@tour2ma said:

More like Thomas is out of the backfield again...

He's been your feature back off and on for years. While I've always liked him, he never seemed to me to be built to handle that role and his injury history seems to support that opinion. He's been your constant, your "fallback" guy, throughout a long search for an impact, feature back to replace McAllister. And now that Ingram has developed into a decent back, Pierre is once again back in the role that suits him best. Agree?

Definitely agree. I think you'll see Pierre get 5-8 carries per game this season. He will be more of the back lined up next to Drew in the shotgun.

@hx214 said:

Looking at the Saints backfield, I'm surprised they no longer have a scat back with Sproles gone, I figured they would have replaced him with a water bug back. That element out of the backfield takes away another option for them on offense.

Like most have said, the best defense against Brees is keeping him on the sideline.

Let West and Crowell chew the clock up. Score TD's instead of field goals. Put more points up than the other team and you usually win the game! Haha

Pierre Thomas is the out of the backfield back now, he's not as flashy as Sproles but he is effective. 6 catches last week, 77 last season.

@topdawg31 said:

Based on what Atlanta did and the way our offense started to show some life, I'm thinking we should be able to put up 500 yards of offense. We just have to figure out how to keep Brees from doing the same.

As a Saints fan the expectation is that we actually play Rob Ryan defense this week. Last week we sat back in a zone defense and only brought four rushers. Only on 12 occasions (12% of Atlanta's snaps) did we bring a fifth rusher or more. Unheard of for a Rob Ryan defense to be that laid back. Also played Byrd 20+ yards off the line for the majority of the game.

Hopefully this week we get back to doing what we are good at. Saints played conservative last week because they were scared of getting beat over the top. I don't think that happens this week. I think we give Hoyer a lot of different looks, bump at the line on man coverage, and bring more pressure. That's what I hope anyway.