No Brain Play Works For the Saints Against Bengals

The Saints call the play the "no brainer freeze play."

Marvin Lewis showed his team on tape Wednesday how the Saints try to draw young aggressive defensive linemen offside.  The Saints did exactly what they wanted to do.  They acted like a play was coming, moving people around to build tension on the defensive side.  Third year defensive tackle, Pat Sims took the bait and jumped offside.

"We were trying to draw them offside," New Orleans coach Sean Payton said.  "If they move substantially, the we can react.  This happened a few weeks ago.  The worst thing that could happen is we move back five yards and kick the field goal.  Drew Brees did a great job with the snap count and tired to create the illusion we were going for it, when we were really just going to let the time run out."

Sims jumping offside gave the Saints a first and goal at the three with :34 seconds left and enough time to go for the win rather than the tying field goal.

The Bengals found yet another way to lose.  It was the ninth straight blemish on an ugly season.

Marvin Lewis had even warned his team about the play as early as Wednesday


"They were trying to draw us offside.  I showed them that.  We started off with the tape on Wednesday.  It's just pressing.  They're playing their tails off but we're not playing winning football   We can't overcome those mistakes.  We have guys that play great for eight or nine plays then make a mistake at a crucial time.  We have a rookie tight end that makes great plays, then he drops the ball over the middle because he's trying to run before he catches the ball.  We have to keep working and keep trying.


The Bengals could not recover, wasting a good kick off return after the Saints winning score.


They had to burn a timeout earlier in the half because their personnel were unsure of where to line up.  The game ended after a screen play put the Bengals in striking distance, they did not immediately call time out.  
"We had to burn timeouts earlier with guys not sure where to go or injuries.  Probably if I had it to do over again, I would have called a time out.  I wanted to use the clock play to preserve a timeout so we could throw the ball down the middle of the field if we had to.  I wanted to prevent what happened.  Carson saw guys weren't getting lined up and had to call a timeout anyway.  You should be able to get guys lined up and stop the clock with 10 or 11 seconds left," Lewis said.


The game ended when Carson Palmer was sacked.