It's been two weeks now, and we're convinced: Everyone in the NFL is just playing to get to 20, and any points scored after that are just rampant hedonism.
Except for one team, with a used quarterback, an aging running back, a recycled coach with a specialty in defense, a modest list of weapons, and a sad gray pedigree. That team has scored 11 touchdowns in two games, punted just three times, beaten the face masks off the NFL's answer to the Chicago White Sox, and then defeated the most hyped team in the last half-century of American professional sports.
Ladles and jellyspoons, we give you (and you are entitled to defer to the second half if you wish) the New Orleans Saints.
The Saints didn't get much national never mind a week ago when they manhandled the generationally ghastly Carolina Panthers, 47-10, and we all knew they would be taught not to lean out over their ski tips this Sunday in Dallas. And they certainly did that—they were held to 44.
More interesting, the condemned husk of Derek Carr, banished from Las Vegas because Mark Davis didn't like his paycheck (four years/$150 million), his spaniel eyes, or his won-lost record (63-80, including 0-1 in the postseason), has a two-game quarterback rating of 142.9 (out of 158.3) plus has three touchdown passes of more than 55 yards. The most milquetoast of quarterbacks seems to have become a swashbuckling hold-my-beer guy at a time when the rest of the NFL is undermining suicide pools across the land.
As we know from our reading, none of this is sustainable; nothing is sustainable except Patrick Mahomes, so estate plan accordingly. Carr has never thrown 40 touchdowns in his career (his current pace), and the only time he threw more than 30 was nine years ago. True, getting away from Las Vegas is its own reward, but since the Raiders beat Baltimore on Sunday we will forgo our usual bilious snark. The Saints just don't have that look you want to imagine a great offensive team has; they looked devotedly meh.
But we only know what we know, and profiling on looks is usually inaccurate. As dusk sets upon us all, the Saints have scored 91 points and nobody else is within three touchdowns. Alvin Kamara, that antiquarian running back (age 29, or in running back years, dead) to whom we referred above, looks like he did three years ago when he and the Saints were very much alive. Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak might be the next hot name in Fire That Coach/Hire This One specs. Head coach Dennis Allen, like Carr a former Raider who got canned, is off the colloquial hot seat at least until the start of October.
The point is, in the sport that most relies upon snap judgments based on little data, the Saints are the most fun team to watch in a league that isn't doing much fun at all these days. And if they beat Philadelphia next week in the WhoDat Dome and put up a number doing it, they'll be the nation's next big thing because, as you might have noticed, a lot of the preseason big things are getting lunched (Ravens, 49ers, Rams, Cowboys, Dolphins, Lions). The mean is a harsh place to regress to in this sport. Our advice? Keep scoring eight times a game, and you can put your feet up on Roger Goodell's forehead. If that isn't sufficient motivation to run up the occasional score, then we don't know you.
