Hebert: Saints finally played ‘winning football’ in feel-good win over Panthers

Hebert: Saints finally played ‘winning football’ in feel-good win over Panthers

Well, I’m not saying either team is uh going to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, but if you just observe in the game, uh who looked like the one and eight team and who looked like the five and four team, right? It looks like the scripts would have been flipped based on what just occurred today and how we played. And I was really shocked. I’m going to get into this. How we stop do cuz that cat uh he’s been like the poor man uh Jonathan Taylor um from the Colts, right? Where he’s been gashing people. Well, I mean there were moments but not enough here. Yeah. No, he did not gash the Saints. Look, when you hold him uh to 2.9 yard average. No, I’m I’m going get more into it. No, he’s been he’s been gashing people. Packers, whoever you might look at. No, we look like the five and four team instead of the one and eight team. So, uh, you know, we’ve played Carolina a lot. You know, you look NFC West, NFC South. It’s been, uh, you know, part of Saints and Panther football. You got to go back to 1995. So, you’re talking about, uh, over a quarter of a century, basically, uh, 30 years. We’ve played 61 games. It was like flip a coin. We won 31, they won 29. Now, we won, we got a big lead. We won 32 and they’ve won 29. And now on the road in Charlotte, Charlotte, uh, Carolina’s been kind to us. Whenever you’re in the National Football League and you have a winning record on the road, that speaks volumes. It was 15 to 15. Now we’ve won 16 games in Carolina and have lost uh 15. So you might say, “Well, Bobby, that’s not that impressed.” Yes, it is. Because it’s hard to win an NFL game, hard to win on the road, and we took advantage of that. I would say that we finally how I describe we played winning football. Well, you might say, “Oh, Bob, it’s not always about the numbers.” But if you play the percentages and you look game in and game out, the numbers do matter. And what you doing on third down, how you possessing the football? Are you winning or losing the turnover margin? Notice some crazy things that happened in the game, but the Saints still ended up plus one in the turnover margin. I thought it would take that to win the game. You know, we both came into the game minus four and talking with Jake Delong, we said, “Well, who’s going to be on the plus side? Is Carolina going to be plus one? Are we going to plus one?” That could be the difference in the game. And it was. You might say, “Well, Bob, we got to score more than 17 points. We’d have to score more than 17 if they only scored seven. I thought it would be like more 17-13 game.” Saints can win that kind of game. I was hoping, but we won 17 to7. No, it was a We finally got to talk about what winning football is. And you might say, “Well, uh, Bobby, you’ve been hard on Chris Olive.” Well, yes, I’ve been hard on him cuz he’s, uh, wide receiver one. He’s supposed to do what he did today. He has to do what he did what Chris did today. And you playing 17 games. I’m not saying you got to do it every game, but you got to do it double digits, you know, then you consider it amongst the best and then you get paid uh 20 something million dollars a year. No one’s bitching about it. He had the gain what we expect from Chris. Finally, five catches, 104 yards, and a 21 yardd average per reception, long gain of 62 and one touchdown. And he beat JC Horn, who was better than a Pro Bowl. He’s like a allp pro corner. So for him to have success against a guy like JC Horn that has has to help Chris Olive’s confidence going forward. And Jawan Johnson not only targeted but catching it and not fumbling. We need that from him. 92 yards receiving a long gain of 52 again winning football. We finally had a bunch of chunk plays, splash plays. We had like 62 yard by 52 yard gain by uh Jawan Johnson. I don’t know. We were at a screen with Cabara. I was getting all flush, right? Yeah. Plus 26. Boy, uh we is that Drew Brees and Shawn Peyton back there? No. Kell Moore and the Shustster. Shucking jive. He was jing today. He was Look at that quarterback rating about 128.9 129. I mean, that’s winning football. Uh Shuck keeps playing like this. Uh we’re not drafting a quarterback. I can tell you this right now. coming in the spring if he builds upon this and finishes cuz the season’s basically halfway over. But what if he plays like this level? They go, “Oh no, we found our quarterback. It’s our poor man version of Drake May.” Uh, you know, the Patriots found their guy in Drake May. We finding in Tala Shuck. Now, I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m just telling you, Bassy. What we today? I’m glad we have Tyler Shuck instead of Bri, Lil Bryce. Bryce Young. Bryce Young. Uh, 124 yards. They beat the Packers last week and they ran for more yards than they’d throw in this day and age. Now, he had a quarterback rating of 63. So, uh yeah, uh Talshuk looked way better than Bryce Young when you consider. So, uh bang for your buck. Now, I’m going to start with like third down conversions cuz we were not that we were not doing that. How you going to dict the eb and flow of a game and the tempo if you cannot convert on third down? You don’t always have to be at at 50%, but you got to be right where we’re at. this where we need to be or better and then you move in the CH sticks and and you’re going to control time possession and you could dictate the outcome of the game. Now obviously if you’re not turning over the football but we were eight of 17 47% came into the game we’re only 37%. Yes I’m telling you that’s monumental difference on third down. We were outstanding defense we were outstanding on third down and that has to continue. We’ve been getting better and better. We came into the game giving up 38 and 12%. Today we only gave up 33%. They were three of nine. The only negative I could see is um I don’t know when you get the ball in the two yard line first and goal. We got to score at the beginning of the game and we had to settle for a field goal. That you should never want to settle for a field goal. But I guess you got to take the points. You don’t want like your kicker to have like a 21 yard field goal. Good. It’s like an extra point. No, we got to get that in the end zone. End up being 0 for two in the red zone. That’s not good. Now, uh, total net yards again, uh, we look like the team that was five and four instead of having only one win, more than two to one. We had the ball total net yards 388 to there, 175. What do I always tell you about offensive plays? You got to have at least 65 plays. I’m not saying you got to be so prolific that, you know, we got to have way more than 65. No, I’m just telling you NFL how tough it is. Pros versus pros, you got to have at least 65. We had 67. Uh, compare it to last week. Is that a monumental difference, right? Uh, you know how many plays they had? They went close to 65. They had 50 plays. They had 50 plays. Well, you know, one reason they were 309, 33% on third down. So, not controlling the tempo. This was uh uh outstanding. Uh, so I’d say that very good offensive plays. said outstanding on not the average we attempted to rush the football, but you can how we finish the game. You know, you might talk about two-minute offense and all that. You can even stretch it like four or five minute offense. There’s nothing better as a professional football player. If you’re on offense and the opponent is trying to play catch-up, even if they within one score and they don’t get the ball back, you just win the game and run out the clock. That’s the most humbling you could do to an opponent when they know they got to stop you, but then they don’t stop you. And so therefore, like 37 rushing attempts. Now, I wish it’d be 4.3 yard average instead of 3.3, but Kellum, we ran the football. 37 rushing attempts. I think we should never have less than 28. I think it should be 30 plus. Again, that’s quarterback’s best friend to help out Tyler Shook. Well, what they they they do they a running team and now obviously they behind to play catchup. They only had 23 rushing attempts. That’s not good. And only 73 yards and they averaged 3.2 yards an attempt. Rico but more but more important more importantly Rico Doto 53 yards 2.9. Big win for the Saints. Yeah. You might say, “Well, Bob, is Rico do that good?” Hell yeah. Look what he was doing. D was averaging. He had three 130 plus games in 2025. You know, he was the only NFL running back to do that. The whole league. Three games over 130 plus yards. And what he had against the Saints, 53. Man, I was a little worried sometimes about our run defense. I like our goal line defense. Remember in the dome that great goal line stance we had, but the run defense was outstanding. And you have to look the last five game the last five games. Yes. Donald was averaging 6.3 yards a carry. Not so fast. Today he averaged 2.9. Win when win when winner winner chicken dinner. Uh when you look at that now uh again you look at the turnover margin. We plus one now we minus three for the season. At one time we were plus five after the Giants game. So we got to keep we playing Atlanta in the dome after the bye-week. Well, somehow Shuck, you know, don’t fumble the ball, receivers, running back, shuck, nobody in the pocket. Protect the football and we got to take continue to take it away and be in the plus side. You mean a close game. It’s amazing how much you win, you know? I think like in the NFL, if you’re like plus two, now we were only plus one. You win like 80 some percent of the time. And just think, there was an interception that should have been could have been Oh, Deario Davis at the beginning of the game and Reed had the face mask penalty. And then the other one was the crazy, you know, the turnover with the punt. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but going back to the interception with Demario Davis here, uh that enabled them to even take a seven to zero lead. They went 12 plays, 67 yards, eight of seven minutes. Like, oh no, here we go again. Here we go again. Cuz we’ve been outscored in the first quarter, 82 to 19 through 10 games. I go, it’s going to be the same song and dance. They got a third and nine. Demario Dav Davis makes a very athletic awesome interception. Justin Reed roughing the passer. No, you can’t touch his face mask. Now, on the roughing the passer later on um Deario Davis, I don’t think he hit him in the head. Kind of pushed him to the ground. That was like maybe in the shoulder area. Lil Bryce is so little that uh I mean I you can’t tackle him cuz Oh, you roughed him up too much. I thought I didn’t like that at all. I thought that was bogus. But again, um you know how we got shellacked in time and possession against the Rams? Well, this is winning football. we had the ball almost seven minutes more uh than Carolina. So again, the e and flow of that. Now looking at our individual uh runners and passers and the receivers, um I like Alvin Chimera, okay? He had the game of his life last year is Charlotte, so he has to love Charlotte. He might even take a vacation there and when he’s retired just because he had such fond memories there against Carolina. Do you know was his highest game in his in the history of him playing professional football? He had 215 total yards of scrimmage last year in Carolina, but we lost. Remember 24-23. And then Dennis Allen got fired the next day when we gave up that fourth quarter lead. But today, I said this in the pregame said he had 215 last year. Man, the way it’s going, I would just take uh 115. What? I don’t know. I’m like Nadamus. I’m like, what? He had exactly 115. The football god smiled upon you and said, “Wish granted.” He had 115 total yards from scrimmage. I always would rather him be hovering around. This would be a young Alvin, 125, 130. But he had 83 yards rushing. He contributed three targets, three uh uh you know, receptions. He had that screen play at 26 yards. So enabled him to have 115 total yards from scrimmage. Now, um, Charlie’s the real prophet. If Charlie would have known this, he might have put a little coin on the Saints. Charlie Long with stat of the day. This is the stat of the day. And, uh, if you’re a Carolina fan that, um, you don’t want to be favorite. You don’t want to be favorite in any game because you won’t win. Uh, you might go over. Since 2021, it’s now the Carolina Panthers are 0 and1 when they’ve been favored to win. Well, Bobby, they were five and four this season. Yeah, they were underdogs in nine straight games. So, they were favored to beat the Saints by five and a half and they lost. So, now they’re 0 and 11. So, if I’m a Carolina fan, I do not want to be favored in a game. That’s not good mojo. They they uh but I just thought again, we look like the five and four team versus Carolina. Agree. Only with the one win. Now, uh, defensively, uh, Demario Davis combined tackles, led the team with seven. Usually always has double digit. He was at seven. I thought Pete Werner flashed at times, maybe more in the first half where he had six total tackles. Um, you gave a game ball to Alante Taylor, but we need Alante Taylor. He’s supposed to be our alpha dog in the secondary. Not Kool-Aid and all them. Kool-Aid was active, but he get picked on a little bit. He had six total tackles, but Alante Taylor, five total tackles. He was tied uh with McKinstry with individual tackles with four. But yeah, tackle for loss, pass defendant, and an interception. That was a terrible pass by Bryce, but if it hits your hand, you got to catch it. And Elante Taylor did. Uh you know, who’s a really a diamond in the rough again? Uh Steve, he would be like uh Jonah Williams. Uh not Jonah been eaten by the wheel, but Jonah Williams, who’s now in the rotation. He had a quarterback hurry. Uh, you know who’s a version of him gets more reps? Nathan Shepard. Nate Shepard had a good day. Nate Shepard, if you look at he had a sack, he had a quarterback hurry, a tackle for loss. Same numbers. Uh, tackles two two with two tackles as Cam Jordan. They both ended up with a sack and a quarterback hurry and a tackle for loss. I like this Jack Rabbit Stalberg from South Dakota State. Uh, you know, he’s our new version. If you look at our uh Warriors on special teams, uh uh uh Chris Banjo, you remember we had him, he was like the the the ace on special teams, kind of at a Pro Bowl level. Now, I don’t know if Starboards there def uh special teams aren’t that good enough yet, but we had Chris Banjo. And who’s the guy we just left we let go to the Ravens in the secondary? He was JT Gray. JT Gray. So, yeah. So, uh Stalird is the new like JT Gray. uh two unassisted tackles on special teams. Uh now I think Caesar Ruiz at times struggled to block Derek Brown to say the least, but a lot of people struggle against him. He had he had nine. He Yeah. Why run right? Like d we need to run left. We trying to force the issue. I don’t care if Caesar Ruiz is drafted in the first round. Derek Brown’s kicking his butt. He had nine total tackles. Had a tackle fell loss. So, uh, yeah, looking at the mismatches in the game, obviously, uh, to me, this was a better win than the Giants because the Giants, uh, the Giants turn over the ball in four, five straight possessions. Now, we should have won by way more. I don’t care if it was in the dome for the home folks and all that. This was more a convincing win where you feel so good about yourself. I’ve been there going into a by-week with a a win. you feel like going to restaurants in New Orleans and people will tell man that was a good game you had now. So yeah, then you tell we gonna build on that. Get them birds next time. Yeah, we stayed in NFC South with four the next five games, all NFC South games and uh you know people might say, “Well, Bobby, what does that really mean in the big picture? We have about championships, man. Come on. We got to take baby steps right now, but we just trying to win a game and then win some games where you can be relevant and have a chance for the postseason.” I don’t know. It just feels better to win than than to not win. And then when you look at it, Obab, but you look in the draft, where are we picking? It’s a lottery. Doesn’t mean you’re going to pick the right person or who uh uh you know, and right now if Talshuck what he’s going to do, let him build upon what he he did this game. I mean, if he could do that, we ain’t driving no damn quarterback. What quarterback in college right now would be would play better than Talshuck played today? What guy in college? who who if you could tell me they have a guy in college right now that be would have been played better against Carolina than Tyler Shug did today. Right. And it all started because it could have went downhill. You know when it started and uh we losing seven to nothing that third down. Uh and it could have been a three and out. It was third and 12. Yeah. Shuck to Jawan Johnson plus 52. Great sack avoidance pocket presence and all that. No, that just shows you the little things. Something as simple as that. Because if he took a sack, how fans look at it? Oh, the offensive line’s terrible, they can’t block. But what if the offensive line’s terrible and maybe you can still avoid the sack and make a big play? Oh, then it might be something really special. So, I I think a great win. Now, obviously, you get a little small when you want a prolific offense, but um to me 17-7 cuz it’s good for our defense and how we’re still the control of the game. I’d rather win 17-7 than win uh 3831. I I’ I’d say, okay, we scoring, but our defense can’t stop nobody. How many times we seen us hovering around 500 with Drew Brees around 1450? You remember those seasons around there where we were like uh hovering around 500. And if we didn’t have Drew Brees on offense, we’d have won like three or four games maybe because our defense was so bad. No, we need to play complimentary football. And we finally did that today where our offensive defense helping out. Now I’m going to break down the game more as we go on uh uh uh with the point after. But uh they had some weird calls and uh you know Cam Jordan being the veteran. I mean I’m so confused. I don’t know if I’ve ever really witnessed that and we blocked the field goal and we don’t get the ball back but you can’t attempt I guess to pick it up like Cam did and and he touched it. You almost have to say like you say on on punt. You know when a ball’s punted and you on the return team and it’s a shank or bad punt and everyone’s hollering, “Peter, Peter, Peter.” I don’t know why they came up with that. That’s a universal term. Peter, Peter, Peter means get away. The ball’s right on top. Maybe the first person to mess it up was Peter. Yeah, it might have been. It might have. That’s all the term Peter. Peter like watch the balls going crazy where it’s going to bounce and deflect off you. But Cam, I thought, boy, that’s some bad luck. I mean, here you got Nathan Shepard coming in there. Awesome play. I just mentioned Nathan Shepard blocking the field goal and they get the ball back. They got to change that rule somehow. Now, I could see if Cam would have picked it up and then fumbled and then fumbled. Yeah, that’s different. But it seemed like he never possessed it to me. Uh, but that’s definitely one of those a play you’ve never seen before in your entire career. No, because like coach Moore said, as a football player, it’s almost instincts. Oh, the ball’s on the ground. Let me pounce on it and then you don’t recover. Then it was like, oh, what in the hell just happened? Uh, and then again, um, like Demaro Davis, a great interception, and then we get we got a penalty. But we, uh, yeah, let me I didn’t go over the penalty. Let me go over that right quick. Um, no, you mean Carolina was playing that disciplined. They had one penalty uh for five yards and it was right at the end of the second quarter. Yeah, we had uh six for 60. We had a couple of stupid uh penalties, you know, that could cost you. But I kind of like this though. If the crew is going to do this only I’d rather them call only seven penalties instead of 17 or 15. You know how you get too many flag happy officials is throwing flags. Throwing flags. I felt like the game moved. It went by quick today. Yes. I I like that only seven penalties, but some bizarre plays. But again, Saints win, Saints win, and going into the by-week, there’s no greater feeling as a Pro Football player uh when you go in to a buy with a win. You just feel better about yourself. Got a little swag in the locker room, you feel more confident. And Atlanta coming to town, what better way after a by-week to have some confidence going into the Atlanta game. and they coming off a loss, a heartbreaking loss that they lost at overtime to the Colts. And so I don’t know what team Atlanta’s gonna what Atlanta team’s going to show when we play them after the buy cuz they got some talent but but but they underachieve. Like for instance, this Carolina team, Atlanta had went to Minnesota and spanked the Vikings in Minnesota and then they played Carolina and lost 30 to nothing. Does Carolina look like they can beat anybody 30 to zero? No. So, you never know. It’s the NFL again. Uh, parody is with pro football players, but no, I think the Saints have a great opportunity if they play like they play today uh to win two in a row. Wouldn’t you say that? That’s not far-fetched. Well, what’s Atlanta’s record right now that they got to be now? They they under 500. Yeah, Dirty Birds are three and six right now. Oh, yeah. Three and six. Well, we won two games. So, they won one game more than us. We’re shucking and jing. Yeah, we’re shucking and jing uh because Tyler Shuck. Uh yes, uh the oyster man is doing awesome. Yeah, he’s going to be invited to the Croatian Oyster Festival for sure. He he keeps having these kind of performers. They’ll make him an honorary shster uh for life, you know, simply based on this performance. But yeah, big win for the Saints 17 to7. And it’s I always say this is two for one because it’s a division opponent. It’s Carolina. And this is one thing, as great as Shawn Peyton and Drew Brees and all was, they dominated Tampa Bay and the Falcon side, right? But Carolina, that was a 50/50 ordeal with Drew Brees and Shawn Payeyton, you know, flipping a quarter and Jake kind of said, “Yeah, but some of those wins by Carolina at the end, the Saints were they had that guy Luke Keequley around who was a pain in the butt.” Yeah. Who could Drew said could predict the plays they were running, you know, he was that smart. So, uh, yeah, definitely a Pro Football Hall of Famer. But um I don’t know. Just looking at Carolina, I don’t care. Now they’re five and five. I mean, we only won two games, but I think we’re better than Carolina. We beat them headto head. I guess your record is your record is what it is. What it says you are, you know, but um I’m I’m encouraged by this win and uh I don’t know if the fans really embraced it. Uh, now what you got to go do to get the fans on board is No. And and and I’m I’m you know why I’m glad one time we won. We won this game. So before we come to the dome in Atlanta cuz we went and had a good showing. No. Uh uh throw those bags away. Sure. Put it in the recyclables. Uh you know when the garbage manager put in the recycles whenever it comes by your house. You don’t need to put no damn bag on your head. No. The Saints play like this. No. It ain’t uh this does not warrant bag wearing. Uh so that that’s a good thing cuz once you win a Super Bowl, no, you got to forget those bags. And you can be demanding. They’re professionals. They get paid a lot of millions of dollars, a lot of these players. So you could be demanding. Now hopefully they have a good showing and it’s going to be Tyler Shug’s first game at home. I’m going tell you, this is one thing. You could be as a quarterback more than just a pressure because you want to play so good for the home folks that don’t put any added pressure on yourself. You know, you go on the road, everybody’s against me good. Uh, you know, and you just foot loose and fancy free and just, hey, I’m just going play and you’re on the road hostile environment versus you at home and everybody’s behind you. So, you want to do so good. So, you kind of pressing sometimes and you don’t want to do that. So, hopefully he’ll be encouraged by the home crowd. And if our defense is h has this kind of outing like they had today, no. If our defense plays like this, come on. We gave up seven points. You should never lose. I don’t care who we were playing, AFC, NFC. Now, I don’t think that’d be the case. Like, we couldn’t hold the Rams to seven points, but if we ever did, shame on the offense if we don’t win. I don’t care how good the opposing defense is. If our offense to me in the games going forward, if we can hold anybody in the teens, our goal should be that we’re going to run the table. Like, if we given up 17 points uh the rest of the season, well, we should win. Come on, offense. You got to p pull pull your weight and stuff. So, I don’t know. But very encouraged by this win today against Carolina 17-7. A very convincing win. As much as it was a negative and unconvincing uh loss, unconvincing. Yeah. Cuz we didn’t win against the Rams. A as I don’t know. To me, it just shows you how much better like the Rams are than the Saints in Carolina. No. Look like we belonged on the same field with them. Yeah. Where it was totally different uh today. But who knows who belongs on the same field. Didn’t the Dolphins beat the Bills today? But the Bills never played good in Miami. But but just look at that outcome. Oh, the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, you know. Uh I wonder if the Dolphins ran on them today because I I was impressed with that Bills defense how we gashed them. Yeah, that was 30 to13 Miami. Yeah. I mean, uh what did Tua just go off or something? I mean, so you never know. It’s the NFL. I’m telling you always have one game you look at every like, whoa, what? Like you looked at the game last weekend, Carolina beat Green Bay and Green Bay and they tell you what, uh the Dolphins beat the Bills. Aren’t the Dolphins trying to play for the number one pick with the Jets and maybe the Saints something, right? No, it’s pros versus pros again.

The New Orleans Saints finally found some positivity, riding an impressive performance from rookie QB Tyler Shough to a 17-7 victory over the Panthers. But what does the Cajun Cannon Bobby Hebert have to say? Find out here.

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