in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, overcoming an early deficit to secure the close, hard-fought win.
The Eagles had the ball late with eyes on a late touchdown and victory.
Backup quarterback Nick Foles’ late-game pass to Alshon Jeffery was dropped into the opportunistic mitts of cornerback Marshon Lattimore, stalling a late-game drive in Saints’ territory and sealing the win.
In victory, the Saints move to the NFC Championship Game where they will take on the Los Angeles Rams — the No. 2 seed in the six-team NFC bracket.
The Saints and Rams are no strangers. The teams played last year in Los Angeles with New Orleans falling late in a hard-fought defeat.
This year, New Orleans got revenge on the Rams in a 45-35 shootout win.
Sunday will be the rubber match for all of the marbles — a spot in Super Bowl LIII on the first Sunday in February in Atlanta.
“Those guys came in and gave the fight to us early — give them credit,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “But we settled in and got a hard-fought win.”
CROWD BRINGS IT IN WIN
By now, everyone who desires a blow-by-blow recap of Sunday’s game has already gotten one, so we will stray from that type of piece.
We will instead talk about the power of the Who Dat Nation in inspiring the Saints’ latest triumph.
Crowd noise was a huge factor in New Orleans’ win over the Eagles. Throughout the game, Philadelphia had several pre-snap penalties, while being forced to call timeouts on other occasions to avoid delay of game violations and other infractions.
That energy helped inspire the team out of its early 14-0 hole to keep pushing and turn the game around.
In the second half, the timeout that the Eagles called to avoid a delay of game penalty ended up being a huge factor in the outcome of the game. When New Orleans was grinding down the clock late in the game, Philadelphia had fewer opportunities to stop the clock, thus more effectively allowing New Orleans to end the game without drama.
“Our fans were fantastic tonight,” Payton said.
RAMS PRESENT UNIQUE CHALLENGES
The road into the Super Bowl will not be easy — not in any way.
The Rams are a better football than the Eagles in every metric, possessing unique offensive weapons and an attacking style that has kept opponents off balance all season.
In their Divisional Round Game against the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles gutted Dallas up front, rushing for nearly 300 yards in a victory.
Los Angeles has quarterback Jared Goff, halfback Todd Gurley, an elite offensive line and several weapons at receiver.
Defense is their Achilles heel.
Los Angeles is vulnerable and gives up points at times, though on Saturday against Dallas, their defensive line was stout and greatly impacted the game.
Aaron Donald is arguably pound-for-pound the best player in the entire NFL New Orleans mil haw to account for him on every, single snap or be can disrupt the New Orleans’ offense.
THE FIRST TIME
In the first meeting between the teams. New Orleans started hot, taking 35-17 lead into halftime with dynamic offense, special teams miscues by Los Angeles and timely plays by the Saints’ defense.
But in the Second half of that game, the Rams fought back. Li in HI ling the 18-pokit halftime deficit to a he score with 18-unanswared points to start the second half.
But the Saints finished the game making all of the plays late to secure victory.
After a long field goal by kicker Will Lutz, the Saints got a stop, then went down the field to ice the game on a 72-yard strike from Drew Brees to Michael Thomas.
Thomas was huge in me win, catching 12 passes for: 211 yards and a score an 15 targets,
The New Orieans Saints had a tough one on Sunday with the Eagles, overcoming a 14-0 deficit and securing a 20-14 Victory, With the win, New Orieans Will now take on the Roms on Sunday.
