It all seems so silly now, five weeks into the regular season – will Reggie Bush or Lance Moore return punts for the Saints?

After returning two punts for touchdowns in Monday night’s 30-27 loss to Minnesota, any questions about the return game have been put to rest.

Both electrified the 70,015 in the Superdome, and according to quarterback Drew Brees, likely ignited whoops and hollers nationwide.

“I think everybody in the stadium and everybody in America – that was fun to watch,” Brees said. “Talk about getting us back in the game after earlier shooting ourselves in the foot.”

The first one – a 71-yarder aided by a decleating block by Jo-Lonn Dunbar – pulled New Orleans to within three at 20-17 late in the third quarter.

The second gave New Orleans a 27-20 lead with 11:36 to play in the game.

“Great blocking by teammates,” Bush said. “It was obviously a huge lay in a time of need when we needed point on the board.”

Bush finished with a franchise-record 176 return yards and tied an NFL record with two punt returns for touchdowns. He’s the 12th player to do it.

Missed kicks...again

Martin Gramatica missed a potential game-winning field goal against Denver in Week 3.

Monday night, he did it again. After having a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown in the first quarter, Gramatica missed a 46-yard field goal that would have given New Orleans a 30-27 lead with fewer than two minutes to play.

“I pulled it,” Gramatica said. “I hit it solid, but it went left. The worst thing about it is that I let the team down. Those are the toughest ones. You hurt the team when you miss those. These guys killed each other for 60 minutes.

“They played awesome defense. It hurts to let them down like that. It is frustrating when you have a group of guys who are tight like that. It kills you to let them down.”

Saints offense felt like it was sinking

New Orleans finished with 375 yards of offense, but only 124 of it came in the second half. The offense turned the ball over four times, including fumbling it away two times.

In all, the Saints fumbled five times and after a first-drive touchdown, didn’t accomplish much else.

“Terrible first half,” Bush said. “Like we were in quicksand. We just kept sinking and sinking.”

Tough hold

New Orleans was driving for a double-digit lead in the first quarter when a drive stalled at the Vikings’ 19.

 Bush turned up field on third-and-1 and gained 18 yards. But a holding penalty on Mike Karney negated the play and two plays later, Minnesota blocked a Martin Gramatica field goal attempt and returned it 59 yards for a touchdown.

“We try a field goal, it’s blocked and they score a touchdown,” Saints head coach Sean Payton said. “It’s a 10-point swing if you say hey you get the field goal and instead it’s a touchdown on their part. It’s frustrating. We have a play designed for short yardage, turn the corner get there and then have a holding penalty.”

Penalties, penalties everywhere

New Orleans finished the game with 11 penalties for 102 yards. That’s not a good thing and generally portends a loss.

The ones that really get Payton’s goat, however, are the offsides and especially false starts. They have been a problem all year and Payton said it’s going to come to an end one way or another.

“You start looking at who is the repeat offender and again make an emphasis on our cadence,” Payton said. “There’s some guys it keeps happening to. It’s not going to happen much longer to those same guys.”

Stopping Minnesota’s threat

Coming into Monday night’s nationally televised showdown with Minnesota, the theory was stop Adrian Peterson, stop the Vikings. One part happened.

Peterson, who was averaging 105.5 per game, was held to 32 yards on 21 carries. It was on of the bright spots for the Saints.

“It was nice,” New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita said. “I don’t know what (Peterson) ended up with, but we came into the game with the mindset of stopping their running attack and that’s what we did. Everybody stepped up.”