I saw you look like a Japanese baby
In an instant, I remembered everything

Confession: I had myself one hell of a case of squirrel-itis yesterday evening. I’m not proud of it, but I’m man enough to admit it. This is why I try not to spout off immediately after a game. For a while there, I was Message Board Guy. I had to shower twice to get the stink of crybag off of me.

The symptom? Well, after a week one division win in which the Saints put up 438 total yards, including six plays of 20+ and two of 40+, Reggie Bush put up 163 total yards, the defense gave up only 13 points, holding Fabulous Jeff to only 221 yards passing and Joey Galloway to only 56 yards receiving, while producing two sacks and an interception, all I wanted to think about was "This is bullshit, the Saints should have put up 40 and won by three scores."

I called Sean Payton scared. I accused him of pansy-ass playcalling. I was happy about the win, but I refused to allow myself to be impressed. "What in the hell has happened to the so-called high octane, light ‘em up offense? Why does Sean Payton insist on playing small ball with a batting order full of roided up sluggers? Why didn’t they hang 40 on this circus of queers?"

Then I woke up this morning and thought to myself… "Sheesh Wang, you sure can be a real asshole sometimes."

Guilty as charged.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. After all, Tampa’s defense was 3rd in the NFL last year in points allowed per game (16.9 ppg) and the Saints put up 24. Tampa’s defense was 2nd in the NFL last year in yards allowed per game (278.4 ypg) and the Saints put up 438. The Saints only put up 438+ yards last year three times, once against a middling defense (Jacksonville) and twice against terrible defenses (Atlanta and San Francisco.) Even in 2006, the Saints only put up 438+ three times. And again, only once against an average defense (Pittsburgh) and twice against terrible defenses (Cincinnati and Dallas.) And two of those were losses, with a significant portion of the offensive stats coming in desperate come-from-behind attempts.

It remains to be seen whether or not Tampa’s defense will end up proving anywhere near as good as it was last year. We’ll have to wait for the season to play out, of course. But based on the best info we have to go on right this minute (Tampa’s defensive rankings and stats from last year) it could be reasonably argued that, considering the quality of the opposing defense, yesterday’s game could very well be the single strongest offensive performance we’ve seen yet from the Payton/Brees Saints. And that’s saying a mouthful.

So what was I bitching about yesterday evening? Why was I so unimpressed? Beats the hell out of me. My best guess is that it probably has a lot to do with it not being all that aesthetically pleasing (or in other words, "fly" ) by Saints standards. They’ve looked an awful lot better than they looked yesterday. It didn’t evoke the kind of subjective, observational superlatives like "explosive" and "dominant" that we’ve applied to this offense after other games.

But it was one hell of a strong performance. Damn strong. This is why snap judgments based solely on subjective observation are so often misleading.

On the other hand, I’m not going to back off on my assertion that something has happened to Sean Payton’s balls-to-the-wall killer instinct that used to be ever-apparent in his offensive playcalling. As always, I’m fully open to the possibility that I’m full of shit and just plain wrong. Especially since I’m saying this on the heels of a game in which the Saints’ three touchdowns came on plays of 39, 42 and 84 yards.

But surely I’m not the only one who notices those times when, if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear that Sean Payton has intentionally turned the offense off for some reason. Just shut it down. As if the fog of war has blinded the Saints offense to anything beyond about 5 yards past the line of scrimmage. And you wonder why, if the Saints can score three times on plays of 39+ yards, why does it seem like the only reason they didn’t score six times on plays of 39+ yards is because they just didn’t wanna.

Still, Ralph Malbrough is right: I’m nitpicking. The offense yesterday perfomed arguably as well as it ever has against an elite defense. There might have been a couple of games in 2006 when Reggie Bush was as effective as he was yesterday, but never has he been more effective. Yesterday ranked no lower than "1c" on his list of "career games" so far. Peter Tom is making more of a believer out of me every time he touches the ball. Somehow Jack Hunt keeps making huge plays despite having nubs at the ends of his arms. The offensive line held their own against an elite defensive line.

Washington is in for a world of hurt next weekend. A world of hurt.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the opposite is true in terms of perception vs. reality.

The defense sure did look good for the most part. Better than we’ve seen in quite a while. Sedrick Ellis and Tracy Porter made their presence felt to a far greater degree than might have been expected of a couple of rookies. Especially Porter, being that he’s a rookie corner. Number 22 was straight up outstanding. Jon Vilma led the team in tackles. Charles Grant looked like a fire had been lit under his ass. The defense carried their weight the whole game and were every bit as responsible for the win as the offense was. And in the end, the Asian Assassin secured the win as every single one of us were just wondering which Bucs receiver was going to snatch the game from us in the final seconds. Again.

Great, right?

Well, far be it from me to piss all over what really was a pleasant surprise from what most of us are describing as a "new and improved" defense. But I’d like to humbly suggest that we curb our enthusiasm just a bit for now.

Sure, it was great to see the defense hold its own, to give up one lone touchdown over a whole four quarters, to hold notorious Saints killer Joey Galloway under a million yards for once, to not give up a single passing play over 26 yards, to sack Fabulous Jeff twice (with at least two or three near-misses in there too) and to keep the pressure on him pretty much all day.

But let’s not forget that Tampa’s offense was 18th in the league last year with 326.8 offensive yards per game. They put up 352 on the Saints yesterday. Last year the Saints defense gave up an average of 348 total yards per game. Uh oh.

The Saints "held" Fabulous Jeff to 221 yards passing, but Jeff’s per game average last year was only 187.7. In fact, the last time Fab Jeff average 221+ passing yards per game was 7 years ago. The Saints allowed Jeff about 30 or 40 more passing yards than he’s usually good for lately. And the Saints defense allowed only about 24 fewer passing yards than their 2007 average.

The Saints held Galloway to "only" 56 yards receiving, but we here at moosedenied have been saying all offseason that it’s quite possible that Galloway is about ready to have a fork stuck in him anyway. His receiving totals in his last three games last year were 7, 29 and 9 yards. He only posted three 100 yard games all of last year (two of those coming against the Saints, of course.) He had eight games last year with 50 yards or less.

And perhaps most disturbing of all, the Bucs ran for 146 yards yesterday at a rate of 7.3 yards per carry. The Bucs averaged 117 rushing yards per game last year, and 4.2 yards per carry. Last year, the Saints allowed an average of 102.9 rushing yards per game and 4.0 yards per carry.

As good as it looked as it was happening yesterday, considering the stats, dare I say…. guh?

Sure, they were without Mike McKenzie. Sure, you have to throw out the record books and the stat sheets to an extent when it comes to divisional matchups. Sure, Tampa always plays the Saints tough. But let’s not let that confuse us as to the who’s whos and the what’s whats. It was one hell of a strange game, and it sure didn’t look like it on first glance, but in the end, "they are who we thought they were."

The offense is elite. As always.
The defense is questionable. As always.
The Bucs are tough, but ultimately, the Saints are better.