The New Orleans Saints vs. the Minnesota Vikings: Game Preview

The New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings will kick off the regular season this Thursday night, in a game that should be one of the best of the season.

Remember, these two teams last met in the NFC Championship game, where the Saints won the right to go to the Super Bowl in overtime after a Garrett Hartely field goal.

A lot has happened since then, but not a lot has changed for these two teams. So this should be a great game, with revenge on the minds of the Vikings while the Saints will have the defense of their Super Bowl title in mind.

When the Saints Have the Ball

Everyone knows that the Saints have had one of the best offenses in the NFL for the past two seasons.

Led by quarterback Drew Brees, the Saints have outscored their opponents by double digits at times and have had some big games.

During the preseason, the offense seemed to be firing on all cylinders and looked just as good as it did last year.

The Vikings are well known for their defense, but their defense may not be playing as well as it has in the past, due to injury and some new players at new positions.

It will be interesting to see how the Vikings adapt and how the Saints take advantage of this.

Protecting Brees hasn’t been too much of an issue for the Saints, so look for them to air the ball out a lot early to grab a good lead, and then use their running game to keep the ball out of the Vikings' hands and protect that lead.   

When the Vikings Have the Ball

We all know that Vikings quarterback Brett Favre is back and ready to take on yet another season as a 40-year-old quarterback.

Any Saints or Vikings fan will remember what happened to Favre in their game in the playoffs last year. 

Defensive Coordinator Greg Williams turned his defense loose and unleashed a lot of “remember me” hits on Favre, causing Favre to come up lame several times and eventually need surgery during the offseason.

It’s likely that Williams will bring the wood against Favre once again to make sure that he doesn’t throw the ball as effectively as he is used to doing.

This will require a strong pass rush by the Saint’s defensive linemen and linebackers.

They were able to get to Favre last year, so there is no reason to think why they shouldn’t be able to do it again this season.

But there may be a reason.

The Saints had the luxury of having safety Darren Sharper last season, and he made a big difference on defense.

However, Sharper is going to start the season on the physically unable to perform list, meaning that he’s not only going to miss the first six games of the season, but he’s also going to miss this game.

How will this affect the Saint’s defense?

If you remember how Sharper played last season, with big hits and the creation of several opportune turnovers during the season, you can see that he will be missed quite a bit.

Will his absence affect the way that New Orleans defends against the Vikings and Favre?

It most certainly will, but hopefully they have someone who will step up and be able to take over the same role that Sharper did last season.

Getting pressure on Favre will be key, and if the Saints can do that, they should be able to force him into making mistakes. If the Saints defense can take advantage of these mistakes, then they will win.

Analysis

This is going to be a great game and probably one of the most hard fought games of the year.

It’s a great way for the NFL to open up the new 2010 season, so look for a lot of hype leading up to this game.  

There is going to be a certain amount of revenge (on behalf of the Vikings) for this game because of what happened during last year’s game, so look for this to be intense on both sides of the ball. 

Expect both offenses to come out firing in an attempt to get a big lead before settling down and letting their running game do the work.

The Saints may be better equipped to get the lead early in this game, but can their defense keep the Vikings from scoring a lot of points?

We will soon find out. 

Prediction

This is the first game that either of these two teams have played, and even though preseason is there so you can work out the kinks, there are bound to be a few hiccups in this game for both teams.  

The team that starts out this game the quickest and scores the most points to start will win this game.

And as long as their defense doesn’t allow the Vikings and their quarterback to come back in a furious comeback, the Saints should win this game.

New Orleans 32 , Minnesota 21