NFC Championship Vikings 28 @ Saints 31: The View from Section 140

1. the 60 yard return of C.Roby was huge to start the 3rd quarter with a good field position and with a score.

2.the fumble that J.Evans recovered at our own 11 yard line with 4 minutes left in the quater

3.the 2 stops by R.Ayodele before the Favre int, with 1 minute left they ran the ball two times for no gain

should be a training film in how a RB can read, run and create a big gain and TD out of a situation that wasn’t looking like a big gain and TD. It was perfection when it comes to the art of running a screen play and our OL deserves a lot of credit too. I think we will need that play vs. Indy.

…that stat is b.s., and this game proved it. High time of possession is an artifact of offensive success, not the cause. Running out the clock is an effective tactic in specific situations; it’s not an effective strategy.

actually entered the field at the beginning to the music of “The Final Countdown”. I laughed out loud given the exchange on here from a few days ago over the countdown clock. The people around me just stared, unaware of the kharmatic interplay between the game and this blog.

 Canadian Viking is still here? Doesn’t he have a moose to go flirt with or something?

but Drew Brees looked about as off as I can ever remember seeing him… Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad performance.

Thanks, Dave, for at least making this point. And yes, it was a bad performance. I was pissed. Still am. Throwing high the first half, throwing wobblers the second half. WTF??

During one of the video reviews in overtime, chants of “Finish Strong” began to spread throughout the stadium.

Very impressive. Quite a crowd.

Any other year and the Saints probably would have lost this game.

You got that right.

Devery Henderson is quietly leading this team in receiving yards, catches and touchdownsduring the playoffs. Just wanted to point that out.

I didn’t realize that, but I thought of him today while driving to work. If Devery had played as badly as Drew did on Sunday, you all would have been screaming for him to be benched/traded/released/drawn & quartered/I’ll stop now.

I was planning to write a fanpost pointing out how important he has been to this team this year. He has a Steve Austin kind of leg. I don’t know what they’re paying him, but it should be at least $6,000,000. His punts and kickoffs are huge. He’s definitely the Saints rookie of the year (not that there were too many to choose from). Malcolm Jenkins has a promising future, but this year the punter beat him out. All of us who bitched and groaned (and made claims of beastiality against him) should definitely admit we were waaaaaaay wrong about Payton’s drafting of him. I was one of the doubters, but not anymore.

I like all the other bullet points. Brees may have had a bit of an off day, but he was facing D-line pressure like he hasn’t seen very often this season. He’ll come out with a vengeance in Miami. The sports media d-bags who are currently saying the best team lost Sunday will only add fuel to the motivational fire for our team. I hope they keep saying it and I hope the Saints players hear every bit of it. They’ve been underrated and doubted most of the year and they’ve come out and proven themselves time and time again. I think they’ll be highly motivated to prove that they are no fluke and to capitalize on this very rare chance of winning the Super Bowl.

One other bullet point I just thought of that I haven’t seen mentioned yet—the Saints may very well have sent two future Hall of Fame QBs into retirement. Their punishment of Warner and Favre may help them decide to call it a career. I don’t say this with joy or anything as I highly respect and like both of them, but it is interesting that they may have both played their last NFL game against the same brutal Saints team in back to back weeks.

… probaly because he finally got his shot at winning a Championship… and you could see Payton was nervous too. I bet none of them had slept the night before

Now we got the Championship the swagger will come back…. with a vengeance… change of guard at the top coming…

make such a big deal of the TOP thing in relation to winning. The Colts (man I hate to say anything good about them at this particular time) played a game earlier this year and I can’t remember the other team they played against, but they (Colts) had the ball for only a total of one quarter. I think there TOP was around the 15 min. mark total for the whole game and they pulled off the win. I also agree the turn overs were all forced but one. The failed exchange between Farve and Peterson was the only one that we did not cause. Every single other turnover was the result of great defensive individual effort. We earned those takeaways dammit!!! Why in the hell can’t the media and the Viking fans just understand that and get off of this whole Vikings handed the game crap. I mean by far this was not a pretty game for the Saints. They are way better and more efficient on offense than we saw in this game and Payton did seem to be a little bit conservative, at least more than usual, in his play calling But certain things were done right like the fine play of the o-line in pass protection against a fierce d-line, special teams effort, and aggressive “knock you down and steal the rock” defensive play. Those all combined to keep us ahead and allowed the Saints to take, yes hear me “TAKE” the win…not receive as in the Vikings handing it to us.