The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the Saints win against the Giants

The New Orleans Saints QB fought through a slow start and brought the team back to score 34 straight points. Shough threw two touchdowns in the second half and ran for a third to hold off the Giants 34-27. This was Shough’s first career game with 3+ TDs and no interceptions, and his second game this year with a rushing TD. There should be no question anymore that the Saints have their QB of the future, as through six games Shough is averaging 240.5 yards, 2 TDs, and fewer than 1 INT per game. He has been a bright spot in a disappointing start to the season, but this week thankfully his play resulted in a win.

The defense and special teams supplemented Shough’s solid afternoon by taking the ball away from New York four times. A forced fumble on a kickoff immediately following a scoring drive gave the Saints great field position and allowed them to tie the game before halftime. In the second half the defense intercepted three passes which led to 10 points and built the Saints lead to its largest of the afternoon. This was by far the most takeaways the team had all year, doubling up their previous high of two which came last week against Minnesota.

The Saints went three and out six times on Sunday and was just 4/15 on third down overall. The Saints actually rank 8th in the NFL in third down conversions this year at 42.5% (it was 45.8% before Sunday), so converting on just 26.6% of their third downs against the Giants was an uncharacteristic performance. Of these 11 missed third downs, only four were on distances of 10 yards or more. This failure to sustain drives got them in trouble early and late in the game and nearly cost them a win. Let’s hope they get back on track next week in Paris.

The Saints nearly blew a 24-point 4th quarter lead on Sunday. Once they grabbed a 34-10 lead with 11:31 left in the game, the offense possessed the ball for a little over 4 minutes of the remaining game time despite having four more drives. The Saints fumbled and went three and out three times on their final four drives of the afternoon, which allowed New York to have a chance to tie or win the game on their final drive of the day. On the defensive side they allowed backup QB JJ McCarthy to throw for 243 yards in the final 11 minutes alone and lead three scoring drives in a row to cut the lead to just seven. The Giants had the ball in the red zone on their final drive of the day, but the defense finally made a stand and caused a turnover on downs. The Saints were lucky not to blow this one, as once they got up 24, they took their foot off the gas in a major way, and it was almost their undoing.