Saints still unbeaten, but far from perfect

NEW ORLEANS -- The New Orleans Saints have warts. They have blemishes. They have bad hair days.

Quarterback Drew Brees spat off words like "brutal" and "horrendous" when he thought about the eight combined turnovers in the past two weeks. Defensive end Bobby McCray said he thought the defense played slightly complacent with a two-touchdown lead Monday night.

The Saints get the victory but their turnover problem needs to be addressed soon. (US Presswire)

By talking to the Saints, you'd figure they were on the wrong end of their 35-27 victory against the Atlanta Falcons. So I'll pull a page from coach Sean Payton's quote sheet that will cover up any cosmetic flaws: "You are what you record is."

Let's break out the facts.

The Saints have beaten everyone on their schedule. They've beaten them by at least a touchdown. Four of their seven wins came against teams that made the playoffs last season. They're now three games ahead of the Falcons in the NFC South standings, including a win over their next closest contender. The Saints defense has created 21 turnovers, which is one less than how many the team had all of last year.

"You look at it like that, you can put a smile on your face," Saints tackle Jon Stinchcomb said. "With that said, we've still got nine games left to play. We realize it only takes a slip and we're right back clawing and fighting."

There was no need to nitpick the Saints' flaws because they stuck out Monday night.

One day, the turnovers on offense are going to catch up with them.

The Saints turned the ball over four times in Miami and needed a monumental charge to topple the Dolphins. The Falcons were almost as friendly turning the ball over and it's what the Saints absolutely needed to maintain the lead and to overcome three more Saints lost fumbles and an interception.

When asked if it's not easy to take things for granted, Stinchcomb said, "Oh man! Start with turnovers.

"You can go to the last two minutes of the game. The offense gets the ball with 1:40 left, we take off 30 seconds and you turn the ball over? That's so far from what this team is about. That's something we'll have to correct first and foremost."

Every Saints opponent has folded once the Saints have taken a lead against them this season, whether it was after the first possession or into the fourth quarter. The Saints never faced an opponent that kept hanging around.

The Falcons didn't die, and boy do the Saints know it.

Running back Mike Bell coughed up the ball with 1:31 left in the game and the Falcons managed a field goal exactly one minute later to cut the Saints' lead to eight points. Then Atlanta recovered the onside kick. But Matt Ryan's final heave ended up as Darren Sharper's seventh interception of the season and the Saints escaped potential disaster.

It's what happens when you're winning.

"Last week was a good lesson not to ever give up and that obviously shows that we can come from behind," Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey said. "But having penalties and turnovers and special teams mix-ups at the end of the game is going to come back and haunt us."

There's also no question the loss of Saints defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis for at least the next month with a sprained MCL in his knee is going to hinder the team's run defense. The Falcons were privy to that and running back Michael Turner broke off one of his best performances of a subpar season for Turner's standards. Turner ran left, ran right and ran up the gut basically at will. He finished with 151 yards on 20 carries.

All the undefeated chatter this week by the likes of Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas might have been innocent in nature. Yet you can't help but wonder if the thought process seeped into some of the players' heads before and during the game.

Stinchcomb said he hopes there was no thought of complacency like McCray insinuated.

"We've got a real mature group here," Stinchcomb said. "I'll definitely say there was a lull in the second half coming out of the locker room. That's something we need to correct, too. We understand there's never going to be a perfect game for us, but that doesn't mean we're going to quit fighting to get one."

Payton added: "The reason [the undefeated talk is] premature is because we haven't hit the halfway mark of the season yet. It is premature. Each week you get another challenge. We're just focused on trying to get better. Each week you have another game. Each time the next game seems to have that much more importance."

Undefeated? Yes. Flawed? Who isn't.

It's how you cover up the warts and blemishes is how you stay "perfect" in the NFL.

And only two teams can claim perfection even though neither is completely perfect.