A couple of notes on the vaunted Saints Offense. For context, I use points allowed as a ranking for defenses as using yards is idiotic. I'll take a defense that gives up stats over points any day. I generally looked at the opponents defensive rating, home vs. away and dome vs. outside.

POINT 1. They are on a roll. They have scored over 40 in each of their last 4 games. But...three of the four were at home and the lone road game was in a dome against the 31st ranked MIN defense. Of the other three games, the best defense was the 18th ranked Falcons. The game before this roll started was outside against the 8th ranked Titans defense and they scored 22.

POINT 2. They are better in the dome. In dome games they averaged 14 points more than the average points allowed by the defenses they were playing (ie. if the team usually allows 25, the Saints scored 39). In their 5 outdoor games they averaged 2 points above the average points allowed by the defenses they were playing. The Niners give up 14 points per game on average.

POINT 3. They aren't nearly as good away from home. The five lowest point totals for the year from the Saint's offense were away from home. They averaged 20-26 points per game with the best defense being the aforementioned Titans. The only game they scored over 40 away from home was against the 31st ranked Vikings.

SUMMARY: No real point other than to refute the notion that in order to win, the Niners will have to put the game on Alex Smith's shoulders to score 30 or 40. It's not about keeping up with the Saints. This game will rest on the shoulders of Justin and Aldon Smith. If they get pressure then we can win this game with maybe 25 points on the board.

We've all heard about Alex Smith's rotating OC adventure and that's why the jury is still out.  He did okay last year, but not well enough to appease most people and that we had the worst O-line in the league last year, but stick with me here... 

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Hello all.  This is my first post, but I was looking at the strength of schedule posts and thought that since its really a two horse race to the playoffs (I know the Seahawks could make a resurgence, but I think SF or ARI would have to falter more than expected), then we should take a closer look at the past and future schedule of the two.  SF has a game up on them head-to-head and Arizona has one more win so it's sort of equivalent to a half game.  If you assume we can win the head-to-head at home late in the season, then we make up the one game deficit and have the tie-breaker so it comes down to who can post the better record in a very similar schedule.

Common Opponents:

SF vs. ARI:  Hope you all remember the whupping we put on them in week 1 in Arizona.  20 to 16 win.  Probably not considered a whupping by many, but I couldn't find the exact definition of 'whupping' so I decided to use it loosely because it makes me feel good...

Seattle:  ARI had a convincing 27-3 win in week 6 in Seattle.  We also had a good game winning 23-10 at home.  You could give the edge to ARI here, but as we're not really a run-up-the-score type team I'm not sure its a huge advantage.

Indianapolis:  ARI suffered a beat down at home 31-10 in week 3.   As we all know, we dropped a heartbreaker 18-14 in Indy last week.  Strong edge to the Niners here playing Indy so close at home.

Houston: ARI beat Houston 28-21 in week 5 at home.  The Niners lost 21-24 in Houston week 7.  If you assume a 3pt boost for the home team, then ARI has a slight edge again in this one.

Overall: I think a head-to-head defeat on their turf and a great performance in Indy outweigh the win at home against Houston (vs road for us) and a few more points vs SEA.  Advantage 49ers.

Different Opponents:

ARI: They beat NYG on the road 24-17, JAC on the road 31 to 17, and lost to Carolina at home 34-21.

SF: We beat STL 35-0 at home, lost to MIN 27-24 on the road, and lost to ATL at home 45-10.

Overall: The win over STL really doesn't count as much as ARI's win over the Giants, but I would argue that the last second loss to the Vikings on the road is at least as good as the Jaguars win or maybe even the Giants win (as they haven't looked that good lately).  Atlanta is a better team than Carolina, but it was a worse loss for us.  We weren't even competitive.  I think I have to give a slight edge to the Cardinals here. Small Advantage Cardinals.

So what have we learned?

We are who we thought we were.  (I just love that line and couldn't pass up the chance).  Based on performance through Week 8, I'd give a slight edge to the Niners overall, but there's not too much in the difference.  The head to head win and the performance in Indy pushes them into the lead.  With Smith and Crabtree added into the mix you have to like our upside a bit more than ARI as I don't think they have any reinforcements coming off the bench in the near future.

After the jump we'll look at future schedules.

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