Coach Sean Payton and his Saints (4-5) are trying to stay alive in the NFC South playoff race and the odds are against him after losing to the Falcons 34-20 the past Sunday.
Payton now takes our questions:
Q: Drew Brees said that this team is capable of putting a win streak together. Is that what it's going to take to get in the playoff race?
A: There's no question. You're at a point in the season now, but you really just have to look internally at winning the Kansas City game. We've put ourselves in this position and we are what our record says we are, and that's 4-5/ It's disappointing. It's not where we expected to be. We have high standards and expectations and we're going to have to respond. We'll look to everyone -- the leaders on this team, the coaching staff, all of us -- to provide the leadership and play our best game
Q: What are your thoughts when you see Brees and Jeremy Shockey arguing on the sidelines?
A: I didn't see any of that. I've talked with with both and you have to guys that are very emotional and very competitive. Going back through the sequence, one of the things that we tried to do was to make sure that we had a rotation with the receivers. You were going to see a series or two in that fourth quarter where Marques Colston was out or Devery Henderson was out. We're basically working four receivers for three positions. After we run one series, Shockey came out, Billy Miller went back in and then Shockey was back on the next one. There's a rotation going on there for good reason. But I was unaware of that, and I think a lot has been made of something that isn't that big of a deal. When Drew comes off, he's going to talk with not only the tight ends, but he's going to talk with the receivers and you're going to see him talk with everyone. That's something that he does a good job with.
Q: Does your 0-4 road record surprise you?
A: Compared to where we've been in the past, it's disappointing. We have to examine closely why we;re not playing well. We've been able to play well and travel well in years past and we're going to have another opportunity this weekend.
Q: Why do you think you're having trouble creating pressure with your front four on defense?
A: The one encouraging part of the game was that we played decently on the defensive line. Bobby McCray played well. A lot of those throws came out real quick. Credit their plan -- the ball was out.Conversely, when we became one-dimensional the opposite occurred. The most disturbing thing is the third-down stops, or lack thereof, and the big plays that we gave up defensively. That's the one thing that hurt us more.
Q: What do you like about the defensive philosophy of your team?
A: It's a pretty common philosophy -- there are a handful of packages in the league that you see people play. It can feature and help your linebacker get free if you play it right and with good speed. It allows your guys up front to get pressure. We're not executing the way we expect to execute. We're going to have to play better defense down the stretch to do some of the things we're talking about doing.
But that also starts with us on offense in possessing the ball. The time of possession yesterday was a little skewed. The reason the numbers looked balanced is because of the amount of time we had the ball late in the fourth quarter. The true second and third quarter time time of possession numbers leaned heavily towards Atlanta.
Q: Why not blitz more to create pressure?
A: We blitzed quite a bit yesterday and some of the bigger plays came in pressure. The touchdown to Norwood was a blitz. The big play to Norwood up the hash mark was a blitz. A number of their big plays came when we were applying pressure. We;re not just going to sit back and stay in the same base front and coverage, but we just have to do a better job when we're applying pressure or when we're blitzing, On a number of occasions yesterday on pressure situations when we were blitzing we broke down.
Q: The Saints suffered some injuries against Atlanta. How serious are the injuries?
A: Aaron Stecker has a right hamstring. We'll see where he's at on Wednesday. Mike Karney has a right MCL strain. They're telling me it's anywhere from two-to-four weeks. Mike McKenzie has a patella fracture. He's going to have surgery to fix that this week and he'll be put on injured reserve. Jon Stinchcomb had a calf strain. Aaron Glenn had a left ankle. Shockey had a right ankle.Jonathan Goodwin and Reggie Bush -- we'll have a more accurate report on both on Wednesday, but we're hopeful in both cases that they'll be able to play this week.
The Saints have added veteran cornerback Leigh Torrence to their roster to replace McKenzie. The team claimed him off waivers from the Redskins.
Torrance is a three-year pro who has played in 35 games with one start, making 43 tackles on defense and 29 on special teams. The 5-11, 179-pounder is out of Stanford and played in Washington's forst nine gmes this season.
HOLLYWOOD SOUTH: The Scott Free Productions feature film "Welcome to the Rileys,: starring James Gandolfinia and Kristen Stewart is scheduled to wrap in Jefferson Parish on Tuesday...The Films in Motion Picture feature film "Burning Palms," starring Lake Bell, Nick Stahl, Paz Vega and Shannen Doherty is shooting in Baton Rouge through Nov. 26...The independent feature film "My Own Love Song," starring Renee Zellweger and Forest Whitaker is shooting here and in central Louisiana through Dec. 13...The Faulkner McLain Entertainment feature film "Alabama Moon,: starring John Goodman is shooting in Covington through Dec. 16...The Mandalay Lifetime Network television movie based on the book "Midnight Bayou" is shooting in Jefferson Parish through Thursday. ..The HBO television series will begin shooting here in the first quarter of 20009....The Bullet Films feature film "House of Bones" is shooting in Lafayette through late November..."The Curious Case of Timothy Button." filmed here a couple of years ago, opens on Christmas Day, the same day "Hurricane Season" hits the theaters. "The Hurricane Season" was titled "The Patriots" during production. It stars Whitaker, Bow Wow and Lil Wayne. Chris Paul is a small role in the picture. He's a movie buff and was on location several times, watching the shooting...Why are football movies so bad? NFL Films captures the spirit of football so well that fake football doesn't have a chance. Football players can't act and actors can't play football.
Coach Sean Payton and his Saints (4-5) are trying to stay alive in the NFC South playoff race and the odds are against him after losing to the Falcons 34-20 the past Sunday.
