Saints open title defence with win over Vikings
The New Orleans Saints picked up from where they left off last season, winning. The Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 14-9 in a close victory to open the new season.
Opening up the season as defending champions for the first time the Saints didn’t miss a beat scoring a touchdown on their opening drive. On his opening play, quarterback Drew Brees found Marques Colston for a 28-yard gain. He then found Lance Moore for 12 yards on the next play and after Reggie Bush rushed for eight yards, Brees went deep to Devery Henderson for a 29-yard touchdown pass.
Brees completed 27 of 36 passes for 237 yards and one touchdown, seemingly not skipping a beat from last season, where he led the Saints to a Super Bowl.
"We're not used to 14-9 victories, but we're used to winning. So we like the W,” said Brees.
“We knew we would have to play better in a lot of areas than we did last year [against the Vikings] and I felt like we did. We just showed that we can win in a lot of different ways.”
It was the lowest-scoring victory for the Saints since 2006.
Brett Favre started at quarterback for the Vikings after coming out of retirement again. This time he should have maybe stayed retired, the 40-year-old made only 15 of 27 passes for 171 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Favre’s lone touchdown came at the end of the first-half when he put together a drive where he delivered two pinpoint passes to Visanthe Shiancoe, the second of which was a 20-yard touchdown pass, giving the Vikings a 9-7 half-time lead. In the third quarter, Favre didn’t complete a single pass and was disappointed with his performance.
"I know people are going to say it wasn't the fireworks they expected it to be. There's three of four throws that I just missed. I have no excuse. I just missed,” Favre said.
The decisive play came in the third quarter with Pierre Thomas capping a 74-yard, 11-play New Orleans drive with a one-yard touchdown. Thomas finished the day with 71 yards on 19 attempts and a touchdown.
The win takes means each of the last 11 Super Bowl champions has opened their title defence with a victory.
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