For Bears fans watching Sunday night’s Cowboys-Saints game, two questions had to come to mind:
– Can the Bears’ defense handle the skilled offensive players on these teams?
– Does the Bears’ offense have enough firepower to help?
That brings on more questions.
Are the Saints, America’s New Team, really that good?
After Sunday night’s remarkable 42-17 onslaught, that’s one answer that seemed clear.
The Bears are likely to play one or both of the high-powered offenses in the playoffs, and Sunday’s game was for second place behind the Bears in the NFC standings.
Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo entered the game as the top-rated passer in the entire NFL. Saints quarterback Drew Brees was second in the NFC. The Saints boasted the NFC’s top offense in overall yardage. The Cowboys were No. 3.
Both quarterbacks are well ahead of the Bears’ slumping Rex Grossman, and both are able to rely on plenty of star power in their huddles, raising the question of whether the Bears can match up at any offensive skill position against either team.
The Bears have running back Thomas Jones, but the Cowboys have Jones’ younger brother Julius, whose 77-yard touchdown run on his first carry Sunday night helped him jump ahead of Thomas in season totals and give the Cowboys an early lead.
The Saints have the scintillating Reggie Bush and reliable running back Deuce McAllister, plus the league’s top rookie receiver in Marques Colston. Not only that, they have fullback Mike Karney and receiver Jamal Jones as well.
Mike who?
The third-year blocking back scored the first touchdowns of his pro career and stole the show from the bigger names. In the first half, he doubled his college total at Arizona State with a touchdown run of 2 yards and a touchdown catch of 3 yards as the Saints took a 14-7 lead. In the third quarter, he scored on a 6-yard pass as the Saints went up 35-17.
After recovering an onside kick, the Saints went up 42-17 on a 42-yard pass from Brees to Devery Henderson with 3 minutes 47 seconds left in the third quarter.
Jamal who?
Jones is a first-year free agent who had caught two passes all season but was pressed into service because Joe Horn was injured and inactive. Jones caught a 27-yard touchdown pass with 44 seconds left in the half to give the Saints an unlikely 21-7 lead in front of a surprising number of wildly cheering Saints fans at Texas Stadium.
The Saints went ahead after Romo threw an interception to safety Omar Stoutmire. Romo, who has soared to the top of the league’s passers in only six starts, was outplayed early by the veteran Brees, who directed coach Sean Payton’s multiple offensive sets to perfection. Brees completed 19 of 28 passes for 199 yards and two touchdowns in the first half as the Dallas defense, supposedly better than the Saints’, had no answers.
Payton, former Cowboys offensive coordinator under Bill Parcells, has been able to spread defenses by going with an empty backfield because Brees quickly finds open receivers. With Bush often in the slot for short passes, the Saints can put uncommon pressure on a defense because there is nobody in the league like Bush in the open field.
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The Saints had touchdown drives of 88 and 95 yards and controlled the ball for 20:44 of the first 30 minutes.
Romo has his own impressive targets in wide receivers Terry Glenn and Terrell Owens and tight end Jason Witten. But he was unable to connect with Owens in the first half, completing only 4 of 11 throws against a Saints defense that has surprised skeptics all season.
The Cowboys got into scoring territory just before the half, but Parcells’ new kicker, Martin Gramatica, missed a 43-yard field-goal attempt. Gramatica beat the New York Giants last week in his first game after replacing the fired Mike Vanderjagt, but he couldn’t give the Cowboys a much-needed lift going into intermission Sunday night.
The Cowboys got the ball to start the second half and scored on a 24-yard Gramatica field goal after a 50-yard pass from Romo to Glenn to close to 21-10. But Bush and the Saints came right back to make it 28-10 when Bush took an innocuous swing pass from Brees 61 yards for a touchdown.
Romo found Owens for a 34-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-17 when a fourth-down throw bounced off the hands of cornerback Fred Thomas to Owens with 7:46 left in the third quarter.
The Cowboys had won four straight games to take the NFC East lead, which they maintained over the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles. The Saints had won three of their last five to take the NFC South lead, which they kept over the second-place Atlanta Falcons.
Since reopening their Superdome to much fanfare on a September Monday night in New Orleans, the Saints have flown under the national radar, but they re-established themselves as a no-doubt NFC contender Sunday night.
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