It was probably my fault

I promised a Week 1 recap and was unable to deliver on time.  My excuse is I was knee deep in Rising Tide 9 last week and so my football time was limited.  (Thanks, by the way, to everyone who supported or helped out with RT9.  Everyone who participated reports an all around positive experience. More on that later.)  I'll try and make up for it in the customary fashion by incorporating some Falcons material into the Cleveland post.  There are some.. uh... common threads.

Meanwhile, everyone is running around with their hair on fire today so I'd like to just bring up a coupla quick things to which you may want to pay particular attention. First, there's this quote from just after the game yesterday.  Saints defenders were asked to describe what went wrong on the game's penultimate play.  (The one where nobody knew or cared where Andrew Hawkins might be running to even though he was an eligible receiver and sometimes people throw balls to those.)

Robinson was flagged for holding on the play, but it didn’t matter. Quarterback Brian Hoyer found Hawkins down the right side for a 28-yard reception, setting up the winning 29-yard field goal by Billy Cundiff.

Why did two players go with one man?

“We were trying to figure that out right now,” White said after speaking with his fellow defensive backs, including Lewis. “We’re going to go watch the film and figure it out from there. We don’t know.”

What the Browns knew is that the coverage fell apart, and they were ready to take advantage of the blitz after the Saints sent extra men on the play before and batted down a pass at the line of scrimmage.

“We were surprised they all-out blitzed us two plays in a row,” Hoyer said. “I’m reading (Austin) first, then you just see everyone fly down; it’s almost like you throw a punt and just let him catch it.”

Not only were they confused as to what they were supposed to do, they don't even know what it was they were confused about.   Remember all those jokes we made after preseason about how it seems like this team hadn't spent much time... you know.. practicing?  Maybe we were actually on to something with that.

Also today there is this. 

Running back Mark Ingram has broken his hand, and that will keep him out of action for about a month. ESPN first reported Ingram’s injury.

Saints coach Sean Payton declined to discuss Ingram’s health Monday and said the team would evaluate the running back’s situation.

It is not immediately clear when Ingram suffered the injury. He was on the field during New Orleans' final drive during Sunday's 26-24 loss to the Cleveland Browns and recorded his last carry with 8:26 remaining in the game. He spoke with reporters afterwards for several minutes, and it was not obvious anything was wrong with him.

Knowing what we already know about the Legend of #AngryIngram, it stands to reason that the temperamental young fellow may have taken some frustrations out on a wall or some similarly hard and (hopefully) inanimate object after leaving the stadium yesterday. 

2014 is turning out to be waay more interesting than we expected.