Don’t look now, but I do believe we’ve got a streak on our hands! It’s gonna be hug and munch all the way to Chicago. Yeah, we bad. Get back now, you don’t want none of this. Or something.

At this point, the Saints are still little more than a tight-assed whitey with some funky threads and a little shoe polish on their face, but you get the sense that their hips are starting to loosen up a bit. Nothing like a home game against a team that’s in worse shape than Ron Mexico’s genitals to keep that process moving right along. Oh, and thanks, Detroit.

Welcome to the soft underbelly of the schedule, bitches. Opponents’ scores before the bye: 41, 31, 31. Since: 16, 17, 16. Saints scores before the bye: 10, 14, 14. Since: 13, 21*, 22. If it weren’t for that abomination of a 4th quarter against Carolina, the Saints would already be back to .500 for the year.

But since that abomination of a 4th quarter did happen, we’ll have to settle for a 2-game winning streak and a game coming up against a team that’s every bit as crappy as Atlanta is. Hey, I’ll take it.

I can’t figure out which is more mindboggling: The fact that the offense is still struggling as badly as they are, or the fact that the defense has carried the Saints to two straight wins. In the last two weeks, the Saints defense has held Shaun Alexander to 35 yards, Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood to a combined 66, and has racked up 8 sacks. What planet am I on?

Meanwhile, the offense remains as limp as Jeff Garcia on a tour of the Playboy Mansion. It’s better than it had been before the bye, but it’s still well below the standard they set for themselves last year. But there are still glimpses of competence from time to time. Yesterday’s offense showed us a couple of things we haven’t seen in quite some time: Devery catching the ball, and Reggie staying in bounds and taking on a couple of defenders. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

It also seems like we’ve been seeing a steady, gradual retooling of the offense since the bye. Lance Moore, David Patten, more of Eric Johnson, this week we got a glimpse of Pierre Thomas. Did you know that Eric Johnson is now the Saints’ third leading receiver? Yeah, me neither.

Which brings us to the newest moosedenied.com feature section: The Pete Finney Filibuster! This week’s topic, Lance Moore and Pierre Thomas:

If I didn’t know any better, I might think that the Saints have a couple of new stars on their hands.

Coach Payton might agree.

Then again, he might not.

But then again, he may.

Who are these two budding Saints stars, you ask?

I’ll tell you.

They’re a couple of guys named Lance and Pierre.

Don’t hold their names against them.

Coach Payton sure doesn’t.

And neither should you.

Their names might not strike fear into any opponents, but their play on the field sure does.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

But it should.

Back in 1997, I talked to Mike Ditka about guys with fruity names. He told me that it’s not the name on the jersey, but the heart in the rib cage, and the testicles in the athletic supporter. Then he pantsed Pio Sagapolutele for no apparent reason.

Coach Ditka was smarter than people give him credit for.

There have been plenty of non-intimidating names through Saints history. Wayne, Leslie, Olindo, Jubilee. I could go on and on, but this paragraph is getting a little too long.

But one question remains.

What’s that question, you ask?

Give me a minute, I forgot.

Oh, wait, now I remember.

The question is this: Can a couple of guys named Lance and Pierre play a significant role in saving the 2007 season?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Guh. Finney, you magnificent bastard. Now I know why the Times-Picayune pays you the big bucks. When others are uninspired and having a hard time producing adequate content, nobody’s better than you at throwing out a bunch of words to dirty up all that white space. If you don’t pay close attention, it even looks like actual content. And if you unfocus your eyes, you just might see a space ship.

Funny how it works. This is by far the most difficulty I’ve had writing a post to date. I just can’t seem to get excited about any of this yet, despite the two game winning streak. All this constant adjustment of expectations is a real pain in the ass. It’s hard to be a snarky asshole when they’re winning, but on the other hand, it’s hard to be a shameless homer when, even as they take baby steps towards getting back into the division race, they still look fairly shitty. I’m in limbo, I can’t commit to any one emotional stance to take here. It’s fucking with my mojo.

You’ve gotta feel good about this weekend in San Francisco though. Appropriate, since this whole season still feels like some kind of bitchin’ acid trip. I think the 9ers are planning to start Jerry Rubin at QB. Abbie Hoffman might have to come back up from the underground yet again to start at tailback. 31st in the league in scoring (13 points per game… oof) 32nd in total yards, 32nd in passing and 26th in rushing. These guys suck like Rachel Nichols after a Knicks game, and they’re banged up worse than a Rick James groupie.

Meantime, the Pants have Indy and Tampa has the Jagwires. In theory, you’d think that by this time next week, the Saints should be a half-game behind Tampa and a single game behind Carolina. Which is just batshit insane, given what things were looking like just two short weeks ago.

Up the road a bit, Les Miles and LSU got luckier than Reggie Bush at a Chicks In The Huddle cocktail party last weekend against Auburn. As entertaining as it is for LSU to have a coach with such huge Lesticles, there are times when you wish he didn’t so frequently put himself in a position where he has little choice but to use them. Try using the single, slightly larger ball of tissue that sits about three feet higher up.

It wasn’t so much about the decision to take a shot at the end zone, which I can honestly say I was hoping beforehand that he’d do. It’s about the seemingly nonchalant attitude that defines the team earlier in the game, which leads to the kinds of situations where you have to get crazy late.

I can’t figure out whether it’s arrogance or fear. But the first half of an LSU game just seems like a dress rehearsal for the second half. It seems like there’s no effort to attack until there’s no other choice. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out why. The huge-balls factor is so inconsistent. To wit…

Seems I’m the only person on the planet who takes issue with this specific moment from Saturday’s game, and I can understand why. It was a by-the-book call. But my biggest problem was on the next-to-last possession, when Coach Miles opted to take a field goal on 4th & short inside Auburn’s 10 to go up by 6. Conventional wisdom tells you to take the points and make the opponent have to reach the end zone to win, rather than kick a field goal to tie. Theoretically, the TD is more difficult, and if they don’t get it, you win. I get it. Perfectly reasonable call to make.

But this is where the Lesticles should have started swinging. Because when you look at it from a different perspective, the 3 points don’t do jack shit for you if Auburn does score the TD. And this is fucking Auburn, for crying out loud. Those of us who have been here a lot longer than Coach Miles saw it coming from a mile away. The chances of Auburn not scoring the TD to take the lead were somewhere right around zero. That’s just the way it works in Auburn-LSU games. There was a ton of time left on the clock, and any lead less than one TD was just never gonna hold up.

Coach Miles had the opportunity to slit their throats right then and there. Go up by 10 and game over. The offense had been on something resembling a roll at that point. The Auburn D was on their heels. You were inside the 10. And it wasn’t even a goal-to-go situation. Pull out the Lesticles and convert that first down, and they’re dead.

Worst case scenario? You don’t convert, you’re still up by 3, and Auburn has to drive damn near 70 yards from the shadows of their own goalposts just to attempt a game-tying field goal. Which is probably just as many yards, if not more, than they’d have to drive for the lead-taking touchdown after you kick off. And in that scenario, you leave Tuberville with the option to take the easier way out — a tying field goal.

Instead, not only do you roll the dice on giving them a shorter path to the win than the tie (in terms of field position) but you also put Tuberville’s back up against the wall. You take away his conservative option, to tie. You force him to go balls-out for the win. Given the choice, most coaches, including Tuberville, would have played for the field goal. I know the saying is "Go for the win on the road and the tie at home" but that refers to when you’re in the opponent’s territory, not when you’re backed up to your own goal line. Taking the three actually loosens the noose and not only makes the option to play for the win far more palatable to the opposing coach, it makes it his only option.

Seems to me the options were as follows: A) end it right then and there, B) make them go 70 for the tie, C) make them go 70 for the win, while taking the safe, game-tying option away completely. How is C not the absolute worst option? "By the book" be damned. You’re Les Fuckin’ Miles for crying out loud. Whip ‘em out and teabag that smarmy little bastard on the other sideline. Sometimes the best move is to bring in your closer in the eighth inning and render the ninth moot.

But all’s well that ends well. I guess. Or something. Next up, the smarmiest of all the smarmy little bastards in all the SEC: Nick Saban. Hey, at least Spurrier is good for a chuckle or two now and then. He’s not a completely humorless tight-assed whitey. Lightening the fuck up every now and then goes a long way to mitigating the otherwise omnipresent air of smarminess.

Here’s hoping the bye week helps to clear a few heads while resting a few bodies. God knows LSU has been dying for both here lately. By the time they take the field again, they’ll be back in the BCS top two. Go Hokies. Sorry about week two. No hard feelings, eh? Slide me some skin. Solid.