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Del Rio: Raiders CB Sean Smith will start against Falcons

It would have made a lot less sense for Del Rio to not make the gutsy call at that point.

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After the Saints regained the lead (34-27) on Drew Brees’ fourth touchdown pass of the game, Carr drove Oakland 75 yards, throwing a 10-yard touchdown pass to Seth Roberts with 47 seconds left.

Del Rio said Monday that Smith will be back in the starting lineup for Sunday’s home opener against Atlanta. “Mechanically, I thought things went really well yesterday”. On the contrary – the defense had only one bad drive in the first 40 minutes while holding Oakland to 10 points. Brees torched the Raiders secondary for 423 yards and four TDs.

“The belief and trust that coach has in us gives us so much confidence”, Carr said.

Prater missed an extra point wide right with 4:04 left in the season opener, a miscue that almost cost the Lions.

In hindsight, it was a great move by Del Rio to go for two but if it had backfired on him the might of Raider Nation would have collapsed upon him with second guessing the likes we rarely see. Let’s face it, the Raiders defense was shredded this entire game by Drew Brees and the prospects of facing him in OT was very daunting. “I think he’s ready to have a good year for us”. It also had to sweat out rookie kicker Wil Lutz’s last-second field goal attempt from 61 yards, which narrowly missed wide left as the Superdome crowd briefly erupted before realizing the kick was no good.

The amusing thing about Sunday’s implosion is that about two hours into the game, I thought I would be writing about how the defense rose up under defensive coordinator Dennis Allen against the team that fired him as head coach two years ago. But in his senior season at McDonogh 35 High School in New Orleans he fractured his C4, C5, and C6 vertebrae returning a kickoff.

Some of you are probably cursing the referees over the brutal fourth down call (which was awful), but I can’t complain too much as the Saints had a bunch of pass interference calls go their way. Well, it might surprise long-time readers, but I am rewarding Dan Snyder and going with the Washington Redsk. Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. They finished out with 21 receptions (24 targets) for 373 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Latavius Murray rushed 14 times for 59 yards and a score, but it was the speed of Jalen Richard that provided a spark.

Brees’ touchdowns included a franchise-record 98-yarder to former Oregon State star Brandin Cooks. It was a career-long passing play for Brees as well. There were several plays where Carr had so long to throw, it was only a matter of time before a wide receiver got open downfield. “He looked like Usain Bolt running down the sideline there”. If Steph Curry played against the Saints, he’d score 60 a night.

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Saints fans can be forgiven if they don’t yet know all of the groups names, seeing as none of them played a down for the Black and Gold a year ago. He finished with six catches for 137 yards. That defensive performance and a 66-yard strike from Joe Flacco (23/34, 258, TD) were enough to pull out the victory against Buffalo once a couple Justin Tucker field goals were tacked on. The common decision would have been to kick the almost-automatic PAT and take a shot at the win in overtime. Lutz hit his first field goal from 42 yards out.

Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports