Alan Truex: In his home dome, Brees goes where he wants
Leave it to the New Orleans Saints to bring a flash of clarity to a muddled NFL season. We’ve seen the collapse or fadeaway of so many Super Bowl contenders: Eagles, Rams, Cowboys, Texans, Steelers, Cowboys again, Patriots, Chiefs and – most recently – the Chargers.
Even the Saints themselves wavered, losing at Dallas and haltingly advancing the ball against Tampa and Carolina. But the Saints showed up in full force and voodoo in the Superdome on Sunday and beat the Steelers. These were the same Steelers who the week prior had subdued the perennially Super-Bowling New England Patriots.
Drew Brees, strangely off his game for three consecutive weeks, returned to his Hall of Fame persona in a matchup with Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, who was not to be outdone. In a game evenly played, the Saints prevailed 31-28, though with an asterisk of sorts.
In a season ravaged by absurd rules and haphazard enforcement of them, this game featured the ultimate phantom pass interference, resulting in an early TD for the Saints.
The Steelers’ star defensive back, Joe Haden, was flagged in the end zone for lightly tapping one hand on a receiver’s back. CBS announcer Joe Buck called it “the least pass interference I’ve ever seen that was called a penalty.”
Of course, fans are always going to complain about refs, and so are coaches. So I barely raised an eyebrow reading this quote from the New York Jets’ Todd Bowles: “I thought we were playing two teams – the Packers and the striped shirts.”
But on second thought, I have to say the officiating in the NFL is drawing more outrage than I’ve noticed in the past. It’s coming from all quarters: the players, coaches, TV analysts and reporters. You can’t fully enjoy a play unfolding because of the threat of an unjustified penalty.
Check this tweet from a former NFL ref, Gene Steratore, referring to the aforementioned call against Haden: “This contact did not affect the receiver and is not severe enough to warrant a flag.”
This is an appropriate time to point out again that the NFL looks amateurish by refusing to hire full-time refs. It treats refereeing as a part-time gig, not a profession that requires constant training and evaluating, not to mention a fair amount of athleticism and physical fitness.
So we get the caliber of officiating in the NFL that doesn’t look much different to my eyes than what I see at Texas high school games on Friday nights. Dear Roger: This is the best you can do?
It’s infuriating. The NFL is trying to become a safer league, but there’s utter confusion over what sort of physical contact is permissible.
Well, not to blame the Saints for that.
They clinched home-field advantage throughout the postseason because they made plays as needed against a belatedly surging Pittsburgh team. The Steelers had been so dreadfully melodramatic for most of the season, and then they pulled together a week too late. They might have been on time if Mike Tomlin had not called for a fake punt in New Orleans when he had the lead in the fourth quarter.
The week before, the Steelers had outplayed New England, but even so they’re 8-6-1 and on the outside of the playoff window, needing a perfect storm to get in. Pittsburgh will be favored to win in Cincinnati, but that’s not enough.
The Steelers need help, the most plausible scenario – though still unlikely — being a victory by the Cleveland Browns playing in Baltimore against the team that on Saturday night trounced the Chargers, who were 11-3.
The American Football Conference no longer has a bona fide champion. The Kansas City Chiefs looked like one before video circulated of their All-Pro running back shoving a woman in a hotel. Ray Rice, The Sequel.
That calamity – Kareem Hunt exiled — was followed by injuries to his backup, Spencer Ware, and to the $16 million wide receiver Sammy Watkins.
So the Chiefs on Sunday lost to the 5-seed in the NFC, the Seattle Seahawks. While it’s never a disgrace to falter in CenturyLink, which has the most overwhelming noise of any NFL venue, the Chiefs have trouble stopping the run no matter where they play.
The Patriots are another AFC fader. Before the season began, Bill Belichick parted with his one deep receiver, Brandin Cooks, who found a better payday with the Los Angeles Rams. Belichick’s subsequent signing of serial substance abuser Josh Gordon was a Hail Mary that had low probability of long-term success.
Gordon helped his new team to some wins before he tripped on another drug test, but now he leaves the Patriots in a precarious place. As Steve Smith, retired All-Pro receiver, put it: “They need to stop going down to the Salvation Army to get their wide receivers.”
The Patriots need to get younger and faster at most positions. Their 10-5 record is enough to earn a bye for the first round of playoffs, but Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman are not the force they used to be.
Truth is all the AFC teams are severely flawed – Ravens can’t pass, Chargers can’t stop the run, Texans can’t block or cover.
The Saints’ offense is balanced and their defense is aggressive, disciplined (though it took a while) and deep in talent. Baltimore, Dallas and Chicago have defenses capable on their best day of turning Brees into Josh McCown. But then you look at their quarterbacks. Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, the Trubisky project in Chicago — all miserable in the pocket.
In their huge cocoon of a stadium, the Saints will work their precision game. It won’t be an indoor picnic for Brees, but his team has more ways to win than anyone else.
