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"MVP – Drew Brees

Plenty of choices for MVP out of this one, but I think we have to give the first of many of these designations to number nine. Brees was magnificent in his quarter of work, proving to all the doubters that A.) his oblique injury will not linger into the regular season and B.) he’s still one of the three or four best quarterbacks in the game. Overall, Brees goes 9/15 for 128 yards and two touchdowns and looks like a technician while doing so. It wasn’t necessarily surprising to see, but it sure was reassuring to watch the Saints best player dismantle a defense once again.

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LVP – Kenny Stills

Stills’ frustrating preseason continued on Saturday, and the consequences may cause him to miss time come the regular season. He re-injured the quad that has been bothering him all summer, and for those that are counting that is the second time he’s aggravated the injury he first suffered while working out with Drew Brees in San Deigo. Not only did he have the injury flare up, but Stills also failed to record a catch in the game Saturday. He did make a fantastic effort on a deep ball from Brees, but Colts’ defensive back Darius Butler got a lucky arm in between the ball and Stills’ body to break it up. In fact, considering the awkward way in which Stills landed that may have been the play he re-injured himself. Regardless of when the injury happened, not a good sign for one of the Saints’ brightest up-and-coming stars.

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X-Factor – Kenny Vaccaro

Vaccaro was all over Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday, including a leaping interception of Andrew Luck in the first quarter. He also added three solo tackles and a pass defense to his stat sheet. More than the numbers, though, it looks like Vaccaro is being bred to be the leader of this unit. Despite the signing of playmaking safety Jairus Byrd, Vaccaro looks to be the vocal leader of Rob Ryan’s defense, which actually does make sense. Byrd has missed a lot of time this offseason rehabbing from back surgery, and even if he had been healthy he still would have been learning an entirely new defense. It stands to reason then that Vaccaro would continue to grow as a leader while Byrd gets comfortable in his new digs. Either way, this defense excites the dickens out of me.

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Key Stat – 3 turnovers

The Saints followed up their five turnover performance last week with three more in Saturday’s game, which is a very good sign. We’ve talked a lot about Rob Ryan’s emphasis on turnovers this offseason, and even though it’s just the preseason it’s nice to see that tall that extra attention is paying off. Kenny Vaccaro and Brian Dixon both notched interceptions, and they also recovered a Josh Lenz fumble. Ryan believes that this could be a top-three-type defense this year if they can create more turnovers, and I’m inclined to agree with him. The foundation is there to continue to stymie opposing offenses, and they’ve added so many playmakers through the offseason that it’s hard to believe they won’t be able to create more than the 18 they had last year.

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What This Win Means

The biggest takeaway from preseason Week 3 is that the Saints look like they’re ready to pick up right where they left off last year. It was great to see Drew Brees take the field for the first time this preseason and look that dominant, and even more so the defense looked quite impressive against a pretty good Indianapolis Colts offense led by Andrew Luck. We shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves, but for all the optimism this offseason has created on paper it looks like it’s poised to fulfill expectations on the field. The test (of course) will be Week 1 in Atlanta, but as this is really the culmination of the offseason it really is hard to not be optimistic about the Saints chances to be one of the NFL’s best this year."