Vikings won’t recognize these Saints

Published 9:04 pm Sunday, January 14, 2018

<p class="p1">As ugly as it was at the time, now it all kind of makes sense. Maybe it was all part of the master plan, and a devious one at that.</p><p class="p1">That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.</p><p class="p1">Pretty shifty move by the Saints, actually. One of the ultimate con jobs.</p><p class="p1">Golf courses have sandbaggers lurking about to pick you clean after fake-shanking on the driving range. The NFL in Week 1 had the New Orleans Saints traveling to Minnesota for the flimflam of the year.</p><p class="p1">Cue that music from “The Sting” and follow along here.</p><p class="p1">Minnesota didn’t know it at the time, but the Vikings had done been snookered.</p><p class="p1">But how could the Saints have known back then?</p><p class="p1">How could Sean Payton and his bunch have known then that come January the season would be on the line when they returned to Minnesota for the playoffs?</p><p class="p1">Don’t complicate this thing with details.</p><p class="p1">They must have known.</p><p class="p1">And what a masterful con they pulled off.</p><p class="p1">Put it this way: After beating the Saints 29-19 in September, the last thing the Vikings ever expected to see in January was the New Orleans Saints.</p><p class="p1">The charade was far more convincing to the naked eye than the final scoreboard would suggest.</p><p class="p1">The Vikings should have been ashamed of themselves for barely winning by double digits.</p><p class="p1">I know I fell for it. You probably did, too.</p><p class="p1">It was almost like they didn’t get the memo that the exhibition season had ended and the games suddenly counted. The Saints couldn’t have been more inept if they’d tried — which apparently, in retrospect, they did. </p><p class="p1">But I guess they knew what they were doing all along.</p><p class="p1">But how long ago was that?</p><p class="p1">Officially, it was 16 games ago, that season opener.</p><p class="p1">But here’s how long ago it really was — the big story line for that season-opening game was the return to Minnesota of Saints running back Adrian Peterson.</p><p class="p1">Who? Remember? Yeah, I’d totally forgotten all about that too.</p><p class="p1">But, yes, AP was a Saint, and the big question for the season was how Payton would share carries between Peterson and Mark Ingram.</p><p class="p1">Alvin Kamara’s name didn’t really come up much, if at all.</p><p class="p1">Who knew?</p><p class="p1">Maybe the Saints knew, even then, that they had the odds-on favorite for the NFC offensive rookie of the year.</p><p class="p1">But perhaps it was too early to show their hand.</p><p class="p1">So the Saints got out of Minnesota with Kamara still a mystery man. Nobody remembers whatever happened to Peterson, but supposedly he landed in Arizona somewheres.</p><p class="p1">It was brilliant. The Vikings will need an introduction today.</p><p class="p1">After the game, the headline on the NFL.com story didn’t mince words:</p><p class="p1">“The Vikings look like world-beaters while the Saints look like one of the NFL’s worst teams.”</p><p class="p1">Ah, so it was working.</p><p class="p1">And if there was any doubt, the sham apparently continued the next week, at home, against the Patriots in a 36-20 eye sore that also wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated.</p><p class="p1">Looking back, any fool can see that the Patriots would be a logical choice as a Super Bowl opponent. Why not go ahead and slip Tom Brady a joy-buzzer handshake, too, even while he was shredding a still-helpless Saints defense?</p><p class="p1">Two games in, that defense looked far worse than the motley collections that had been keeping them out of the playoffs for the last three years.</p><p class="p1">That might have been milking the gag too far, but it was effective for the overall ruse.</p><p class="p1">I know I had seen enough. They convinced me, for one, that they just might be the worst team in the NFL this season.</p><p class="p1">That’s the Saints the Vikings remember, too.</p><p class="p1">The cheese is in the mouse trap.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps the Vikings got word that the Saints came clean in Week 3, letting Kamara out for recess, with the familiar Drew Brees surgically strafing secondaries, all of it backed up by the best defense since the 2009 Super Bowl XLIV championship team.</p><p class="p1">It will take additional investigations as to how that gawdawful 0-2 Saints team could flick the switch and promptly win eight straight games to take control of the NFC’s toughest division.</p><p class="p1">But the Vikings surely won’t recognize them.</p><p class="p1">They’ll get suspicious from the beginning, constantly looking around and over their shoulders.</p><p class="p1">Something won’t seem right.</p><p class="p1">Yeah, they were playing ’possum. The Vikings won’t figure out what’s up until it’s too late.</p><p class="p1">And that’s why the Saints will win today, even being on the road something like 26-19.</p><p class="p2">l</p><p class="p3"><strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at</p><p class="p3">shobbs@americanpress.com</p>