Sports Director Jim Henderson talked to Eric Paulsen at Noon about the Saints game against the Patriots scheduled for Monday Night.
The Patriots have a Hall of Fame coach in Bill Belichick, a Hall of Fame quarterback in Tom Brady and a Hall of Fame receiver in Randy Moss. They’ve won three super Bowls, Belichick, the inscrutable coach of this team is thought to best coach in the NFL when it comes to game day preparation.
It’s very worthy of the kind of hype that this game would suggest. The line is down to a point and a half. It opened with the Saints as three-point favorites, which suggest that more and more people think that Tom Brady can take advantage of the Saints banged up secondary.
Q: What do the Saints have to do to make this another win?
A: Control Brady. It all comes down to controlling Tom Brady. The Saints are going to put up some points. These are the two highest scoring offenses in the NFL. The Saints have the number one offense in the NFL, the Patriots are second. The Saints have a little more balance than the Patriots do, it’s going to come down to Tom Brady throwing to Wes Welker and Randy Moss and it will be up to the Saints defense, in particular the banged up and reconstituted secondary, because the teams are very even, but I think the Saints have the edge in the run game and I think the Saints will win the turnover battle.
Q: Will this come down to a battle of Brady v. Brees?
A: I think it has to. Their statistics are so very even. They each have quarterback ratings over 100. Tom Brady has never lost to the Saints; Brees hasn’t lost to the Patriots, although the wins were when he was with San Diego.
Q: Do you think the game is worthy of the hype?
A: Oh certainly. The only game I think in this season that could equal it was when the Saints played the Giants earlier and both were unbeaten and you see what has happened to the Giants since then. The Patriots routinely handle NFC teams. They really haven’t lost to an NFC team in the last 17 regular season games when they’ve played them. But they also haven’t won on the road this year if you throw out the game against Tampa Bay in London earlier this year. There are a lot of interesting story lines and I think it’s very equal to the hype everyone is putting on it.
