I've been looking over Saints statistics a lot lately, trying to make sense of what makes this team seem so substantively different to everyone.  Brees is as good as ever, even if he doesn't throw for 300+ yards per game, and our defense has obviously benefited from the change of culture brought about by the acquisition of Gregg Williams, but there's something more that seems to be the catalyst:  a credible running game.

The Saints racked up an impressive 222 yards on the ground against Buffalo last week.  The week before, we posted 133 @ Philly, and before that 157 against the Lions.  Does anyone remember the last time we rushed for over 200 yards in a game?  I'll tell you--it was in 2006, in our playoff victory against the Eagles.  That season we also dropped over 200 on the Giants in week 16 (236 to be exact), but not once in '07 or '08 did we top two hundred (although we got close in a few games last year).  What's more, only ONCE in the last 3 seasons have we posted three consecutive games of 100+ rushing yards--conversely, in the past three years, we've averaged 8 games per season of fewer than 100 yards on the ground.

It seems like Sean Payton's commitment to a balanced offensive scheme is more than just talk so far, and it's really helped make us a complete football team.  While that alone is great news, it really bodes well for future offensive endeavors, as teams will have to load up the box if we continue to have a credible running game.  Not only are we first in the NFL for passing TDs, but we're just barely behind league-leading Baltimore (7) with 5 rushing TDs.

I know it's been said many times before, but our offense is just straight up killer.  We have so many weapons, and the addition of a serious running game has taken our sometimes-one-dimensional-yet-still-awesome offense to a whole new level.  If we beat the two New York teams, and our defense continues to grow as a unit, a 16-0 season for us is unbelievably...believable.