New Orleans Saints proved us wrong with a grind-it-out road win

The New Orleans Saints went into Jacksonville with all the makings of a trap game and escaped the trap to move to 5-1 on the season.

If you just watched the New Orleans Saints on offense on Sunday and did not know the score, you probably would have thought they lost.

The Saints played offensively just like any team does in a road trap game. They looked sluggish but did enough while not making any critical mistakes to lose the game. The Jacksonville defense did its job in pressuring Teddy Bridgewater and finished the game with three sacks.

All in all, the Saints’ offense scored just 13 points behind 326 yards. They scored a touchdown on one of their three red-zone trips (although the last came at the end of the game as the clock expired) and simply played a game where they controlled the clock and relied on the defense.

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And it worked. The Jaguars only scored six points in the contest behind two field goals by Josh Lambo. They only had one turnover as well. They simply could not get anything going against the Saints’ defense, only picking up 226 yards and 11 first downs.

Most importantly, the Saints’ defense came up with stops in both of the Jaguars’ red zone trips to force those field goals.

It may not have been the prettiest win, especially after we got a fun win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week, but it gets the job done nonetheless. Most importantly, the Saints absolutely proved me wrong.

This game had trap game all over it. It was a road game against a lesser opponent, that is still dangerous, a week before a tough road opponent in the Chicago Bears. That is what made this game so close, to begin with.

However, the Saints’ defense came up yet again and picked up the slack. Gardner Minshew had his worst start yet since taking over for Nick Foles and Teddy Bridgewater did enough to be better and to be a game manager.

They proved me wrong, there is not much more to it. The mindset was that the Saints would lose at least one game without Brees that they really had no business losing. They avoided that, and if they can get the job done against the Chicago Bears, then they might end up going 6-0 without Brees.

The offense is going to have to be a little better next week to get the job done against the Bears. Chicago has a tougher defense and will come up with some stops that Jacksonville didn’t.

With Chicago’s tricky quarterback situation, we will probably see another low-scoring, ugly game like this one.

But hey, if today showed us anything it is that the New Orleans Saints are great at winning these ugly games, as they also have a win over the Dallas Cowboys.