A few weeks ago, NBC's Chris Collingsworth, one of the many overly talkative commentators who build a longing for John Madden to come back, said Louisiana could have two football titles. Chatty Chris underestimated Louisiana football teams' propensity for shooting themselves in the cleats.
Following LSU's BCS meltdown, in which Les Miles returned to his former frozen-daze on the sidelines, the Saints again failed on the road in the playoffs, committing five turnovers and unable to stop Alex Smith and the 49ers in the last-second drive. How can a team that looks so invincible in the Super Dome look so bad on the road?
While Drew Brees is the main Saint, Pierre Thomas runs a close second. The Saints are a different team without the hard-running Pierre, who was knocked out of the game early in the first quarter on a vicious hit. By the way, that appeared the type of "helmet to helmet" blow that has received penalties throughout the year, but no flag came down Saturday. I actually prefer games like Saturday's when the refs didn't mar the game with constant penalty calls, in fact not a single one was called against the Saints, but I wondered why an obvious helmet to helmet, resulting in a head injury to Thomas, didn't warrant a penalty. With a penalty call, the Saints would have kept the ball and likely scored, changing the tenor of the game.
Well, no excuses, the 49ers deserved the victory. No team that makes five turnovers should win. The Saints have some young talent with running back Mark Ingram, although his late season injury is troubling, and Jimmy Graham, but the rest of the team is growing older. The disappointing loss left me wondering how many more years of top play are left for Brees and his receiving corps. Climaxing with the great Super Bowl win of now three years ago, this team has been together for quite some time now.
Leave it to the San Francisco fans to show some admirable wit. Despite the loss, I salute the fan who had the sign, "Who dat? We dat."
In the other Saturday game, The Patriots blowout of the Broncs should dampen Tebow mania for a while. With the Broncs falling behind early, the Broncs' John Fox would have been justified in yanking Tim, but the Tebow tempest prevented that from happening. Despite the loss, the kid is still praiseworthy — he was still playing hard late in the game, jumping up and down after a meaningless gain. And, he was still smiling after the game. As an LSU fan, I hated the kid when he was at Floriday, but now I hope he advances his passing technique during the off season and establishes himself further as an NFL QB. If nothing else, his success would help show that Mel Kiper Jr. along with Collingsworth, should shut up.
Comments