Big Offense in the Big Easy

Sunday night two division leaders in the NFL met in New Orleans. The NFC East leading Cowboys come in off the back of a last minute win against the Minnesota Vikings. The Saints, coming in, were 1-2 in their last 3 games. Including a loss to the resurgence New York Jets team that ran all over the Saints to a tune of nearly 200 rushing yards. For the Cowboys, you could clearly see that the game plan was to hand the ball off to a healthy Murray as much as possible. While facing a New Orleans secondary that is giving up  less than 200yds passing per game, the Dallas passing game struggled to get going early. With Romo going 3-9 in the 1st half, they needed the defense to step up and hold one of the NFL's most explosive offenses to a premium in points. The Saints, however, had a different plan. At half time the score was already 38-10 with no sign of changing in the 2nd half. The Cowboys took a giant shot to their already injury crippled defense when starting MLB Sean Lee went down with an apparent hamstring injury. The fact that DeMarcus Ware was playing on 1 leg didn't hurt either. New Orleans took full advantage of this by amassing a record setting 40 first downs on their way to a 49-17 route. As impressive as the offense looked Sunday night, Brees was 34/41, 392yds, and 4td's, the story all year has been the revamped defense that has stepped on the field. With Rob Ryan at the helm, the Cowboys were held to only 193yds. Tony Romo had little choice of passing targets as they doubled Dez all night an played tight bump coverage on all pro TE Jason Witten. With Romo only completing 4 passes to his WR core, Dallas was never truly in this game after the first quarter. For the Saints, the road just gets harder from here on out. Their final 7 games, they will face 4 games against playoff teams. Don't forget the Nov 21st game against division rival Atlanta Falcons either. As for the Cowboys, after their bye next week, they will face opponents in 5 of their last 6 games who's offense, either rushing or passing, is in the top ten in the NFL. For a team that is leading their division and has hopes of a playoff run, their defense has to vastly improve in the next two weeks.

Game Highlights