San Diego Chargers 21 @ New Orleans Saints 36: Who Dat Say?!

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Post-Game Reports

Game Video/Photo Collections

New Orleans Saints vs. San Diego Chargers Photos | neworleans.com
Photo gallery from the game.

NFL Videos: Pre Week 3: Drew Brees highlights | nfl.com
Saints QB Drew Brees lights up the field with big-play dynamics against the Chargers, throwing for 240 yards and two TDs.

NFL Videos: Can't-Miss Play: Pop fly! | nfl.com
Saints WR Devery Henderson is the last man standing on a pop fly and cashes it in for a TD.

NFL Videos: Ivory 76-yard TD rec | nfl.com
Rookie RB Chris Ivory states his case to make the Saints' roster with a 76-yard TD against the Chargers.

NFL Videos: Torrence pick-6 | nfl.com
Saints CB Leigh Torrence picks off a Billy Volek pass and takes it 87 yards for a TD.

A Day Late and A Dollar Short 

Items that HansDat flat out missed yesterday, or that went up just prior to kickoff...

New Orleans Saints vs. San Diego injury report | NOLA.com
Here is the pregame injury report for the New Orleans Saints vs. San Diego at the Superdome.

Key Storylines in Saints-Chargers Contest | neworleanssaints.com
This story posted minutes before kickoff. Just in time for me to read it after the game.

2theadvocate.com | Saints | Saints to give QB Ramsey his shot against Chargers — Baton Rouge, LA
Les East's Friday pre-game story.

Lagniappe

WWL-TV.com's Saints 53-man roster Aug. 27 | wwltv.com | Eye on Black and Gold - Preliminary beliefs by WWL-TV.com’s Bradley Handwerger, who put down his idea on what the Saints’ 53-man roster will look like on opening night against the Vikings.

2010 Saints Regular Season AccuScore Prediction | wwltv.com
Projects us at 11.8 wins, with an 83% chance of winning the NFC South, and 95% chance of the playoffs. Gives us 65% chance to beat Wikes 9/9/10.

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees given "Good Guy" Award | NOLA.com
The award is given by the Pro Football Writers Association. I'm glad this good guy finished first with the Saints last year.

Video

B A-W and Les East provide post-game thoughts (from what looks like a tent at an outdoor wedding reception)

neworleans.com via youtube

Audio

Transcripts

From the New Orleans Saints official website

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS COACH SEAN PAYTON

 "It's good to win, even though it's the preseason. I thought we played with good energy and effort. There are still a lot of little things we've got to work on, and fortunately we are going to have that time and we'll take a peek at this tape. I think this tape is going to be essential because we spent a lot of time with our starters. I thought our coverage units did better and played with good energy to the ball. We had 11 penalties. A couple of those we certainly can clean up, but there's some hidden yardage lost in the return game because of two big penalties. Overall, there will be a lot of good things when we see the tape and then enough that we can get cleaned up. Nothing on the injuries right now; we'll know more as these guys come in tomorrow."

(on tonight answering more roster questions) "We got a lot of snaps; we got a chance to see a lot of different people. The kicking game is going to be important in that evaluation with these battles we are talking about; how they performed and the coverage units and the return units are going to be critical. I think they understand that. We've got a lot of film to cover as coaches and review and grade and they are going to be important. This is certainly an important tape to study, as will next week. It will be a little shorter week as we go to Nashville on Wednesday, but we'll see as we continue to watch and look at these guys."

(on Chris Ivory) "In each game, there are some things he needs to work on and clean up with his landmarks. He has a lot of potential. He's a work in progress. He made a heck of a play on the catch for the touchdown. In each game there are some things we've seen that we really feel positive about, and yet in each game there are some things you see that you recognize that he is young and there are some basic mistakes that we have to get cleaned up. Overall, he ran with energy and protected the football so that was a positive."

"He's got size and speed. Those are two things when you really begin to grade the free agents. When you get into that Sunday evening and signing free agents, each year, you see it with different players. With him, he's been able to take those assets and transition them. We saw it early in practice, if you were watching and paying attention you would have seen it. He just consistently has been able to get positive yards, but there's some things we've got to clean up and get corrected but that's expected."

(on Reggie Bush) "He's in good shape, he's healthy, there is nothing really holding him back... But certainly mentally and physically, he's in as good a shape as he's been since he joined us. He and Pierre (Thomas) both had solid reps tonight and got a lot of work and we were able to get some of those other runners involved as the game progressed, which was the plan."

(on illegal snaps) "I think all of a sudden we get into this, and I hate that tempo can be taken away from a Drew Brees. It came up last night in the Colts game. I don't know mechanically if we were ready for all this. The quarterback is looking down at a play clock, he's looking at the safeties, he's looking at the center, and now he's got to look at the side judge to get the thumbs-up. Already we've switched who he has to look at - that quickly got changed."

QB Drew Brees

How is it different playing against a 3-4 defense? There are definitely differences in a 3-4 and a 4-3. Its just a mindset going in to it knowing that in your base personnel you are going to see 3-4. There are some different fronts you can play out of a 3-4. Its just being able to recognize. It's the recognition aspect of it so everybody knows who they are blocking in pass protection and then in the run game.

Is it harder to make in game adjustments in a 3-4 rather than a 4-3? I wouldn't necessarily say its harder. There is definitely more preparation that goes in to it during the week when you talk about playing against a 3-4 as opposed to a 4-3. We all grew up going against a 4-3 forever. Except for a few teams in college, its not until you get to the NFL that you see a lot of the 4-3.

What are your impressions of Chris Ivory?  We knew he was going to have the opportunity to carry the ball extensively tonight. He took great advantage of his opportunities. Obviously, his biggest play came in the pass game with that little screen. We actually busted an assignment on it. We were supposed to have a guy out there blocking for him and he ends up making that guy miss, running over another guy, cutting back and stiff arming a guy halfway down the field, looked like (Jeremy) Shockey, and then finds his way into the endzone. He was impressive tonight in a lot of ways. For a young guy, a young back, you just continue to watch him develop. There is no doubt that he is a very talented runner, its just a matter of putting the whole package together. Being a running back in the NFL, you have to know how to pass protect, who to block, catch the ball out of the backfield, advance it as well as being able to gain the tough yards in short yardage and goal line situations. All of those things.

Even though it has been a while since you have been in their shoes, how do you think Chase (Daniel) and Patrick (Ramsey) feel about competing for the back-up quarterback position and not knowing what their future is going to be? Patrick has been around a while. This will be his ninth season. He has been around a lot of football, played for a lot of teams. He knows the deal. A guy like Chase, he is a young guy, is just trying to establish himself and get an opportunity. You watch both of them, and the way they approach it, and the good thing is that we have great dynamics between all of us. While we all know it is a competition, constantly, every day, everybody gets along and everybody is willing to help. You watch those guys work and they both deserve an opportunity because they are both putting in the time. They are both doing everything they can to make sure they know what they are doing out there, master this offense, and study the defense. However it plays out, it plays out. I think they have both made a pretty strong case.

How do you feel about moving the position of the umpire? We got hit with a couple of penalties tonight on that. Its pretty common stuff we are doing as far as hurry-up. Not that exotic. It is stuff we have done plenty of times in the past, but now, all of a sudden, we are getting penalized for it. I know there were some issues last night's game, the Colts and the Packers. The Colts got called for it a few times, and you could see Payton's (Manning) frustration. I guess it is what it is. If a rule is changed, you have do your best to make sure it doesn't affect you in a negative way. It's going to take some getting used to and it definitely affects the game.

Are you pleased with where the offense is at this stage? I am pleased but not totally satisfied. I would never be satisfied, even if we scored on every possession. There are always things that you can do just a little bit better. Obviously you understand that once you get to the regular season there is a very small margin and we want to continue to look sharp and eliminate penalties and mental errors. There were too many penalties tonight. Too many mental errors.

What do you think went well tonight? With a lot of our possessions, we started inside our own 10 yard line. I don't know how many possessions the first offense had. We might have had seven.  It felt like we were inside our own ten at least five of those times whether it was due to a penalty on special teams or because they have a really good punter who just punted us down in there a few times. I felt like we sustained some pretty long drives in order to get some points. With the two minute drive, getting down there, unfortunately we had the 15 yard penalty, otherwise we would have had a better chance at a touchdown. I would say just fighting back from the field position. Other than that, on third downs, I wish we would have been better. There were a couple issues with some of their pressures. For the most part, I thought we handled things pretty well.

Can you talk about the overall performance of the offense and the passing game? If you look at the numbers, we threw for 400 yards tonight. I don't care what level you are playing at, that isn't easy. We put up a lot of yards. We moved the ball well. We had some big plays. When you come out of a game, the first thing I look at is third down conversions. We were 44% tonight. We should have been better. We had a couple of instances on third down, whether it was a dropped ball, a miscommunication, or a bad throw that we very easily could have been 60 or 70 percent. Then the big plays. Big plays give you an opportunity to get a lot of points, a lot of yards, and to create great tempo. I just felt like we were in a lot of bad positions tonight whether it was a first and fifteen or a second and long and you are trying to fight your way out of that. That's tough sometimes.

What are your thoughts on the proposed two preseason game and 18 regular season game schedule? There is going to be a lot of discussion about that. The only thing I am going to say about that is do you know the toll that is going to take on guy's bodies. The season, being 16 games, is already very long. As you look at it, its not just a matter of adding two more games, adding two more paychecks, but you need to look at salary, how does it affect medical benefits post-career, and how does it affect offseason and preseason. When you talk about adding games, you have to talk about what kind of benefit are the players getting. I can tell you this, I already know a lot of guys feel this way, if you ask these lineman and everybody else how there body is feeling at the end of a season, they are beat up. It takes them months to get back healthy again. You talk about adding two more meaningful games,that takes years off guy's careers and probably takes years off of their lives too.

Was Marques' (Colston) penalty uncharacteristic of him? There was some extra stuff going on on the field. Marques kept getting pushed to the ground on that play. There side of the ball easily could have gotten flagged for stuff but they never were. All Marques did was spin the ball. I see him do that a lot. Its not a big deal. He doesn't mean anything by it. It is what it is. I think there were times where Marques was getting held tonight and stuff wasn't getting called. I think he was a little frustrated at times because of that.

RB #48 Chris Ivory

Can you talk about your run and your performance in three very productive preseason games? My mindset was to work hard and open some eyes. Just prove that I want to be here. I am trying to go hard on every play.

When was the last time you scored a touchdown that long?

I am not even sure.

LB #58 SCOTT SHANLE

"I think the third preseason game you're trying to get a dress rehearsal for the regular season as much as you can. You can't ask for a better team to get prepared for because they're a really good team, one of the better teams in the AFC. There's still things we need to fix. We've got a week and a half to fix those things.

(on two preseason games vs. four) "If you ask a veteran player, they're going to tend to lean on the side of shortening the preseason and training camp. But when you're a young player, those reps are invaluable; you need that much time to get ready for a season. You're always going to have two different points of view.

(on injury to Jonathan Vilma) "Marvin Mitchell has been around for a few years; he knows exactly what we're doing, the checks we need to make. 

He's the obvious choice there. When we lost a guy like Jonathan Vilma, you're going to simplify some things on

defense. We put a lot of stuff in that guy's hands as far as making checks. There's a reason why he's been the

captain of our team the last couple of years.