New Orleans, La - The Saints came into Sunday looking to ride a wave of positive momentum from the vacated bounty penalties of Will Smith and Jonathan Vilma, as well as the all-around positive energy surrounding their return to football. Their game against the Redskins turned into a debut party for Robert Griffin III.
The Saints' downfall: penalties, according to interim head coach Aaron Kromer "We're not going to run the ball when you get 12 penalties so in the first half. If you go back and look at the drives, when we ran the ball on the first down and got a five yard gain then we ran it again and got a ten yard holding penalty, well now you're out of running range. The only reason those plays were chosen was because of the situation we were in."
Drew Brees says the team has no one to blame but themselves. "That's not us, that's not the way we play, that's not what is going to bring us success. All the things that we preach here; take care of the football and we didn't, penalties are drive-killers, we had penalties and they killed drives. We didn't take care of some of the opportunities we had. It's a play here and a play there but in the end, it's the difference between a win and a loss."
Brees was also unhappy with his offense's measly 2-of-11 third down conversions "That's about as bad as you can ever be, that's about as bad as we've ever been but you can attribute that to all the third-and-long's."
The Saints had a chance to forgive their first half woes at the end of the second quarter when Martez Wilson blocked a punt and Courtney Roby recovered it in the end zone to bring the Saints within six points. "I think it was a spark," Roby said after the game "I was trying to find something to spark us and keep that tempo going."
Malcolm Jenkins put the 40-32 loss in perspective "For us to even have a chance at the end, it does excite me. We know what we're capable of, make the plays that we need to make, not have all the stupid penalties and we give ourselves a chance to be great."
The Saints are back to work Monday and FOX8 will have updates starting at noon, in addition to Jim Henderson's Black & Gold Rewind at 8 am, Commentary at 5 PM, and Web Chat from 6:30 PM to 7 PM.
John Snell
