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The Saints got 36 first down in their Vikings’ Christmas Day beatdown, and the most notable was how easy it was for them to convert: the Saints barely even came in third, moving 30 of their 36 down first or second. Below.
Saints coach Sean Peton said after the game that it reminds him of playing in the Canadian Football League, where teams only get three wickets for 10 yards, meaning you’ll usually kick in third if you don’t convert to first or second. . .
“It was one of the CFL games where we were converting, first and second, after getting the first downs,” Patton told the Associated Press. “He’s an excellent coach defense and he’s got a lot of people and that can be tough.”
As a player, Payton had a very short stint with the CFL’s tt tova rough riders, so he knows little about football north of the border. And he knows that it doesn’t often happen that NFL teams choose to go down as easily as they do against the Vikings.
