SAINTS STAY UNDEFEATED WITH SLOPPY WIN OVER RAMS

No one can blame the New Orleans Saints for not being able to ‘get up’ for a road game against the lowly St. Louis Rams, and particularly after back-to-back divisional contests.  Fortunately for the Saints, their malaise on Sunday didn’t cost them their undefeated record.  Reggie Bush scored two touchdowns to help New Orleans overcome three turnovers and a generally uneven effort to beat St. Louis 28-23 at the Edward Jones Dome.  The Saints improved their record to 9-0, while the Rams slipped to 1-8.

Bush’s heroics weren’t enough to give his team a cover against the NFL pointspread however, as the Rams took the money as +14 home underdogs.  New Orleans has dropped three straight games to the number after starting the year with six covers, leaving their ATS record at 6-3.  The Rams have covered two straight and improved to 4-5 ATS on the year.  The 51 combined points went OVER the 50.5 total by the slimmest of margins.  New Orleans has gone OVER in six of nine this season, while St. Louis has surpassed the total in five of their nine contests.

Afterwards, Saints’ cornerback Randall Gay said that the win was important and that blowouts every week simply weren’t a realistic goal:

"You're not going to blow everyone out. It's a lot harder to blow teams out when for a lot of teams, this is like their playoff game."

Despite Gay’s reality check, New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees insisted that it was important for his team to put games away:

"We're not content with where we're at, and we're certainly not content with the way we've played these last few weeks. We need to close the game out when we're given the opportunity."

Reggie Bush was happy to finally get the opportunity to make plays:

"I don't feel like I've dropped off at all. I feel like I'm still the same person, I don't feel any faster or slower. I think coach gave me a lot of opportunities to make plays and I think I was able to do that today."

The Rams had a shot to win the game late, but couldn’t pull it off.  St. Louis quarterback Marc Bulger was left to lament:

"It would have been really nice to pull it off. There's a reason they're unbeaten. They made plays when they had to."

As was head coach Steve Spagnuolo:

"Tough one. Tough, tough, tough, tough."

The Saints have another road game against a team they should beat easily next week, traveling to Tampa Bay to face the 1-8 Buccaneers.  They’ll host the New England Patriots on Monday Night, November 30 before traveling to Washington, DC the following Sunday for a game against the Redskins.  The Rams will play two more games at home, starting with the Arizona Cardinals next weekend and the Seattle Seahawks on November 29.  Then it’ll be back on the road, as they play at Chicago the following Sunday.