The New Orleans Saints provided the answer to everyone’s question – - yes, they are able to flick the switch.

After some lackluster games and some seemingly lost momentum, the Saints snapped back to the form that they displayed all season and ran the Arizona Cardinals out of the Superdome, 45-14.

All-purpose back Reggie Bush racked up 217 yards of total offense, including an 83-yard punt return and a 46-yard scamper – both for touchdowns.

The Cardinals got on the board first, scoring on a 70-yard Tim Hightower run to make the score 7-0.  But then the Saints established their dominance early in the contest, and ran off three consecutive touchdowns.  Running back Reggie Bush ended the first quarter scoring spree with a 46-yard touchdown gallop that made the score 21-7.

Arizona once again started in good fashion in the second quarter, as Beanie Wells capped a 9-play, 80-yard drive with a 4-yard run to pull the Cardinals within 7 points.  However, New Orleans countered with 2 touchdown drives to push their lead up to 35-14 at the half.

Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner was not as effective as he was last weekend.

A discouraged Arizona couldn’t muster anything in the second half.  After putting up 51 points against Green Bay last week, they knew that things would be tougher this week.  The Saints and Cardinals were not far apart on total net yards – Arizona tallied 359, while New Orleans accumulated 418. 

But two stats really told the story of the game where time of possession and third down efficiency.  The home team had the ball for over 36 minutes, leaving the Cards in possession for less than 24 minutes.  A big reason for this was the difference in the third down efficiencies of the teams.  New Orleans converted on 54% (7 of 13) of their third downs.  Arizona could only make good on 13% (1 of 8).  Toss in a couple of turnovers (1 lost fmuble and 1 interception) and you had the recipe for disaster against a New Orleans team that was determined to prove that their regular season success was not a fluke.

New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees:

”There’s been a lot of firsts since Sean Payton has been here in the organization and we want to keep that going. We want to bring this franchise a championship.”

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