49ers beat the Saints in a game played on New Orleans’ terms

NEW ORLEANS – It turned out the Saints could block the 49ers defense.

They just couldn’t stop their offense.

New Orleans went into its NFC showdown against San Francisco on Sunday with a beat-up offensive line taking on perhaps the best defensive line in the NFL.

Left guard Andrus Peat remained sidelined by a broken arm and left tackle Terron Armstead returned from a one-game absence but still was playing on an injured ankle.

The 49ers’ defensive line was a bit beat up as well, but this figured to be an epic battle in the trenches with the winner controlling their fate for the top seed in the NFC.

But in football things don’t always go the way you figure they will.

This one was a shootout from beginning to end. It was played on the terms that Sean Payton and Drew Brees have mastered: A high-stakes game in a sold-out Mercedes-Benz Superdome that turns into a high-scoring affair.

Only this time the visiting team, best known for its defense, prevailed over the home team, best known for its offense, in a game played on the home team’s terms.

San Francisco 48, New Orleans 46.

Brees threw five touchdown passes, but Jimmy Garoppolo threw four and one of the recipients of his touchdown passes – wide receiver Emanuel Sanders – tossed one himself to negate Brees’ brilliance.

In fact after Brees had a typical Brees late-game touchdown drive to put the Saints ahead, Garoppolo had a Brees-like sequence of his own.

He drove the 49ers 63 yards in less than a minute after a Brees touchdown pass had given New Orleans a 46-45 lead.

On fourth and 2, Garoppolo found tight end George Kittle for a 39-yard gain into field-goal range. When Marcus Williams latched onto Kittle’s facemask trying to tackle him, the 15-yard penalty turned a likely field-goal into a virtual certainty.

Robbie Gould kicked a 30-yarder on the final play of the game, just as Greg Zuerkein kicked a 57-yarder on the final play of the Rams’ 26-23 overtime victory against the Saints in the NFC Championship Game in January.

The Saints were trying to put themselves in position to get another NFC Championship Game in the Superdome.

It could still happen, but now the Saints will need help to do so – either by having two teams knock off the 49ers in the final three weeks of the regular season or by having somebody knock them off in the playoffs.

That’s assuming, of course, that the Saints advance to the NFC Championship Game and they won’t do that if they play defense like they did Sunday.

They scored 46 points, amassed 465 yards, gained 28 first downs, converted seven of 14 third and fourth downs into firsts.

Brees staked them to a 20-7 lead early in the second quarter and they couldn’t make that last until halftime, falling behind 28-27 at the end of the second quarter.

In less than a six-minute stretch of the fourth quarter, Brees produced two touchdown drives to regain the lead, requiring the defense to hold it for a mere 53 seconds and it couldn’t.

In a game in which 981 yards were gained, it was the 1 yard that New Orleans couldn’t gain on a first-quarter two-point conversion that loomed large.

Brees had just thrown his second touchdown pass to tight end Jared Cook, who was knocked from the game after taking a cheap shot to the head from Ankello Witherspoon, which drew an unnecessary roughness penalty.

Payton chose to take the penalty on the conversion rather than the kickoff, leaving just one yard to be gained for two points.

But the 49ers stopped Taysom Hill and the butterfly effect was in effect.

Later in the game what should have been an eight-point (one-possession) deficit became a nine-point (two-possession) deficit because of the missing conversion.

Brees overcame that with the two late touchdowns, but then the Saints had to go for two to try and get to a three-point lead when a kick would have accomplished that had they successfully kicked an extra point way back in the second quarter.

Had the Saints had a three-point lead when the defense took the field for that last possession, perhaps they would have wound up in overtime.

Then again, given how this game went, the 49ers might have just driven for a touchdown.