Monday Night Football results: Saints improve to 6-8, take NFC South lead

This game was a wreck from the start. Cutler was picked off on the first drive of the game, and the Saints answered in kind with a goal-line fumble. After a Chicago punt, the Saints botched a field-goal attempt, but were saved by penalties and got another crack at it. Of course, in keeping with the theme of the game, they missed that field goal, too.

The game cleaned up a little bit from a “colossal mistake” perspective from that point forward, but not by a whole lot. The Saints managed to put points on the board, despite not looking especially great on the offensive side of the ball. Chicago simply looked worse, allowing two touchdowns in the second quarter, and then a touchdown and a field goal in the third quarter.

Cutler’s first-half stats: 6-for-14 with 56 yards and two picks, as the Bears trail 14-0. The second pick was on the last play of the half, right before the booing.

In the past week, we heard rumors the Bears were feeling buyer’s remorse with regards to Cutler, we saw the team’s offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer criticize Cutler and then tearfully apologize, then heard rumors Cutler was privately upset with his team. Fun times in Chicago.

The Saints are not good. However, they are playing significantly better than the Bears, who have eclipsed the Saints not-goodness by being legitimately bad. This play encapsulates that:

The Bears had only 10 guys on the field, leaving one less to block, which contributed to them not picking up the first down. Having 10 guys on the field isn’t in and of itself illegal, but they also didn’t have the right guys in the right places, which is an illegal formation penalty.

Monday is the day you’re supposed to hit the gym. Gotta work off all those wings and pints of beer, right? Yeah, yeah, but you gotta work all day and then there’s FOOTBALL at night again! Well, we’ve got the solution: get fit WHILE you watch football. With the ultra-predictable Monday Night Football broadcast, it should be a breeze!

It’s real simple. Think of it like a drinking game, but with more sweating (or less, depending on your drinking regimen). Something on the list happens, you do the appropriate exercise. Got it? Get to it.

The NFC South is the worst division in football, but whatever team wins it is still in the postseason. And anything can happen at that point. The Saints would take over the division lead with a win. The possibility of the division winner having a losing record is very real, but the Saints can’t afford to lose any more games at this point. The Carolina Panthers, despite their 5-8-1 record, currently hold the division lead.

In other words: both these teams are kind of a mess right now. But, the Saints should be the more motivated squad on Monday, and they should be favored to win. It’s looking like experts around the Internet are mostly in agreement with this point, too. Of the 13 experts picking for ESPN, 11 of them picked the Saints. Over at CBS Sports, they’re split at four for the Saints and four for the Bears. Four of the six experts at FOX Sports are going with the Saints.

The Bears are playing for pride now that they are guaranteed to miss the playoffs for the seventh time in the last eight seasons. They have to win out the rest of the way to simply finish .500, and need to find one win in their final three games to avoid double-digit losses for the first time since 2004. While the Bears probably have the talent to compete with the elite teams, the reality is that they’ve only been able to beat the bottom-feeders. Chicago is 4-1 against teams that entered Week 15 with a losing record and 1-7 against everyone else.

Don’t be surprised if the final score of this game is something like 56-52, with the Bears and Saints owning two of the worst defenses in the league this season. Here are the ugly numbers: New Orleans ranks 30th in points, 31st in yards per game and 31st in yards per play allowed; Chicago ranks 32nd in points, tied for 28th in yards per game and 29th in yards per play.