The Saints won their ninth straight yesterday and clinched a playoff berth with a 21-16 win over the Atlanta Falcons. New Orleans is now 8-0 in games without Drew Brees as Taysom Hill played well as Brees continues to heal up. Coach Sean Payton says it’s been a team effort to win these games without Brees.
“It’s a position that everyone focuses on, but man our team is playing well and we are fortunate to have depth at number of positions and that’s including quarterback, ” said Payton.
Hill was 27 of 37 for 232 yards and he threw his first two touchdown passes of his NFL career. The 30-year-old says he’s more excited they got the victory.
“I don’t care as much people might think about statistics, I care about winning football games, I know there’s been a lot of conversations about getting our first touchdown completion, but as long as we are winning football games, I’m happy,” said Hill.
It looked like this would be an easy victory for the Saints. But Hill fumbled the ball in the red zone as they were set to go up by 19 and the Falcons recovered and later scored to make it a five point game. That’s Hill’s eighth fumble on the season.
“I need to put two hands on the ball in that situation, guy came over and made a good play, I’m obviously disappointed about that, it’s something I really need to fix, it really boils down to having two hands on the ball,” said Hill.
It was another good game for the Saints defense as they allowed 332 total yards, just 70 yards on the ground. New Orleans had the ball for 36:54, but they committed nine turnovers, while Atlanta committed just one.
The Saints are back on the road this Sunday as they will face the Philadelphia Eagles. The story to watch this week is whether Brees will return.
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