NEW ORLEANS —
Ricardo LeCompte: Alright; the Saints are going to enter the bye week 7-1, after a 31-9 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
We’re going to break down some of the things that we’ve seen in this game, and let’s just start with Drew Brees. I was in this camp, Doug, thinking “let’s just take this week, the bye week and then have Drew Brees come back and play.”
I think a lot of fans thought that, but it’s Drew Brees. He’s going to try to beat every single time table to get back. Certainly, he came and played today.
Doug Mouton: Look. I like the idea of him playing as soon as he thought he was ready. He played. He looked a little rusty in the first half. You could see that, but he made a couple of throws at the end of the first half. Then, there was a long one to Ted Ginn in the seam in the second half.
He made all the throws. He was “Drew Brees.” The one to Zach Line — on the interception, Brees said it was just a bad decision. He said he got greedy. I thought Brees was Brees. I think he can be a little bit better than he was today, but I thought he was very good today —obviously, good enough to win this one.
LeCompte: I think it was interesting. In the post-game news conference, when we were talking to Drew Brees, he was kind of giving us the process of how he got back. He said, he really starting feeling good, just in terms of when he could go — not in pregame. It actually happened in practice earlier on Thursday.
Even if you took back that previous Saturday, when he was like “you know what? I think I go. I think I can grip it and rip it,” as he would say. He’s like “I’ll get back on Wednesday’s practice and then be able to practice.”
Thursday, he was throwing the ball and feeling good. It was one of those things where we didn’t know the process of how he felt going into this. Maybe, he was going to have a few issues with it, but certainly, he was comfortable with it earlier in the week. He certainly showed it today.
Let’s talk a little Latavious Murray, and I think Latavious Murray has done an exceptional job of replacing Alvin Kamara — a big monster game for Murray today.
Mouton: Look. In three seasons in New Orleans, Alvin Kamara has gotten the ball 30 times one time in his career. Latavoius Murray has gotten the ball 30 times in back to back games the last two weeks. He’s a big guy. He can take the pounding. I thought, today, he made more people miss than I’ve seen him do before.
He was a great check down for Drew Brees. Drew Brees was just trying to make completions today. Murray caught 9 passes. He was targeted 11 times — got the ball 30 times, which is incredible in an NFL game. I thought Murray was outstanding today.
LeCompte: I’m going to give credit to the offensive line as well, particularly on that left side. Andrus Peat, who usually gets a bad wrap at left guard, was clearing holes for Murray. That left side keeps having great success, running on that side. Murray has an outstanding day not only catching the ball but also running the ball.
Defensively, for this team, that big 4th-and-1, I thought changed the game completely and almost just handed the game to the Saints.
Mouton: No question, and David Onyemata was unbelievable on that play. That was clearly the play of the game. An interesting decision — Arizona Cardinals Coach Kliff Kingsbury was trying to win the game; I get that. I’m all for aggressiveness. In this case, it seemed like a bad choice at the time, and it turned out to be a bad choice.
I thought Eli Apple had a great game. Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, the rookie, has been unbelievably good in his time.
Cam Jordan never stops amazing me with what he does. He is one of the most disrupting, chaos creating players in the NFL. He was again today. A lot of what he does doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, but he creates so much chaos. It all starts with him on defense because offenses begin their scheme with him. He had another great game.
LeCompte: The reason why pay him that extension in the offseason is because he is that impactful on defense.
That is our analysis on the Saints win as they move to 7-1 on the year.
► Get breaking New Orleans Saints news, scores, schedule and injuries reports by downloading WWL-TV's FREE "Bless You Boys" app in the IOS App Store or Google Play.