Saints keep rolling with 31-17 victory over Falcons

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Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram all did not reach the end zone against the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night.

It still didn’t matter.

Tommylee Lewis, Austin Carr, Dan Arnold and Keith Kirkwood – all former undrafted players – were the recipients of four Drew Brees touchdown passes as the New Orleans Saints coasted to a 31-17 victory over the Falcons.

The Saints took advantage of four turnovers from the Falcons in improving to 10-1 on the season. While the Saints only converted one of the turnovers into points themselves, all four turnovers came inside the Saints 35-yard line with two coming inside the 5-yard line.

Brees completed 15 of 22 passes for 171 yards with four touchdowns and one interception. Kamara and Ingram combined to gain 141 yards on 25 carries as well.

The Falcons moved the ball effectively at times, out-gaining the Saints 366-312 on the night. However, Ryan was intercepted by A.J. Klein and lost a fumble, and Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley each coughed up the ball to New Orleans.

Ryan passed for 377 yards with touchdowns to Ridley and Tevin Coleman. Jones caught 11 passes for 147 yards for the Falcons.

Here are five more things we learned during Thursday Night Football:

1. Drew Brees is the MVP front-runner with six weeks left in the regular season.

Brees has never won a league MVP award despite being out of the most prolific quarterbacks in league history. That distinction may soon be rectified as Brees is putting up another stellar season leading the Saints to the top spot currently in the NFC playoff picture.

Brees is deserving of the award based on the first three months of the season alone. Additionally, if it came down to breaking a tie in decision-making between a Brees or a Patrick Mahomes, Todd Gurley or whomever else would be in the conversation, Brees could get the nod as much on a lifetime achievement award basis as well.

Brees became the league’s all-time leading passer earlier this season and tossed his 500th career touchdown pass, becoming just the fourth quarterback in history with that many touchdown passes. He is now second on the all-time touchdowns list behind only Peyton Manning, who had 539 touchdowns in his career.

Brees also tied a record by completing touchdowns to 13 different receivers this season. It was a record owned by his opponent Thursday night, Matt Ryan, who accomplished the feat in 2016.

2. Saints offense continues to keep Thomas Morstead without much to do.

Morestead punted three times on Thursday night. It snapped a seven-game streak of the Saints have two or fewer punts in a game.

Morstead has punted just 24 times in 11 games, which puts the Saints just above the pace to have the fewest punts of any team during a 16-game season. The NFL record for a season is 23 punts by the 1982 San Diego Chargers. However, that mark was set in a season cut to just nine games due to a strike.

The 1990 Houston Oilers hold the mark for fewest punts in a 16-game season with 34.

The Saints are averaging just over two punts (2.18) per game, which puts them on pace to finish with 35 over 16 games.

3. Saints 10-game winning streak is second-longest in franchise history.

After losing their season opener to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Saints have won their last 10 games to surge to the top of the NFC. The winning streak is the second-longest in franchise history behind only the 2009 Super Bowl season when the Saints began the season 13-0.

The 2009 Saints had their winning streak snapped against the Dallas Cowboys in a 24-17 defeat.

While that defeat was in New Orleans, the Saints will again play the Cowboys next week in Dallas with a long winning streak on the line.

4. Falcons can’t afford the mistakes from their offense.

Atlanta’s defense having issues is understandable given the significant losses to that unit due to injuries. Without Ricardo Allen, Keanu Neal and Deion Jones in the lineup, it’s not hard to understand why the Falcons defense is a bit more porous than previous iterations.

With that in mind, the Falcons offense has to do more to cover up the deficiencies on the other side of the ball. That’s just not possible when they turn the ball over four times in a game and twice on their opponent’s doorstep.

Ryan was sacked and fumbled on a snap taken from the Saints 3-yard line and Ridley was stripped at the 3-yard line after a 27-yard catch and run.

The Falcons had six drives that finished inside the Saints 35-yard line and came away with just 17 points on those drives with one of the touchdowns coming in garbage time late.

While being without Devonta Freeman, Brandon Fusco and Andy Levitre on offense is also notable, the Falcons offense should be able to produce more consistently. They are averaging just 17.3 points per game over the last three weeks, all losses to New Orleans, Dallas and Cleveland.

5. Saints defense is the best among teams with top offenses.

While the Saints, Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs can all brag about the potency of their offenses, the Saints defense may be the reason ultimately responsible for getting the team back to the Super Bowl.

Outside of the shootout with the Rams in Week Nine, the Saints haven’t allowed an opponent to score more than 23 points in a game in their last eight games played. They’ve held opponents to 20 points or less six times in that eight-game stretch with only the Rams (35) and Baltimore Ravens (23) scoring more than 20 points.

The Saints are averaging just 19.1 points per game over that span, which would rank third in the league over the entire season. Their 23.3 points per game allowed through 11 games ranks 13th in the league overall through Thursday’s games. The Rams and Chiefs rank 23rd and 28th, respectively.

There may not be much separating the offensive abilities of the Saints, Chiefs and Rams. All three teams can put up points with ease and have a number of different players capable of producing in big ways. The difference between the teams may come on the other side of the ball and the Saints unit is playing the best of the bunch.