NEW ORLEANS — The referees and Los Angeles Rams killed the New Orleans Saints and their fans hopes and dreams in the NFC Championship in January and on Sunday they struck again. This time they put the 2019 Saints season on life support pending the most anticipated thumb report in the history of New Orleans.
The horror just sort snuck up on me. I didn't notice Drew Brees injured his thumb until I saw media tweeting he was getting looked at on the sideline during the commercial break.
“Oh my God this CAN NOT be happening!” flashed through my mind.
Honestly, once I saw the tweet, “Teddy Bridgewater is warming up.” I think I just sort of blacked out or reached for a bottle of bourbon. The details are a haze of panic and sadness.
Why did this have to be against the Rams? Couldn't the football gods spread out our most painful memories among multiple teams? From now until eternity just seeing that stupid Rams helmet is going to give me the shakes.
If Drew Brees suffering a season altering injury wasn't bad enough, we had to reset our 'Days since the NFL apologized to the Saints' counter back to zero, because the officials took a touchdown away from Cam Jordan because they blew their whistles too soon. It was clear as day Rams quarterback Jared Goff fumbled and the Saints returned it for a score to everyone watching but as Cam Jordan said after the game, “Everybody knew what it was. Well, I shouldn't say everybody.”
I'm not sure if you are aware but Cam calling the referees 'Foot Locker' means he is inducted into the Saints Ring of Honor immediately. He's a legend.
Despite Brees getting injured and the officials costing the Saints a touchdown, they only trailed 6-3 at the half and Teddy Bridgwater was looking promising.
Bridgewater's first drive was killed by 3 penalties. His second ended with a Michael Thomas drop on 3rd down, and his last one ended on Alvin Kamara getting stuffed on 4th down at midfield. It by no means was great but the Saints looked at least functional on offense.
The Saints continued to not help Bridgewater on their opening 2nd half drive as Jared Cook had a drop and Micheal Thomas had a false start. Hello 2nd and 15. That would have been hard for Drew Brees to overcome against a Ram defense that in Sean Payton's words 'Whipped us upfront'. For Teddy Bridgewater, coming into the game cold with no practice reps, it was like expecting to be able to run across a wet floor and not fall on your face. Oh, it might happen, but the odds are very much against it.
Did I mention by the 4th quarter the Saints only had 2 healthy wide receivers because Keith Kirkwood got injured in pregame warm-ups and Tre'Quan Smith got hurt on Saints biggest offensive play of the day?
I'm not sure if Teddy Bridgewater can keep the Saints season afloat until or if Brees returns, but deciding he's hopeless because of how he looked Sunday is both unfair and unwise.
Let's give Sean Payton a week to build a game plan around Bridgewater and Teddy a week to get all the practice reps before we decide Taysom Hill needs to be the quarterback or the Saints need to give up on 2019 and tank for Tua or whatever other horrible future looms over the horizon.
Speaking of the Saints 2019 future, Drew Brees didn't sound to optimistic about his injury after the game did he? I'm no doctor, but let's split the difference between injury being not that bad and Brees being out for the season, and guess Drew is out 8 weeks. That would mean he'd return November 24 against the Carolina Panthers.
The bad news is that means our dreams of another 13-3 season and home-field advantage in the playoffs are deader than those plans to bring back Jazzland. The good news is the NFC South is clearly the worst division in the NFL and 9-7 might just win it. Can Sean Payton stitch together an offense and can the defense play like they did in the first half against the Rams for two months if Brees is out that long?
Welcome to football poverty Saints fans. The days of 30 point games and Drew Brees engineering game-winning drives in 37 seconds are at the very least on hold for a while. If you want to find any joy from the Drew Brees-less Saints, you are going to need to embrace low scoring, ugly, slug it out football.
Sean Payton just agreed to a new 5-year contract extension so he clearly decided he wants to be in New Orleans after Drew Brees is no longer playing. Sean, that dark scary future just arrived a lot sooner than any of us hoped. Welcome to our Saints football nightmare.
---
More Saints Headlines on WWLTV.com:
---
Ralph Malbrough is a contributing writer and Saints fan living in Houston. Email him at saintshappyhour@gmail.com, find him on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter at @SaintsForecast or download the NSFW Saints Happy Hour Podcast.
(Warning: The Saints Happy Hour Podcast may contain language that is not suitable for all audiences)