Is it too early to count out the Saints?

To put it simply, yes.  Have you seen the NFC?  They are well within winning their division.  Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago and Green Bay have the same 4-3 record as they do.  By comparison the Saints have a better team than all of them.  Remember, they are the defending champions.  Now you might think Saints fan(s) that your season hangs in the balance this Sunday when you play host to Pittsburgh.  I don’t think that’s the case.  If they lose to Pittsburgh, but beat Carolina before their bye week, they will be 5-4.  They have a favorable schedule, except for playing at Baltimore and Atlanta.  Lets say they lose those two games.  Their final record will be 10-6.  That seems to be a respectable record and worthy of a playoff spot.  Darren Sharper is back playing for the defense and Reggie Bush is another week away from playing again.  The Saints will be fine as long as they realize this wasn’t the way the won the Super Bowl last year.

An unexpected blowout

Those who say they like seeing a low scoring football game are liars.  Who asked you the following day, “hey did you see that game yesterday?  Man that 6-3 final was intense.”  I hope no one did.  We want to see scoring.  High scoring games when possible.  Yes even the games that involve teams that probably aren’t going to contend this year.  The Oakland Raiders scoring 59 points against their arch rival the Denver Broncos was a beat down in the classic or football sense.  That was the most points the Raiders scored in their franchises history.  It was only fitting that they did that against Denver.  Most Raider fans will tell you that they would’ve loved it if they did that against the Broncos while John Elway was playing.  Either way we as football fans love seeing the blowout games.  We act like it doesn’t matter, but this is now an offensive game and we want to see most points scored possible.  If you’ve ever played the Madden video games over the years, you don’t ever take a knee.  EVER.  That same mentality as a fan goes into watching the team score the most points.  “You play to win the game” and that applies to us.  Score or be scored upon should be the motto.

Pittsburgh wins thanks to inconclusive evidence

I love how the NFL has gone about reviewing plays and wanting to get the calls right.  Frankly a lot of the time it shows just how bad the refs really are.  It’s sad really, but I understand they have a hard job that most of us don’t want.  With that said, they butchered the Week 1 call of no catch of wide receiver Calvin Johnson.  The rule is correct, but it’s a stupid rule.  Enough said.  This past week they screwed up again with the Pittsburgh Steelers getting a tremendous break from the officials.  Ben Roethlisberger clearly fumbled before crossing the goal line for what could have been the go ahead touchdown.  However, the referees couldn’t tell who recovered the football after the fumble.  What?  The reasoning as always is “inconclusive evidence” when reviewing a play.  They couldn’t tell that four Dolphins were closer to the ball than the two Steelers in the pile.  They couldn’t tell that a Dolphin came out of the pile with the football.  Again, they are doing a job that neither I nor you want.  To me though, it seemed to be Dolphins football.