Welp, they've got me right back where they want me. Cha-ching! Welcome to December, bitches. Shall we resume this here party?

And welcome back to the Saints too. Seems the sleeping giants may have finally awoken. A month ago they reminded us, and themselves, that November Is Important™. Evidently it wasn't just a clever tee shirt slogan. Clearly it helped them to remember to Bring Their Wood™, and perhaps more importantly, to bring their whole asses. The result? Two crucial divisional wins followed by a long Thanksgiving holiday, and then Monday night's pimp-slapping of the Giants which punctuated and underscored their month-long transition back into Beast Mode.

I have to admit that I was a little concerned that some of them might have inadvertently left the other half of their asses back at Aunt Millie's house in some kind of tryptophan-induced haze. (Yeah I know, it's not the tryptophan, it's the carbs. Shove your pedantic Thanksgiving trivia up your ass.)

I stand corrected. Yet again. It won't be long before the Grandmaster Wrong™ files are gonna need a bigger file cabinet and another case of manila folders, so if you're wondering what to get me for Christmas and/or Chanukkah…

Say, has anybody heard any statements yet from the Saints on the relative importance of December? Gotta figure December is pretty important too, right? Do we have our December motivational props on order yet? A pair of novelty crutches maybe? Perhaps a single-cheeked buttock-enhancing undergarment of some sort? Hopefully the black pants are flexible enough to accommodate the extra volume. BLACK PANTS, BITCHES!

Meantime, in honor of yet another damn helpful November, we here at moosedenied have decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on yet another of our signature flip-flops. Because it's recently become fairly obvious once again that #wegotthis. Right? RIGHT???

Or something.

Something like that.

Oh, this defense still gives me the shits every single week. And Monday night was no exception. I don't expect that to change any time soon. In fact, moosedenied would like to take this opportunity to hereby dub it "the Pancho's Defense."

But you know what? Fuck it.

There, I said it.

Don't tell 'em I said it. Please, I'm beggin' ya, DO NOT encourage them by reinforcing this here notion which clearly they've already fully bought into on their own.

But, I'm just sayin', with this better-than-2009, potentially-historically-great offense, I've finally come to grips with the idea that maybe — just maybe — this defense might very well be good enough for the offense to carry them to a(nother) Championship.

High five?

High five!

Because this offense is just that damn good.

On occasion, anyway. You know, when they remember to bring their wood, that is. And their whole asses.

Hell, Sproles alone brings enough wood to plug most of the Saints' holes. And you're gonna need a pair of those Favre-endorsed Wranglers with the extra crotch space to handle all the wood Lance will put in your pants.

And don't even get me started (again) on Jimmy Motherfucking Graham. Or as Kevin Held would call him, King Shit of Fuck Mountain. Boing! (We here at moosedenied would like to take this opportunity to give that nickname our full endorsement. Here's hoping Jimmy isn't nearly as accepting of the mundane as Thomas "The Leg" Morstead apparently is.)

Fuck Mountain indeed. 67 receptions for 957 yards and 8 touchdowns. 14.3 yards per, 87 yards per game. Eleven games into his second year, he's already posted the hands-down best single season for a Saints tight end in franchise history, as Jeff Duncan pointed out in his First & 10 column last weekend. He needs only 333 yards over the last 5 games to pass Kellen Winslow Sr. and set a new single-season NFL record for receiving yards by a tight end. That's 67 yards per game from here on out, a full 20 yards per game below his current season-long average. #hegotthat

Not half bad for "that other dude who isn't Rob Gronkowski" am I right ESPN?

Speaking of guys who aren't other guys, that Drew Brees guy isn't half bad either. Oh don't get me wrong, it's not like he's Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady or Tony Romo or Tim Tebow or anything. But ESPN is right, he's… you know… pretty good. Guess we don't have much choice but to go ahead and make do with that somehow.

Oh, and don't look now, but the Saints are 8th in the league in rushing yards, tied for 4th in the league in yards per carry, 10th in the league in rushes for 20+, and tied for 5th in the league in rushing touchdowns. So, you know, there's also that. Your head just exploded, didn't it? REG-GIE! REG-GIE! REG-GIE!

This just in: that Ingram dude? Pretty fuckin' good.

Oh sure, he hasn't exactly set the league on fire so far. But he's about to.

How do I know? Because Sean Payton admitted a few days ago that the only reason Ingram isn't leading the race for offensive rookie of the year is because Payton hasn't given him enough of a chance. He's probably right, and it's not like Sean Payton is the kind of guy who just runs off at the mouth without carefully choosing his words. (That's really more of a Reggie Bush thing. Best wishes to Reggie for a speedy recovery from being a Miami Dolphin. And a dumbass. A walking, talking, tweeting faux pas. Not that I'm holding my breath on that.)

So what made the lightbulb go off over Sean Payton's head? Probably Monday night. For the first time, Payton let Ingram out of the little box he'd put him in. For the first time, Payton trusted the rookie to be more than a one-trick pony. They ran him outside the tackles. They threw him the ball. They let him loose.

The result? 94 yards from scrimmage. 6.2 yards per carry. A 35-yard run for a touchdown. Prompting his head coach, who isn't short on pride and doesn't take such things lightly, to offer up the notion that whatever his rookie tailback hasn't accomplished so far is his own (Payton's) fault.

That's heady stuff right there. And it's just the beginning. Pretty sure that the Trust Factor, which has always been at the top of the list of Sean Payton's hangups regarding his tailbacks, was firmly established Monday night.

And now? Sky's the limit.

Remember when people used to always say that Reggie was actually a better rusher between the tackles than he was outside "in space?" And the stats kinda-sorta supported that notion? I'm beginning to think that it's the exact opposite with Ingram.

Conventional wisdom was that Reggie's speed was best suited to juke linebackers and defensive backs out of their jocks in the open field. So that's what they did. And it didn't work out too well. In hindsight, counterintuitive as it might be, it seems like Reggie's speed was best suited to bone fat fucks in the middle.

These days, conventional wisdom would suggest that Ingram's bulk is best suited to bowl over whatever fat fucks happen to be within a 3-yard radius of Brian De la Puente's ass. But it's slowly but surely becoming evident that his bulk and head of steam is as big a mismatch against defensive backs is every bit as unfair as Jimmy Graham against… well… just about anybody.

Wait a minute, conventional wisdom being wrong? That's unpossible! Am I right, Message Board Guy?

Say, remember Young Dulymus? Got a feeling you're about to get a face full of that over the next couple of months. High five!

Because the only thing that was holding Mark Ingram back was Sean Payton. Don't believe me, just ask him.

But what of the Pancho's Defense?

Well, that's the rub isn't it? Much like everybody's favorite Mexican cafeteria, it kinda blows, and it'll have you racing to the toilet while shouting "PLEASE! JUST HOLD ON FOR TWO MORE MINUTES!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE!!!"

And, more often than not, I guess, it kinda-sorta does usually hold on for those two more crucial minutes. And everything kinda-sorta works out okay in the end. Cleanup is manageable, all things considered. And by golly, despite everything, in retrospect, you probably enjoyed it. For the most part, anyway.

Oh sure, Manning The Lesser threw for 400 yards on ya, and went something like 22-for-23 in the second half. Some dude named Victor Cruz went 9 for 157 with 2 touchdowns, including a 72-yarder.

But hey, a half-dozen flautas swimming in queso will fuck you up worse than that.

So fuck it. It's all good. Raise the flag! Bring me the red chile stew! By the shitload! Barring any unfortunate accidents, #wegotthis

Oh, and about a half dozen more margaritas. You know, just in case we find ourselves needing to forget the aforementioned unfortunate accident later on.

Fingers crossed.