Saints vs. Patriots: Live coverage, score updates and more

Patriots fans, meanwhile, aren’t stewing over the referees. The win stands as New England’s most impressive this season for a team that is now 5-1 and seems to be trending upwards. According to Greg Knopping at Patriots blog Pats Pulpit, the performance of a hamstrung defense may have been the most impressive facet of the Patriots’ victory.

• NFL Week 6 highlights, updates and more | Live NFL Scoreboard

Judge for yourself.

• NFL Week 6 highlights, updates and more | Live NFL Scoreboard

A bad day got worse in the fourth quarter when Graham limped off the field with an apparent ankle injury. He returned after trainers taped up his ankle, but still couldn’t get anything going.

• NFL Week 6 highlights, updates and more | Live NFL Scoreboard

The New Orleans Saints’ defense did everything right in the closing minutes against the Patriots. Well, almost everything.

Up 24-23, the Saints forced a turnover on downs. Up 27-23, Keenan Lewis picked off a Tom Brady pass. But each time, the Saints’ offense stalled, and the team gave the ball back to Brady with 1:13 left ... and he drove 70 yards, culminating in a 17-yard Kenbrell Thompkins touchdown pass (see it here).

The Patriots won the game 30-27 and improve to 5-1 while the Saints fell to that same record.

Fantasy Studs and Duds

In his place, the Saints turned to Ben Watson, who has been surprisingly more productive against the Patriots in Week 6. He has two catches for 57 yards, while Graham has been shut out by New England’s defense, failing to register a single reception despite being targeted five times.

UPDATE: Graham returned to the field after getting examined and taped by the Saints training staff, but then went to the locker room in the final five minutes of the game with the New Orleans offense out on the field holding a one-point lead.

Eventually Amendola was helped up, but as he was being taken off of the field by medical officials, he appeared to be somewhat out of it as he was walking away. Certainly it would seem that Amendola will be checked out for a possible concussion.

Amendola leaves with two catches for 0 yards on the day.

Talib was having a banner day on the field by all accounts, playing shutdown defense on Jimmy Graham, the Saints’ star tight end who has not made a catch as of yet today. New Orleans was losing, 17-10, before Talib went out, but the team was able to mount a successful touchdown drive.

The entire rest of the Patriots defense has just two interceptions this year.

On a fourth-and-1 late in the second quarter, the Saints were going to go for it, and it looked like they’d pick it up without trying when a charging Patriots defender caused a Saints player to move -- what looked to most observers like a neutral zone infraction that would give the Saints a first down.

Instead, it was ruled a false start on the Saints,giving them a 4th-and-6 and forcing them to punt. Fox gave us a look at what Sean Payton thought of the call in slow motion:

If you asked me to sum up the Patriots season so far in just one play, this would be my submission.

New Orleans punts on fourth-and-nine at 9:09 in the first quarter. Patriots lead 3-0. Julian Edelman fields it at the 22-yard line, but with a mass of fleur-di-lis descending, he tosses a lateral to Aqib Talib. Of course, at that point, it’s basically a fumble. Talib recovers it. New England loses 11 yards on the play.

Let’s take a look at both teams below, starting with the home team:

New England having the No. 21 passing offense in the NFL seems ... wrong, somehow. But they do, as Brady averages just 227.0 passing yards per game. New England has won three games by a single score, and lost another by the same amount. But they do have the No. 14 rushing offense in the league, with 116.4 rushing yards per game, and that might play a big factor in this game.