Saints remain on rough road to division championship

NEW ORLEANS — It’s not easy to make the NFL playoffs.

It’s even harder to do so as a division champion.

Those two facts were driven home during the New Orleans Saints’ 31-19 victory against the New York Jets on Sunday in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

That victory — the Saints’ sixth straight at home — improved them to 10-4 and put them on the cusp of qualifying for the playoffs and moved them closer to doing so as NFL South champions.

But it wasn’t easy — even though the Saints were big favorites.

The Jets came in at 5-8 and Bryce Petty was getting his first start of the season at quarterback because of an injury that Josh McCown sustained last week. The match-up might have looked like a welcomed breather in the midst of the stretch run, but it wasn’t.

Oddsmakers installed New Orleans as a 16-point favorite, the largest margin by which it has ever been favored. But this game was a lot closer than many anticipated or the final score suggested.

McCown’s absence helped drive the point spread to the historic number and Petty’s performance didn’t exceed expectations. He completed 19-of-39 for 179 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.

But New York ran the ball better than New Orleans did (until Mark Ingram II broke free for a 50-yard clinching touchdown with 1:33 left) and it won the takeaway battle (3-2), which helped mitigate the difference in quarterback play. (Drew Brees completed 26-of-36 for 285 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.)

The difficulty the Saints had could have been attributed to this game coming 10 days after a disappointing 20-17 loss in an emotional game at Atlanta, or to it coming seven days before the rematch, or both.

But that wouldn’t be fair to the Jets.

“I think the Jets came out here and made some plays,” Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins said. “That is what they get paid to do and that is what they came out here and did.”

New Orleans scored on each of its first three possessions to take a 17-7 second-quarter lead and it seemed the oddsmakers might have been on target. But then the Saints offense hit what Brees would later call a lull.

His interception late in the second quarter led to a field goal that got the Jets within 17-10 at the half. The Saints couldn’t run the ball in the third quarter and another field goal got New York within 17-13.

“I didn’t feel like it was one of our better games,” Saints coach Sean Payton said.

Twice New Orleans was in position to at least kick a field goal and twice wide receiver Brandon Coleman lost fumbles, keeping the Jets uncomfortably close.

“We made it harder than I think it needed to be,” Brees said.

But the defense played well enough that New York could never erase the deficit and finally Brees found Michael Thomas for a touchdown that pushed the margin back to 11 midway through the fourth.

“It’s hard to pin them down for four quarters,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said.

Petty guided the Jets to a touchdown and the margin stayed at five after a failed two-point conversion. The Saints recovered an onside kick and Ingram took off on his second touchdown run, one that accounted for 38 percent of New Orleans’ rushing yards on the day.

When Marshon Lattimore intercepted Petty on the game’s final play, the win was official and the Saints were on the verge of going to the playoffs for the first time since 2013.

They control the NFC South race because even though Carolina technically remained tied with them after withstanding Aaron Rodgers’ return to beat the Packers on Sunday, New Orleans holds the tiebreaker after sweeping the Panthers.

But there is still work to be done as Atlanta will come to town on Christmas Eve at either 9-5 or 8-6, depending on what it does at Tampa Bay on Monday night, and desperately needing a win to bolster its playoff chances.

A New Orleans win would give the city a playoff berth as a Christmas present, but Falcons victories in Tampa and New Orleans would put them ahead of the Saints thanks to the tiebreaker.

So the march toward the playoffs and perhaps a division championship doesn’t get any easier.

But it was never going to be easy.