Saints Drop Season Opener

by nathan.lejeune | 9 years ago | 0 Comments

Saints Drop Season Opener
Bengals score late to drop Saints to 0-1 and open Season 4

The New Orleans Saints traveled to face the Cinny Bengals in the Season 4 opener in the GFML. The Saints are coming off a rebuilding off-season, while the Bengals are looking to build on top of their playoff run which they made last year. Saints are starting a lot of new players along the DLine and OLine, in an effort to spark some big plays on both sides of the ball. 

Saints struggled to get their offense going, with their WRs having a case of the droppsies. Saints offense had a nice rushing attack going, but the Bengals quickly answered with a all out blitz, most of the first downs. This forced the Saints to lean on a passing attack, which lost its starting TE for a majority of the game with a hurt shoulder. 

Zack Mettenberger was very shaky to start the game, even throwing a pick on one of the first few drives, but he did settle down as the game progressed. Mettenberger would finish 19 for 30, 272 and 2 TDs to go with his 1 INT. Rookie wideout Jordan would impress with 5 catches for 112 and a TD, which included the long TD for 50 yards with a CB strapped to his backside. Smith would have 16 attempts for 63 yards to start out his season. 

Saints defense played very well today, holding the Bengals to 21 points, under 75 yards rushing and only 1 passing TD. The problem was 2 huge plays for the Bengals. One was a post out route to Elifert, which the Saints defense totally lost track of and a screen to Hill which went for big yards to set up a TD drive. The Saints defense didn't record many tackles, but did get the 1 turnover. The key point of this game was the 4-5 dropped INTs by the Saints defense. They simply didn't hold on to the ball, the Bengals hung aorund tight and finally put the game away with a game winner late in the 4th. 

Saints now look to bounce back against the 1-0 Cowboys, who have looked to finally turned that roster around.