Saints dethrone the champs

A lot had changed since the last time the New Orleans Saints played the Philadelphia Eagles. After beating the defending Super Bowl champs by 41 points in November, the Black and Gold found themselves in hot water against a team that won six out of their last seven games since that regular season defeat.

Thanks to a pair of interceptions from Marshon Lattimore, the Who Dat crew survived the early haymaker and went on to win Sunday’s NFC divisional round playoff game by the final score of 20-14.

It’s choppa style all the way to the NFC Championship Game with the Saints making good on the playoff match up that shoulda, coulda, woulda had it not been for last year’s Minneapolis Miracle.

A second quarter fake punt by Taysom Hill felt like a season-saving play and the momentum really shifted when Drew Brees capped off an 18 play, 92 yard, 11 minute and 29 second drive with a touchdown pass to Michael Thomas.

The defense took it from there, shutting out the Eagles for the final 49 minutes of the game. Defensive end Cameron Jordan said, “Okay, I’m just going to leave that there. Don’t worry about it. Continue. (What kind of statement did you guys make by shutting out the Eagles for the last 49 minutes of this game?) Ready to rumble. Huh? What? Astro Thunder. Just saying. We all knew it was going to be a fight, we all knew we were going to catch their best punch. They came out with the win against a really good team last week and then they had to come play us.”

Running back Alvin Kamara said, “That’s what we wanted to do, that’s what we said we were going to do and we did what we said we were going to do. We said we were going to wear them down and the proof is in the pudding, you can go watch it.”

Running back Mark Ingram said, “What he said.”

Quarterback Drew Brees said, “I was just told that we actually gained 117 yards on that drive. I’m not sure if that’s a record. Because of the penalties that kept setting us back and so yeah, we went on a 117-yard drive in the third quarter to take the lead and then really didn’t look back.”

Wide receiver Michael Thomas said, “Credit to conditioning and a hard training camp, the grind. All the stuff that we get mad at Coach Payton about during the week like ah, why are we doing this? Why are we in this? Why are we practicing this situation? Cause you might end up in it. Playoff football, you never know.”

Head Coach Sean Payton said, “It wasn’t a perfect game. Certainly there are a lot of things that we’ll have to clean up, but most importantly we got the win. And against, listen, the defending champs. And that means something.”

Now another rematch is on tap for next weekend against the LA Rams, coming on the back of the largest playoff comeback in Saints franchise history. In fact, they hadn’t been outscored by 14 points in a single quarter all season long until Sunday.

That long third quarter drive is the longest in the playoffs in terms of duration since 1970. Michael Thomas also set a new playoff franchise record for receiving yards with 171.