You still don't want to get in an air war with Peyton Manning in Indy when we have a rookie QB and the lead. They banked on Thomas Jones pulling them through like he did on the last 4th down in San Diego but it didn't work out for us. You don't know what doesn't work until after you try it, but I can't fault the Jets for going with what had been their bread and butter all year. Sometimes the other team is just better.
I think the starter of the thread was talking more about our D which was shredded by PM vs what the Aints did to him
dude...we're a running team....that's how we were closing out games. So of course i expected Schotty to call run plays...that's our strength. But when S.Greene was injured....that's when shit hit the fan......not the playcalling. And trust me...i was one of the BIGGEST Schotty critics during the season....
its easy to use hindsight and say schotty should have done this. In reality TJ is one of the main reasons we were there in the first place and Schotty called on him.
We had a decent set up until Strickland went down. Our DB became thin right after that. Not much you can do when one of our own gets injured. It's not as basic as you make it sound. Lowery and Coleman aren't known to be real physical at the LOS. The fact that we're talking about Coleman being in this game at all raised the odds against us. I may have to change the way I feel abt the way we finished the 2nd quarter when we played the Colts after seeing the way the Saints played aggressive their entire game. I was happy going into the half with the lead, but we should've tried to get a score there. I also didn't foresee Shonn Greene getting hurt and being taken out the game, but, (like you and many others have said) you have to score as much as possible if you want to beat Manning and we should've at least attempted that at the half.
I do think we should have thrown the ball more when Greene got hurt because it was clear Jones wasn't getting it done too much. Don't abandon the run completely, but I would have liked to see more of Sanchez. Would it have made a difference in terms of winning and losing? Probably not, Sanchez is not nearly ready to out-duel Manning, but we may have had a better shot. We were just outmanned by the Colts. The Saints have an elite offense and an opportunistic defense. Our defense is not as good as the Saints' offense, and the Saints' defense is better and more opportunistic than our offense.
i dont know who youve been watching all season, but mark sanchez was only as hot as his last throw this year ... if we opened up the offense too much, we would have been asking him to fit passes into the tight windows of a tampa-2 zone ... not a good look
This team is one CB away from having a very good secondary guys! Revis -> great Lowery -> solid nickel / ball-hawk guy Strickland -> solid in run support and as a nickel/dime Rhodes -> IF motivated a good FS Leonhard -> smart QB of this D. We just need 1 CB playing opposite to Revis and a motivated FS and are secondary is pretty much to the level of the Saints.
It also helps when your QB played like a man possessed from the 2nd quarter on. Brees had a Montana like performance last night and that's why they won the game. They had the better QB with better WRs. They also had a coach who took advantage of every opening the Colts gave him. The Saints won because unlike the Colts who rely on one guy they have a complete team. Hartley was the 1st kicker to kick 3 FGs of 40 or more in a SB which seems to be forgotten as well. The Colts also made a crucial mistake by having Stover attempt that 51 yard FG much like we did with Feeley. They should have punted and I knew it as soon as they brought Stover out. The turning pioint of that game was Garcon dropping that ball on 3rd down. Until that point the Colts moved the ball at will and that drop gave them a much needed boost in confidence. As for the OP saying the WRs were invisible, Collie had 6 receptions, Garcon had 5.
I'm not sure it was Schotty being conservative - I just think he failed to adjust his gameplan once Greene went down. For most of the season, I was a proponent of going heavy run and easing Sanchez along, but when your running corps is that banged up, and the Super Bowl is on the line, and you are playing against a defense that is as one-dimensional as the Colts are against the pass... you let the rookie try to win the game for you. Jones was totally ineffective as a banged-up back in that game. By no means am I blaming that game on Schotty, however. Because Rex failed to adjust well when Strickland went down. The injuries just caught up with a young, inexperienced coaching staff.
Despite the EOG catch totals, these guys were non-factors with the exception of the Garcon TD and the huge 3rd down drop which turned the game. Compare their performance last night to the game against the JETS when these two guys WERE the storyline and the main culprits that killed the Jets. Last night, non-factors. That's why I called them invisible.
The saints showed that the way to beat the Colts and Manning is to keep him on the bench. It was actually pretty impressive for a bit how the Jets were able to stop Manning, considering how long they were out on the field. Even when we were scoring on the Colts they were quick big plays. The saints had long scoring drives giving their D a break and keeping Manning on the bench. If we can continue to develop Sanchez and the Offense we can make our defense look, so much better.
My main point was that when you play against Manning, you need to consider yourself down by 10 points at the start of the game, (and really throughout the game) because of the speed with which he can move his team and score. He turns 1:30 into 4 minutes and a half into nearly 3 quarters--in other words, no lead is safe no matter how long you control the ball. So as a coach, you need to weigh each decision with that "point spread" in mind. For example, at the end of the half, the Jets had the ball after the killer score to Collie which made the game 17-13. Against an "ordinary QB", you can make the argument that "I've got the lead, I'm on the road, I'm getting the ball back to start the half, I'm going to play it conservative and not really try to pass the ball and get into FG range with less than 1 minute left. However, you need to consider that you're not playing NFL, you're playing "Manning 2010" which means, you're actually losing 23-17. What do you do now? What would Rex do if they were actually down a score? He might be tempted to play a little more aggressively. Try and get a 3 up on the board, and take some pressure off the 1st drive of the 2nd half. I know it's hypothetical, but being at the game, that is the way I felt. I remember standing at the top of one of the escalators, slapping five with the Jets fans that came off and they all had the same look on their faces, the same foreboding. I told them, "Hey 30 minutes, man." But they knew, and I knew, that we would not be able to simply hold this lead. We would have to go out and do the same job as we did in the first half just to have a chance. We led by 4, but we all felt like we were down by 6 to start that half. My point is that I believe Sean Payton understood this, these Manning Rules or Manning Point Spread, if you will, and that's why he took the risky path every chance he had last night. He knew the "real score" and played like he knew he needed more points. And they won.
They also didn't have a 4th and 5th CB covering them last night either. I just think that too much is being said about Manning not winning but the bottom line is the reason the Saints won is because they had the better QB, gameplan and team last night. The way the Saints moved the ball I doubt there is any way that even if the Colts score to tie the game at 24 that Nawlins doesn't at least get into FG range for Hartley to win the game. He was money all night and not having to do kickoffs had him fresh and ready if needed.
lol. Every year we're always looking to "learn" something from the Super Bowl. A "that's how you do it" moment. It happens every single year. Indy played 17 games before us. If you can't figure out how to beat them with 17 games worth of film, the Super Bowl won't all of a sudden set off the light bulb. Bottom line, we weren't the better team in the title game and I'm sure Rex and the CS know all the strengths and weaknesses of both the personnel and the schemes and will work to correct them this offseason.
We weren't the better team.At full stregnth, the Title game would not have even been close. /Jenkins /Washington Injuries are part of the game, but at full stregnth, they would have taken the same beating they got last night.
I agree. Bottom line, somebody wins the last game. If the Saints had to play someone next week maybe they'd lose and we'd all know how to beat them, but it has to end somewhere. What we need to do, aside from getting Jenkins and Leon back, is be more consistent throughout the season and get Manning, Brady, Rivers or whoever in the cold and elements to face our D at our place. Going on the road to play three division champions is not the easiest road to the Super Bowl.
