So you might have heard already: the Saints have a big game today against a team they’ve had … problems … with once or twice.

I’m actually going to start this column with my pick as opposed to ending with it: gun to my head, I hate to say it, but I have to pick Seattle. They’re the best team in football and they’re playing at home. 

That said, the Saints are getting little chance in the national media to win this game. New Orleans should absolutely be in this game and their chance to win is very real. I’d say Seahawks 27, Saints 24, but a game thought to ending with that score can obviously swing pretty easily. 

So how can the Saints win this game? 

Let’s get this one out of the way and channel Bobby Hebert off the bat: taking care of the football locks a big weapon inside of Seattle’s toolshed. The Seahawks lead the lead in a trio of major indicators: passer rating differential, yards per play differential and turnover differential.

That last one is the one that can fluctuate the most from game to game; the Saints finished even on the year, while the Seahawks finished plus-20 with 39 takeaways.

New Orleans got away with the minus-two last week, but to expect it for a second straight week would likely be on the “too optimistic side”. 

Seattle lost three games this year. In two of them, turnovers were even; in the third, it’s 17-10 loss at home to Arizona, the Seahawks were plus two, but its offense was simply suffocated by the Cardinals defense, which forced Russell Wilson into his worst day as a pro (11-27, 108 yards, four sacks, one touchdown and an interception). 

If we’re to go off of Seattle’s resume, the blueprint is clear: keep the turnover margin even, or you’re relying on a Herculean defensive effort to guide you.

Run the football. It’s cliché, but there’s another trend at play looking at Seattle’s game-by-game numbers: teams that ran the football effectively, or at least effectively enough to keep at it, gave Seattle all it could handle. Teams that didn’t, or couldn’t, were swept away decisively. 

First, their losses. The Cardinals weren’t incredibly effective at running, but it ran it 43 times for 139 yards, holding Seattle to just 47 total plays and dominating time of possession. Tampa Bay rushed 38 times for 205 yards; San Francisco ran 33 times for 163 yards in its 19-17 win; Indianapolis 29 times for 108. 

Let’s dig further, and look at some of the Seahawks’ closer games: Houston went 35-151 in a 23-20 overtime loss; St. Louis 37-200 in that 14-9 Monday night game that had all Saints fans ripping their hair out and Carolina 26 for 134 in a 12-7 loss-a relatively low number, but worth noting the Panthers got off just 23 pass attempts. 

What about the games Seattle thrived in? 

Well, its 29-3 victory over San Francisco DID see the 49ers rush 20 times for 100 yards; having said that, it’s a bit misleading in my opinion; 87 of those yards came on nine Colin Kaepernick runs. Backs rushed 11 times for 13 yards. The Jaguars rushed 24 times for 51 yards in a 45-17 loss; the Cardinals 18 for 30 in a 34-22 loss (that was 31-13 entering the fourth quarter); the Falcons went 16-64 in a 33-10 loss.

The Vikings bucked the trend, rushing 33 times for 132 yards in a 41-20 blowout; the Giants 14 for 25 in their 23-0 loss and the Rams 18 for 13 in a 27-9 loss. Even in the Vikings game, Minnesota hung around for a bit. Seattle led 17-13 with 40 seconds left in the third quarter of that game. 

The Saints? 17 for 44. That can’t happen. The Saints, at minimum, are going to need to run for over 100 yards. 

It’s not hard to understand why; Seattle, this weekend, is going to start three linebackers who have run a 4.4 in the 40. That’s faster than all but one Saints receiver. Their secondary is lights out; they roll out an assembly line of pass rushers. 

The Saints are going to have to create openings for themselves through the play action game. Expecting receivers to win one-on-one matchups all night is a recipe for disaster. 

 

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If I told you that Seattle was hosting a team boasting: a top four quarterback, a showcase receiver, a stable of multi-talented backs, one of the best defensive fronts in football and a shutdown cornerback … would you expect that team to be an eight-point underdog to any team? 

Of course, the Saints are a different team on the road, they say. But the Saints are still a very good, very dangerous team away from the Superdome. Carolina went 7-1 at home this year. New England went 8-0. The Saints had both on the ropes, and while you don’t earn brownie points for “almosts,” being in the position to win late in those games goes to show that the team doesn’t forget how to execute away from home.

The Saints catch a lot of grief because they’re simply so dominant at home, that average road results make the team look like a completely different beast. The Rams pulled the same upset trick off on New Orleans in 2011, against a team that went 5-3 away from home. Atlanta and Carolina challenged the Saints in their house and got blown out in the Dome that year, too. Teams regress on the road. The strongest teams give themselves a chance to win, though, and the Saints fit that description more often than not.