A lot will be made of the missed extra point that had Justin Tucker looking like he had finally seen the ghost that has haunted almost everyone of his fleet-footed peers at some point. After all, without it, it's impossible to know what would have come of a back-and-forth game in which the Saints scratched and clawed themselves in a position to be the team saved by the type of mind-melting mistake that has typically sabotaged them in the past. If the Saints had lost in overtime it would be a hell of a lot harder to focus on them putting up 17 4th quarter points on a defense that had previously held its opponents touchdown-less in the second half through Week 6, and a hell of a lot easier to wonder why in the hell they still have such trouble getting one last stop when time is on their side. Luckily they didn't, so all the positives of New Orleans proving themselves persistent while on the road in an unforgiving environment against the type of team that's long been the kryptonite of Drew Brees and Sean Payton can truly be prioritized.
The fact is, it's no coincidence that the Ravens were the last to get brushed into the dustpan as Drew Brees became the 3rd quarterback in NFL history to complete a sweep of the league by beating each team at least once. Their ugly, grind-it-out style has never lent itself to the type of offensive onslaught for which the Saints have become famous. For that reason, it was encouraging to see Sean Payton come right out of the gates playing the type of smash-mouth football required to put together a 20-play drive that eats up damn near an entire quarter of the clock. That drive returned no points, of course, but the message it sent was that the Saints weren't about to be bullied in Baltimore. That message wasn't one that was able to keep them from falling behind double digits in the second half, but it sure was one that they stayed true to in methodically erasing a lead that may have seemed insurmountable in seasons prior.
A relatively run-of-the-mill 212-yard performance isn't one you'd consider particularly fitting of the touchdown that officially granted Drew Brees' access to the 500 Club, but the efficiency and the timing of how and when those yards were attained definitely were.
Drew Brees, as he has somehow done all year, played mistake-free football yesterday, which is even more impressive when you consider that doing so required him to make game-changing/saving plays like so...
I don't know that fortune favoring the bold is something that applies to ending up the beneficiaries of Justin Tucker's first blemish in 223 attempts, but I do know that being bold favored the Saints in inching out a win in Baltimore. That boldness didn't pay off in every single play (See: the botched option on the opening drive), but the mindset that they weren't going to be denied a victory in aggressively testing the toughness of one of the best defenses in football in their own building definitely did.
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