NFL Week 6: Saints Trump Seahawks, Chargers Roll Raiders

All right, so it's Wednesday and I'm just getting to this now. Yeah, I'm lame.

Sorry to all you faithful readers (there are so many of you). I guess my reason, excuse, what-have-you for not posting this sooner is I'm lazy, tired, and shocked.

I'm shocked God actually allowed me to be happy about the way Sunday's NFL Games turned out, at least for my teams.

Sunday night was the first time the Saints scored more points than the other team.  And that's really what it was, at least the first half of the game.

The Saints offense looked a little bit like a blast from the past, as in last season.

Brees was money with his throws, mainly because his offensive line gave him all the time in the world to throw (it does make a huge difference). And when the O-line wasn't protecting their expensive QB, they were opening up holes for their second-year Slash.

From an offensive perspective, I really believe the biggest difference was the O-Line. It was by far the best game they've played all year and a major reason for the victory.

However, let's not discount a previously terrible defense. They played pretty well the week before in the very disturbing home loss that was sealed with a game-ending field goal by John Kasay, a guy who seems like he should be collecting AARP checks not kicking in the NFL.

Anyhow, that was a lot to do about little.  The point is, Sunday night, the Saints' D flew to the football or Matt Hasselbeck, which was usually the same thing. They finished with five sacks and one pick, but more importantly they played with an attitude I haven't seen from them all season.

Look for the slow-footed and sometimes retarded Joey Harrington to be begging for a ticket back to Detroit or Byron Leftwich begging for a change of scenery after this week's game.

I'm going out on a limb—I know how dangerous this is because I suck at predicting things—but the Saints are going to make an historic comeback and make the playoffs. They certainly have the talent and the coaching.

And that brings me to a point I haven't heard anyone mention from Sunday night's game I found cool and interesting.  If you were watching the game, you would know there was about a 10-minute delay early in the first quarter because the overhead camera got stuck. After about 5 minutes, I think the whole world was getting impatient and about ready to hang themselves if they had to listen Al and John do the small-talk thing anymore.

NBC wisely moved to show a picture of Saints Head Coach, Sean Payton, chatting with a couple of the officials. He wasn't angry or impatient, instead he was cracking jokes with them. And they looked like they were at a Comedy Club. I think it was the most fun Payton or the officials had all night.

I have no idea what he was saying, of course, but my point is how many coaches in the NFL would have been cracking jokes with the officials at that point? They showed Mike Holmgren who looked like he was trying to pass a kidney stone.

Add to it the fact Payton is the coach of an 0-4 team. If he loses the game, you know Around the Horn and PTI are doing a segment on that moment of the telecast where they replay the shot over and over and then some lame Saints highlights and they debate whether he's way too loose and doesn't give a crap.

And of course, Woody Paige defends him and Jay Mariotti takes the other side and somehow finds a way to compare this to the always-stoic Lovie Smith from the Bears (or maybe Ozzie Guillen or Lou Pinella since they're a little more outgoing).

Let's credit Pierre Thomas, the rookie free agent from Illinois, who made the team out of camp and is now on the Active Roster with the loss of Deuce McAllister.  No, the guy never touched the ball on offense, but he made a huge play on special teams by picking up the fumble on the low punt snap and dove into the end zone. I really believe that is the play that got the team going on Sunday night and will be the play we look back to at the end of the year as the one that got this team marching toward the playoffs.

Congrats Pierre, you are now No. 1 in my heart.

As for my other team, the Chargers, they played pretty well on Sunday afternoon. In fact, they dominated for about 58 of the 60 minutes, so overall I'm pretty happy with their effort and I've already established this, but I feel they're 100 percent back to where they should be.

Suddenly, no one is criticizing Norv Turner. He's not at "genius" status yet, but he's not a moron anymore either.

But, I think you have to say he's pretty smart in at least one regard: he got the ball to LT all day long against that good, but LT-diminished defense. It's as if when LT sees that silver and black on the other side of the ball, he puts it into another gear.

Or another way to put it may be that when they see him, they quiver and get shy like I do when I'm trying to talk to a girl I like.

Plus, Turner and QB Philip Rivers seem to understand another pretty basic principle: when you have someone as good as Antonio Gates, you get him the ball.

Gates is tearing up the NFL. Heck, I think he's like third in the league in catches and yards. For a TE, that is amazing. The guy just might have the single-greatest season for a TE this year. Money, money, money!

Kudos to the Chargers' defense. I know they were playing the Raiders, but the Raiders are improved offensively this year and their main form of transportation is FedEx Ground. They were leading the league in rushing going into Sunday, but were outrushed as a team by LT by about 125 yards, maybe even more. I don't care what the situation is, that's impressive. 

Finally, in my Flag Football, and Intramural, debut, my team, Oprah Winfrey's Book Club, won our game 28-7. It was a performance similar to the Saints.

We were 0-3 going into the game and hadn't put up too many points previously, or stopped anyone. But on Sunday night, we pulled out all the stops, protected well, largely in thanks to yours truly, and made plays.

I had 2 catches for roughly 15 yards. I was playing a Brandon Manumaleuna-type role. That being as mostly an in-line blocker who checks into the passing game when the QB can't find someone open downfield.

On defense, I played DE and decided to play the contain game, since before that our two ends would both get upfield and the QB would break contain and make some plays on the outside. Once I was inserted and performed my role fairly well, we shined.

Our next game is on Sunday night at 10 PM, in case you want to come out and see the new stud in action.  Until then, get a little crazy San Diego!