Metairie, La. — With Aaron Rodgers sidelined with a broken collarbone, the Saints defense is gearing-up for a Brett Hundley-led Packers’ offense. There’s not much film to study on the third-year quarterback, but that’s better than the alternative.
“Yeah, but at the same time, I’d rather do that then prepare for Superman,” said Saints safety Kenny Vaccaro.
The Saints defense has shown vast improvements the past 3 weeks– especially against the Lions– forcing 5 turnovers and scoring a franchise record 3 touchdowns. But if anyone knows not to get too high about it– it’s Kenny Vaccaro– who’s in his 5th season with the Saints.
“Everybody’s going to say, ‘Oh, look what we’ve done the last 3 weeks.'” Vaccaro said. “But like I’ve said, I’ve been through 50 games of not good. Until we start stacking a year or two, that’s when the culture’s actually changed. We’re a young defense so every game we win, every time we play good on defense, I think that helps us get better. But it’s still only 3 weeks. Good teams, good defenses do it for years until people think, ‘Oh they’re a defensive team. That’s just what they do.’ Nobody believes that right now. They just think we’re hot.”
But the longer this defense can stay hot, the more it’ll help the entire team keep these wins coming.
“They played with an energy the other day that was just electric,” said Saints quarterback Drew Brees. “I know it got the fans fired-up and it certainly got the offense fired-up. That complimentary game, you know, we feed off those guys. When they can put us in situations that they have– especially last game– but over the last few weeks where you get those turnovers, you get a big sack, negative play, you’re causing them to punt, we get good field position. That just creates momentum and good things happen.”