Saints recognize penalties hurt chances of winning

• By LES EAST
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Oct 11, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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METAIRIE — The New Orleans Saints’ opponent on Sunday in the Superdome — the Oakland Raiders — has been notorious over the years for being one of the most-penalized teams in the NFL.

For most of Sean Payton’s two-plus seasons as head coach, New Orleans has been well disciplined and avoided major problems with penalties.

But the Saints’ last two performances have been Raider-esque in terms of penalties.

They committed 13 penalties in a victory against the San Francisco 49ers two weeks ago and 12 (though one was declined) in the loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night.

Now the Saints are among the third-most most penalized team in the league, surpassing even the Raiders with an average of eight per game compared to Oakland’s 7.5.

“It makes you sick, the penalties,” quarterback Drew Brees said. “It’s an equation we talked about before, 100 yards of field position equals seven points. So we’re talking about that many yards in penalties of field position is basically giving the other team seven points every time out.”

The last two games are the only ones in the Payton era in which the Saints have committed as many as 10 infractions and accumulated as many as 100 yards in penalties.

“I really don’t know where that came from,” linebacker Jonathan Vilma said. “You try to look at the routine, our practice routine, our practice habits. I know we’ve been practicing well. We’ve had sharp practices. It’s one of those things we have to be cognizant of and get corrected because it’s costing us games.”

Vilma said the Saints have to be careful not to allow any concern over committing penalties to detract from their aggressiveness.

“If you look back on Monday,” Vilma said, “and you’re watching the film of the game before and somebody says I didn’t want to get a holding penalty or I didn’t want to get whatever it is. You definitely don’t want that, but rules are rules, you’ve got to play by them.”

Safety Roman Harper, who has committed a team-high four penalties, thinks the Saints might be getting closer scrutiny from officials.

“We’re getting caught,” Harper said. “You’ve just got to watch yourself and let it be known that the refs are watching because we’re known to have a lot of penalties. You have to understand that too. They watch film, just like we do. They understand that we’re doing this, that, and the other, so they’re looking out for it.”

Linebacker Scott Fujita said the two-week run on penalties “is a huge aberration” for New Orleans.