I'm a life long Saints fan and I signed up to this forum a few years ago with hopes of being able to chat with you all about the L.A. move, but the timing was bad for me during the summer of that year. I forgot about it over time cause I had been a member of SaintsReport going back to 2011 and that was my main home for a while between a different team's forum where I used to hang out and now, I have no home since I'm banned from SaintsReport and that old NFL forum I used to chat on has long been lost. I only just now realized I had an account here when trying to sign up. I wanted to come on here and congratulate all of you. I'm not here to troll you or post conspiracy theories.
Let me be one of the few Saints fans who congratulates you on your win. I was banned from SaintsReport and I'm guessing I was banned along with the handful of other members who were trying to have a rational discussion about the game without going full conspiracy mode with the crazy ass nonsense about it all being rigged against them. Our fan base is easily the most conspiracy minded fans of all NFL fan bases, they've been like this since 2012 when Bountygate happened. I tell fans of other teams any time it's brought up; Bountygate broke their collective minds and they never recovered their rationale. Any time they lose a close game, it's always the refs fault. They are unable to handle a loss without going complete Alex Jones about it. Before this week, they completely lost their minds over the Cowboys loss and were blaming the refs, Goodell, Jerry Jones and even had a bizarre Spygate style conspiracy theory about it. Go through any topic about Dallas on their forum and count how many posts bring up "the refs" and "Jerry's paid refs" and you see what I mean. They couldn't even give Dallas credit for thoroughly humiliating us, no it was all a big conspiracy in some way or another.
The Saints didn't loss on a bad non-call, let me be one of the few who will admit this. Since I'm banned from my previous home for saying these exact words, I might as well tell you all this too - something went really wrong for the Saints beginning with the Dallas game. To put it simple; Dallas whooped us. Not only did they beat the living hell out of us, but they completely exposed this team and their over-reliance on the only two weapons they had on offense - Michael Thomas and Kamara. Essentially, Dallas proved to the rest of the NFL that if you could limit or entirely shut down Kamara and Thomas, then the Saints had nothing else to scare you with on offense. Teams have been taking their only two play makers away and forcing Brees to pick them apart with a cast of no-name receivers that no one knows.
Brees had a TD/INT ratio of 29-2 and a QB rating over 130 prior to week 11. In the last 6 games, his QB rating tanked down to 88 and his TD/INT ratio was a horrible 7-5. Like I said; something has been wrong with this team for over a month. They were never the same after that Dallas game. Since that loss, the Saints sorta became the opposite of the team they were early in the season; the defense began stepping up and was bailing them out for several weeks. Go watch highlights of the Tampa Bay, Carolina, Pittsburgh and Philly games; the offense struggled in all those games and had to be bailed out by strong defensive play. In reality, the defense really was pulling miracles with late stops and key turnovers, meanwhile the offense would piddle around and couldn't do nothing.
The Rams seemed to do the opposite at the end of the year after their offensive struggles. They got it together and changed some things on their offense that helped them recapture their magic they had. The Saints didn't do this at all and I wish fans would speak out about Payton's inability to do this. His play calling was questionable and deserved criticism in both playoff games. He nearly blew it for us against the Eagles; a game where the defense dominated for 3 quarters, then the offense just piddled around unable to shut the door on them, thus giving Philly one last shot for a miracle. We got bailed out by our defense yet again.
We got out-played and out-coached Sunday against your team. I will just admit it. We've seen teams in the past blow leads in the NFCCG and they never win it. The loss reminded me a bit of the Packers 2014 NFCCG meltdown where they blew a 16 point lead and then had a 12 point lead late in the game and blew that too. We had a 13 point lead and then a 10 point lead, lost both of them. The game would've never come down to that non-call had the offense not struggled and played as bad as they had for the past month and a half. I honest to god knew the game was over when it got tied at 20. I knew the Saints were about to screw it up.
Even after the no call pass interference, we had the ball in OT and threw a pick. That pick reminded me a lot of Brett Favre's bad interception in the 2007 NFCCG. It was easily Brees' worst pass of the season. Brees did not play well Sunday and it felt like the longer the game progressed, he was going to eventually have a turnover. We've seen those kind of games for him from time to time and he's had a few of them this year (Dallas and Carolina come to mind) and other great QBs are prone to stuff like this.
Anyways, sorry for the long post. I am venting a little because it was quite hurtful being banned from a site and community that I had been a part of for all those years, simply because I didn't want to buy the popular opinion that this is all a major conspiracy theory. Before I was banned, it was even implied that I worked for the NFL and was being paid shill money by Roger Goodell to come on there and voice my opinion that disagreed with them. THAT is how far lost our fan base is. They are lost to the point that any other Saints fan who disagrees with them must be paid by George Soros, oops, I mean Roger Goodell, regardless how much evidence there is of years worth of posts to debunk such nonsense. Goodell is their big boogie man and they think he controls everything in the universe solely to make their lives miserable. I don't blame anyone for laughing at our fan base and we don't deserve sympathy either. This is an embarrassment with how the fans are acting but I'm not surprised. Like I said, Bountygate broke whatever rationality they previously had. We've been the insane asylum fan base of the league ever since and now we are completely in Alex Jones territory with all these inane conspiracies about this game. That bad non-call would've been a footnote to that game had the offense got it together in OT.
Congrats on your win. I seen nothing in the Saints 2 playoff games that would convince me that we would have a shot against the Patriots. Maybe your team will match up better with them. Good luck in 2 weeks.
