London – Mark Ingram called this a business trip.
It was a week-long trip that took the New Orleans Saints over 4,600 miles across the pond to England.
Yes, the players got some sightseeing, football watching, shopping and some fine dining on international cuisine. Many brought their families with them to enjoy.
But for all the memories you made and the pictures you took, this trip will inevitably be remembered for one thing and one thing only: how the Saints will fare when they play the Minnesota Vikings in a game that starts at 8:30 am CT on Sunday at the luxurious Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
That’s what determines if this is actually a business trip.
If the Saints win, all of that frustration from the past two weeks will be forgotten, and fans’ hopeful season can be restored. The comeback losses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers don’t sting as much and seem a bit far-fetched in the rearview mirror.
A loss for the Saints would drop them to 1-3. It would leave people scratching their heads and questioning the team’s lofty expectations.
So this really better be a business trip, or the Saints will be flying back across the Atlantic scratching their heads more than they were flying here from Charlotte, North Carolina after last week’s 22-14 embarrassment to the Panthers.
They hope this week is a chance to bond away from the distractions back home, and this game could help them get back on track.
“Obviously, you don’t want to lose two games in a row,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. I really hope that our benefits will help us to get the taste out of our mouths.
And boy, does it taste bad now.
Other than the fourth quarter in the season opener against the Atlanta Falcons, the New Orleans offense was abysmal. Turn around. Penalties. pass protection. Injury to key players. It’s all part of a recipe for disaster.
This week, the offense will be without Michael Thomas, Andrus Peat and Jameis Winston, who sat out Sunday’s game after sitting out all week with back and ankle injuries.
Andy Dalton, a veteran more than capable of filling in, will make his first start as a Saint and will likely provide a boost to a sputtering offense.
Special teams weren’t a whole lot better.
So far, only defense has done its part.
“We need to pay more attention to detail,” Ingram said. “Mark our point and cross the Tich.”
You hate to call the fourth game of the season a make-or-break game, but this looks like one.
History tells us that when the Saints start a season 1-3, they don’t do well. They did so the last three seasons from 2014-16, finishing 7-9 each time and missing the playoffs.
Since making the playoffs in 1987, the Saints have started 1-3 or 0-4 a total of 14 times. Only two of those times (1990 and 2000) made the playoffs. Only the 1989 team failed to make the playoffs and 2000 teams dropped three of the first four games to finish over 500.
This game is all the more crucial because Saints are two weeks away from diving into a part of their schedule that could be tough for a pedestrian trying to cross a London street. It’s a team that wants consistency.
“The Atlanta game? That wasn’t our standard,” Cameron Jordan said of the defense. “Tampa game? That was not our standard. This last game (Carolina)? That was not our standard. You can’t have that roller coaster. To be celibate is exactly what we have to do. “
Five years ago, the Saints had a similar weeklong stay in London. Like this one, they flew straight to the pond from Charlotte. The difference is that they beat Carolina that same year. The Saints followed that up by going to London, where they shut out the Miami Dolphins and won their next six games – an eight-game winning streak in all.
“We know our type of guys,” Ingram said. We are very good, very good and we make these things go the right way.
If Dalton gets the start as expected, it will be the second time he has faced current Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins in London. In the year In 2016, Dalton was playing for Cincinnati and Cousins was playing for Washington, where the teams played to a 27-27 tie.
“Both teams had chances, but we just couldn’t do it,” Dalton said. “It was a strange thing coming all the way to London and it ended in a draw. But everyone here was used to all the connections in football. So they thought nothing of it.”
Chances are, this time it won’t be even.
One team wins.
The other will lose.
Just one of those results for the Saints would make this a real business trip.
