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January 12, 2010
Hilda Guidry Curole
January 14, 2010
The Saints racked up 13-straight wins to open the season, earning the team home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and a reputation as one of the league’s most explosive teams.
But with their first playoff game looming, the Saints know none of their previous accolades will matter on Saturday when the team takes on the Arizona Cardinals at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the Louisiana Superdome.
“You’re in sudden death now,” Saints coach Sean Payton said last week. “The focus is strictly on one game and playing your best football.”
The Saints come into the playoffs stumbling, having lost their final three games to finish the season.
If history repeats itself, that will spell doom for New Orleans, because no team has ever lost its final three games of the season and then won the Super Bowl.
But just like the team’s 13-wins no longer count in the postseason, linebacker Scott Shanle said the same is true of the team’s poor play in December.
“Obviously, we would like to have been playing better down the stretch,” Shanle told reporters last week. “We’ll return to form pretty quick. With the rest and getting everybody back healthy, there is going to be excitement in that defensive huddle.”
One player who will not be able to join in the team’s run at history is defensive end Charles Grant.
Last week, the team placed Grant on the injured reserve list with a triceps injury. For the season, Grant has 53 tackles and five and a half sacks. He was one of the team’s few starters who did not miss the season finale against the Carolina Panthers.
Against the Cardinals, the Saints will see a red-hot offensive team. Arizona scored 51 points and had more than 500 yards of total offense in their 51-45 overtime win against the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round.
But with all of the team’s offensive success, it was a defensive touchdown that sealed the overtime thriller when Karlos Dansby recovered a fumble by Aaron Rodgers and took it to the end zone.
“That’s probably one of the best games ever played in the playoffs,” said Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt.
Cardinals’ quarterback Kurt Warner ripped the Packers’ defense to shreds and completed 29-of-33 passes for 379 yards with five touchdowns – all without the services of their All-Pro wide receiver Anquan Boldin, who missed the game with a high ankle sprain.
But Warner has not had happy postseason memories in the Big Easy in years past. In the 2000-2001 season, Warner’s Rams were defeated 31-28 by the Saints in the playoffs – the first Saints’ playoff win in team history.
But the Cardinals also made it to the Super Bowl last season as the No. 4 seed.
Arizona Cardinals’ Kurt Warner reacts after teammate Tim Hightower carried for a touchdown during the first half of an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)
