Putting aside the missed call for a second, Payton butchered the clock (1 Viewer)

[RJ in Lafayette]

I don't know whether this is true, but I have heard on talk-radio that Brees changed the call to a pass.

 

[boutrous]

I don't buy this. I wanted the Saints to score a td there. And the Rams didn't need to go 50 yards. They only needed 35 to get in fg range with their kicker. KC had less time and kicked a fg to send the game into ot in their game. I liked the pass to TLL. He was wide open and the defender was out of position and literally had to run TLL over to prevent him from catching what would have been a TD if he doesn't get there.

I like Payton's aggressiveness. It usually works. And it should have in this situation.

The pass to TLL on 3rd down was a great call and should have been the game winner. If I can stomach it, I'll have to watch that 1st down pass again, but I was yelling for them to run it on 1st down and make Rams waste their TOs.

 

[No2DC]

Maybe. But how many times do Brees and Thomas miss on that throw and catch? We look at the play called as being bad, when they would have been fine except the execution just simply failed. Which is the better call there; a run for maybe a half yard or a five to eight yard high percentage play between players you have the utmost confidence in?

In most cases I would agree with you but they did a good job of shutting MT down the whole game. I guess the question is which is better a positive gain, or running the clock?

 

[UFCSaint]

I also had an issue with wasting a timeout to ice the kicker. There were around 20 secs left. We had 2 timeouts. Kamara took it out of the end zone which wasted 5 secs. So instead of having 20 secs and 2 timeouts to get into field goal range we had 1 timeout and 13 secs.

 

[SaintsFanatic]

Even if he did; i trust Brees' judgement, and everyone should. He simply made a bad throw. Terrible throw at the worst timing possible.

 

[senorwinces]

Dude, it’s way too soon for this thread. It’s like a doctor saying “Putting your recently-diagnosed terminal cancer aside for a second, you’ve also got a skin rash.”

 

[Domeination]

If you're going to audible there, you have to make the throw.

 

[ThibodauxSaint]

It was said that Brees audibled to the pass play. It was a good call. If he doesn't throw the ball at the receiver's feet it probably goes for about 8 yards or maybe even a first down and we aren't even talking about the blown call by the officials.

 

[tampa saints fan]

Lets not forget the dropped td by Arnold

 

[No2DC]

If you're going to audible there, you have to make the throw.

Was he being pressured or did he throw it too low by mistake trying to avoid a pick?

 

[SaintsFan742]

No, just a bad throw.

 

[la. champ1]

I think the 1st down slant to MT is the one caused the whole series to bad.

I know what payton was trying to catch them off guard, and Drew missed the throw (Thomas was open). That being said we should have ran the ball to only leave them with a minute instead of almost two minutes. Everyone says that was a mistake and I understand that, but Rams also made 2-4 mistakes on that one play and weren’t penalized for it.

 

[BBarnes]

First, let me say that we got completely screwed, and the refs literally cost us a SB. I will go to my grave knowing that as a fact. It just is. I'm also having a lot of internal conversations about whether I can keep putting time and money into this enterprise that increasingly looks and operates like a 2nd rate scam.

However, all that said, we really screwed up the clock - similar to the Bears at the end of the Eagles game. We have the ball deep in Rams territory at the 2 minute warning. I was screaming for us to run the ball - force them to use their TOs, kick the FG and leave them with 50 seconds and no TOs to go 50 yards. That's still doable from the Rams perspective but a whole lot harder than giving them over a minute because we kept throwing and killing the clock. Really stupid.

The refs cost us the game but Payton put them in the position to screw us.

Payton’s 1st down play calling was as bad in this game as it’s ever been. On that drive the run on first or 2nd down that lost yardage and killed the drive, was just an absolute awful call. It was so obvious we were trying to control the clock, but you can’t run a dive into Suh when there’s 9, yes 9, in the box.

Of course we should have executed better in the redzone as well, but with all that said it came down to one play and the refs butchered that.

 

[No2DC]

No, just a bad throw.

Well, I gotta live it then. Drew gets a pass.

 

[St. Aaron]

Someone posted last night that Drew audibled out of a run when he saw the Rams were in a zero run blitz. Would I have rathered they run on first? Yes. But their kicker hit a 57 yarder to win the game that would have been good from over 60. It’s well within the realm of possibility that they get within his range with the amount of time they would have had left and we still go to overtime. So, regardless of the misfire on first down, Payton went on to call a third down play where the defender admitted he thought he was beat for a TD (and didn’t play the ball as a result) and wiped out TLL to prevent the score. The two Refs staring at the play from point blank range chose not to do their job. So instead of TLL picking up the first by catching the ball or by drawing the penalty (or even strolling into the endzone) the Rams defender was rewarded for headhunting. If there were gray area here, I would feel differently. But we did what we needed to on third down to win. It took arguably the worst no-call in the history of the NFL playoffs to prevent us from kneeling it down to four seconds and kicking a chip shot FG to go to the Super Bowl. I’m still in disbelief.