The Sunday Evening Post: Week 7

The best team in the NFL is the New Orleans Saints. It’s a conclusion reached with some cynical use of the process of elimination.Yes, Peyton Manning’s Colts pummel weaker teams with precise, quick-strike offense, but they have proven themselves against two borderline playoff teams, the Cardinals and Dolphins, and no one else. The Giants got steamrolled by the Saints last week: They’re out. The Broncos, good as they may be on defense, do not have the firepower to keep up with these Saints. The Vikings would fold late against them; the Patriots would lose a shootout; the Ravens would be carved up.

And so I come to praise the Saints because no other team is as worthy. They did more than enough on their own, though, in today’s 46-34 win over the Dolphins to prove they would not be buried.

With 24-3, 27-17, and 34-24 scores against them in the ledger, the Saints didn’t panic, keeping pace until they rattled off 22 fourth-quarter points. Drew Brees threw three interceptions, two leading directly to Miami touchdowns and one likely taking three or six points off the board for New Orleans, but didn’t lose the game, and it was his lobbying of Sean Payton at the end of the first half that got the deficuit to a more reasonable 14 points at halftime. The Saints’ defense was gashed early, but allowed just three drives of more than ten yards in the second half and scored more points than the Dolphins offense did.

Even when they aren’t great, the Saints win, and handily. They did so in Buffalo in September; they did so in Miami on Sunday.

And when they are great, the Saints have a higher ceiling than any other team in the league. It’s not solely because of the three-pronged running game, the versatile passing attack, or the ball-hawking defense, and it’s certainly not because of the liabilities on special teams, where New Orleans languishes in many categories.

But with “very good” in nearly every category on the evaluation, the Saints check out, for now, as the NFL’s finest squad. With the Jets, Giants, and Dolphins behind them, it’s time to accept that this team is in no way a fraud. With only four games left against teams with winning records, it’s clear that the Saints will at least march into the playoffs with heads held high.

When they get there, with home-field advantage likely putting a raucous Superdome crowd behind them, their limit is the sky.

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