The Saints Browns game was a painful watch for most of the game. As either team struggled to move the ball consistently for most of the game and when they did they were unable to get the ball into the endzone excluding the end of the game. The game had a feel of whoever would play worse than the other would ultimately lose rather than a team playing well enough to win outright. But let’s recap the game and what transpired in the Saints win against the Browns. The Saints managed to start off the game with a decent starting drive before stalling in enemy territory. The drive was fueled by the run game with Audric Estime and subsequently ended when the offense moved away from Estime and had protection issues up front leading to a field goal. Following the field goal drive the offensive woes began for the Saints with drives ending in turnovers via fumbles or Charlie Smyth missing a field goal compounding the missed opportunity that drive where Tyler Shough did not see Jordyn Tyson wide open in the end zone. Defensively the Saints could not have played a much better first half of football. They were stopping the run against the Browns and were making Shadeur Sanders' job difficult by constantly pressuring him in the backfield. The performance was a dominant showing as the Browns had no answers against Brandon Staley’s defence until the second half. In the second half the defense started to give up some explosive passing plays which jumpstarted the Browns offense and began to put pressure on the Saints offense to answer in kind. The defensive dam for both teams broke in the fourth quarter when both teams began to trade touchdowns and field goals in clutch moments. Tyler Shough did what we have come to expect from him when his back is against the wall and makes big time plays to give the Saints a chance to win and he did that once again against the Browns. Heading into OT the Saints offense did not skip a beat as they drove right down the field and punched the ball into the endzone via a rushing touchdown from Audric Estime. Estime certainly looked solid in this game and made you wonder why the Saints ever moved off of him in the first place in hindsight. But then the defense had another back breaking misplay where they forced Sanders to throw underneath to Harold Fannin and just could not bring him down multiple times on his way to the endzone with a minute remaining in the game. Todd Monken decided to go for two to play for the win and ultimately could not get the job done on the two point conversion thanks to pressure from the Saints front to seal the win. I’ll be honest this game was one of the uglier Saints wins I can remember and felt very self-inflicted with all of the missed opportunities and lack of execution shown by them. Even when the defense began to falter in the fourth quarter and overtime it was hard to be mad at them given what they had accomplished in the first three quarters of the game with no support from the offense. The starting offensive line was finally healthy until Eric McCoy got hurt, but they still struggled to keep Tyler Shough upright. The offense as a whole looked sloppy for most of the game and could not find a rhythm. Then on special teams multiple miscues kept the game closer than it needed to because of a missed field goal, fumble on a punt return and a penalty setting up a Browns fourth down conversion to keep a drive alive. Much like the other Saints wins this season there are still plenty of areas the Saints can and will need to improve upon in order to win more consistently. But for a team, coaching staff, and organization needing a win they did just enough to accomplish one against the Browns. Now their attention turns towards the Carolina Panthers where whoever wins next weekend will be in first place of the NFC South at 4-5.