NEW ORLEANS — When Drew Brees went down, Sean Payton talked a lot about winning two battles in Seattle – winning the turnover battle and winning rushing yards.
Against the Bears, the Saints outrushed them 151 yards to 17, which is a huge win and then they got two turnovers and did not give up the ball.
It was a dominating win and another dominating performance from Cam Jordan, who was terrific. The injury to CB Eli Apple certainly hangs a black cloud over the end of the game, so you have to wait to see how his injury comes out, but the secondary was terrific. It was an interesting move at the beginning of the game. They went with the rookie, CJ Gardner-Johnson instead of Patrick Robinson at the nickel spot. With P.J. Williams out for two games, with the suspension, Gardner-Johnson was terrific. He had a very active game and made a ton of plays.
Gardner-Johnson was terrific. Lattimore was good again, and Eli Apple had a good game. The bottom line when you watch the Chicago offense is they aren’t very good on offense and Mitchell Trubisky has a long way to go. So, shutting down Chicago’s offense was sort of what you expected, what you didn’t expect was what the Saints did on offense. The 150 yards on the ground – Latavius Murray was terrific, the offensive line had a great game.
The star of the game to me was Mike Thomas. The one weapon you had available, you would think Chicago would overcover him and try to shut him down. They didn’t. And couldn’t. And Thomas had a huge game with way over 100 yards and 9 catches on the day. He made a huge difference in this one.
Teddy Bridgewater was good. You heard it throughout the TV broadcast, it was a complete win for the Saints. They stay unbeaten without Drew Brees and that’s the mystery. This week with the Cardinals coming to town, the final game before the bye. This is the game Drew Brees and the Saints have targeted from the start to get Brees back. We’ll see if they get him back, but either way it should be all smiles in New Orleans this week.