2014 Divisional Preview: Seahawks vs Saints

Cory Puffett

New Orleans Saints at Seattle Seahawks

January 11 – 4:35pm (FOX)

For the second straight week, three playoff games are regular season rematches, and this is one of them. The Seahawks pummeled the Saints at home in Week 13. They’ve since lost a home game and you can bet the 12^th Man will be louder than ever for Saturday’s playoff game.

The two teams also have a bit of history in the playoffs. They played three years ago today, in Seattle. The Seahawks, a 7-9 NFC West division winner hosted the 11-5 Saints and won 41-36. Drew Brees had a good day but his defense couldn’t stop a nosebleed, much less Beast Mode.

Unlike many people, I actually give New Orleans a solid shot at winning this game. You can call it a cop-out, basically confirming, “it’s the playoffs, some weird (expletive) happens here.”

But I think it’s more than that. The Saints hadn’t played in Seattle since that day three years ago when they went there last month. With more recent experience in front of that crowd, they should be better equipped to deal with the distraction this time around.

I have also been less than impressed with Seattle’s offense lately. The hardest thing about predicting games in the divisional round is that one of every two teams hasn’t played in two weeks. A week off gives players much needed rest, but the affects aren’t always what you’d hope. For some players, it makes them hungrier. Others, the bye makes them stale, leaves them with cobwebs to shake off in the game’s opening quarter or so.

The way Seattle’s offense has looked in their last four games since that big blowout of New Orleans, I’m not overly confident that even the hungry players will be able to avoid making critical mistakes on Saturday.

But Seattle does have Beast Mode, and he is beastly in the playoffs. New Orleans has one of the best groups of tacklers in the NFL today, but even they may not be able to take down Marshawn Lynch on the first and second hit.

I think this is going to be a low scoring game. Percy Harvin is the one factor that could change that, and he’s questionable right now. Even when he did play a few weeks ago he wasn’t very effective, so I honestly don’t put much stake in him.

My concern is Pierre Thomas for New Orleans. I am not ready to trust Mark Ingram to carry the load for this offense. But if Thomas, who is questionable, is able to be a featured part of the game plan in Seattle, I think it will give the Saints enough diversity on offense to be successful.

It certainly helps the Saints’ cause that Keenan Lewis is probable and expects to play.

Now, I know I wrote a lot of this from a sort of pro-New Orleans perspective. Don’t read too much into that. Seattle, right now, is my favorite to win this game. But everybody is talking and writing about why Seattle is the better team and New Orleans has no chance to beat them. I preferred to focus on telling you why Seattle is not invincible, even at home.

I will make my official prediction in a separate blog post, as I did last week, on Friday.