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* Saints set franchise record with perfect 8 and 0 start

* This was football New Orleans Saints style – hard fought and never easy

Carolina Panthers 20 – New Orleans Saints 30

The Carolina Panthers rode into New Orleans Sunday with a win streak of 8 straight in the Super Dome and almost came away with yet another victory. But for some resolute defending and a couple of quick fire drives the Saints would have kissed goodbye to their 2009 perfect record and left wondering if they would ever beat the Panthers at home again.

Instead the Saints got the job done thanks to some impressive performances by a group of lesser known names to record a come from behind 30 to 20 win over the Panthers… but it was a tight run thing.

Gregg Williams works the problem

The Saints played some uncharacteristic football with penalties, turnovers and miscues littering their play and all but killing them at various stages of the game. That the Saints defence turned up with their A game helmets on whilst the normally explosive offence dozed through the first half owes as much to Gregg Williams aggressive play calling as anything else.

Whilst the D was culpable for the early DeAngelo Williams 66 yard touchdown run, thereafter they solidified the middle of the field and forced the Panthers into a number of 3rd and long situations which they failed to convert. Williams used a lot of blitz packages to unnerve Jake Delhomme on the few occasions he dropped back to pass. This ensured the Saints had an 8 or 9 man front to stop the repetitive Panthers running attack.

The Saints should be thankful for the telling contribution of back up Defensive Tackle Anthony Hargrove, filling in for the injured Sedrick Ellis, who soon found a way to plug holes whilst making a telling contribution with key tackles, a forced fumble and recovery for a touchdown. Along with more recognised starters Will Smith, Jonathan Vilma, Darren Sharper, Roman Harper, Tracy Porter, Jabari Greer et al, the Saints D once again showed that they are a vastly improved unit from years gone by with some great run pursuit and forced turnovers to keep the score competitive.

Brees, Colston and Co. stutter

That the Panthers were able to rack up such an impressive rushing total owes as much to the frequency with which the Saints offence gave up possession as it does to the Panthers conservative play calling. The failure of many key Saints O personnel to turn up for this game is at first worrying and in some ways comforting. If the Saints are able to pull out a win with a misfiring passing attack then it further demonstrates the total team package the Saints can call upon this season.

Amongst the more anonymous and downright sloppy were receiving stalwarts Jeremy Shockey and Marques Colston who had disappointing games by their standards. Speaking of which Drew Brees did not look his usual self assured best throwing a bad interception Colstons way as well as fumbling a bobbled snap in a key 3rd down on two drives in the red zone.

He still had the presence to pick out Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson for deep pass plays and use Reggie Bush in the flat on the way to racking up yet another 300+ yard game but this was far from his best. That fact alone is encouraging. If the Saints can pull out a win against a tough Panthers team with Brees, Colston and Shockey far from their A game then it bodes well for our championship prospects.

Pierre Thomas to the rescue

Some of the Saints early offensive play calling came back to haunt them as they looked to jump out to an early lead. Instead of establishing the running game head coach Sean Payton elected to throw from the offset. Whilst this was not an unreasonable strategy given the success the Saints have had so far this season it did leave them struggling to recapture the initiative when this tactic failed to deliver. It was only through the introduction of Pierre Thomas in a more central second half roll that the Saints were able to move the ball more freely and start to wear down the physical Panthers defence.

One drive in particular stood out with the Saints taking over possession at their own 2 yard line with 11.02 left on the clock. Payton employed a combination of inside running by Thomas and Mike Bell as well as dumping the ball to Reggie Bush and Thomas in the flat. 8 consecutive plays resulted from employing the trio and within 13 plays the Saints had marched all the way to the Panthers 16 before a dropped pass by Colston saw the Saints settling for a John Karney field goal for the go ahead score.

This was the balance of offence that had been so effective for the Saints all season but it took until well into the 4th Quarter to employ it.

Special praise should go to another unsung unit following this game; the Saints offensive line. They did a great job of protecting Drew Brees who, with the exception of an early forced fumble, had plenty of time to pick his targets. Honourable mention goes out to Jermon Bushrod who kept the mighty Julius Peppers quiet all night. Jermon Bushrod for the Pro Bowl; is that such an extravagant claim?

The DNA of Champions

To win and to win ugly is the mark of champions. This was not the best we have seen the Saints, far from it, but it did tell us a lot about the make up of the team and the depth of quality on the roster. When the A team were miscuing the Saints were able to call on some impressive performances by lesser known stars to get the job done. As Al Davis would say "Just Win Baby".

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There are currently 32 teams in the NFL, organized according to two conferences, the AFC and NFC, and four divisions for each, by east, west, north and south. The AFC East Division is made up of the current England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and current York Jets. The AFC North consists of the Cincinnati Bengals, the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The AFC South has the Indianapolis Colts, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Tennessee Titans and the Houston Texans. The AFC West has the Oakland Raiders, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers. Over on the NFC side, there’s the Philadelphia Eagles, the Dallas Cowboys, the current York Giants and the Washington Redskins representing the NFC East. The NFC North has the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. The NFC South looks up to the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, fresh Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Finally, there’s the NFC West, with the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams.

The season starts on Thursday night for the first burly week of September (or else, the Thursday after Labor Day) and then runs every week until behind December or early January. After the season concludes, six teams from each conference play in the Play Offs, which are single-elimination tournament that kill with the dapper Bowl Championship held in early February. There is also a preseason period that runs from August to September and consists of four games.

When the spruce Bowl happens, it takes site in a neutral sports arena, and the home team designation alternates between both conferences from year to year. Why is the tidy Bowl held on Sunday every year? Is it because Sunday is officially a football-related holiday? No, it’s actually because the system is designed for American High school football games to be played on Friday afternoon, American College football games on Saturday and then the professional league NFL games on Sunday. However, the typical NFL season is longer than the college football season, which explains why NFL games are held on both days. American pro football currently boasts the highest per-game attendance of any professional sports league in the world, with an average of over 67,000 live spectators for every thrilling game.

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As has been the case we have all three teams doing individual drills together, which allows us to pit like skilled and sized players together. The line started off with our board drill, of course starting with a fit, then going live. This year we were blessed with some half round dummies, they work extremely well for this drill if you put 2 back to back. It forces the linemen to keep a wide base, otherwise they step on the dummy and fall. The board is less forgiving, slick and just 6 inches wide. I’m a huge believer in long half rounds, if you have the funds. We next did double team fits on a tall bag, then progressed to live double teams. Remember to pair the linemen together that will be double teaming in games, it is important that they learn how to work together as a team.

The backs were working on the splatter blocking drill then moved to the open field blocking drill we use called the diamond drill. Any player still struggling with the splatter blocking drill, stayed with it, as the open field blocking drill is an advanced drill. They then worked on the rest of the “Sainted Six” base series with coaches holding dummies at the point of attack and using cones to designate linemen.

The line then worked their first two steps of the blocking tags we use to tell them how to block on each play. We started with power, then went to sweep, reverse and wedge.

We moved to our base blocking rule review, ( which they all did very well with), then added dads along the defensive line front and had players fit and freeze on the correct “defender” with proper head placement on all of our blocking tags. Even the age 7-9 kids seemed to pick this up very well with very few exceptions.

Lastly we worked about 10 minutes on our base pass block technique.

The backs in the meanwhile were repping plays, the age 7-9s are still on the Sainted Six, the 10-11s are dong the same as there are just 6-8 kids that have played before on this team and just 2 experienced backs. The age 12-13s put in the Mouse Series and Spinner Series in as all 4 backs have played for us before, but may be in different positions. The line however has a number of rookie players on it. We were also able to work a number of the base adjustments in with the 12-13s. With all 3 teams we are repping plays on air with coaches at the point of attack with shields. We have each coach coaching tiny portions of the offense, with one coach holding the left side of the o-line accountable to correct first steps, head placement and technique and another coach doing the same for the right side of the offensive line. We of course are doing that for every position on every one of our football plays. After each rep a new group of players rush in to run the next play, we are a little slower than we want to be at this point . The youngest group is getting a play off every 20 seconds or so, the age 10-11’s are at about 16 seconds and the varsity is at about 12-13 seconds.

To get the kids used to contact we went live for about 20 minutes today.

Keep coming back for more updates.

All the drills, offense and defense can be found in the book “Winning Youth Football a Step by Step Plan”.

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