with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

we have five starters out on defense going up against the titans this week, personally i think we will win and play great, what does everyone else think about how the defense will play without 5 of our starters? do you think we will win? give me your opinion.

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

Defensive Line -- Charles Grant - Willie Whitehead - Grady Jackson -- Kenny Smith -- Henry Ford. ---- I see no drop off and maybe even an improvement with Kenny Smith in for Johnathan Sullivan. Whitehead dominated last week and if he can this week I think this defense is going to be a force. Grady looks like he is serious this year.

Defensive Line is fine IMO -- I THINK they will get consistant pressure on McNabb.

Linebackers -- I keep reading all these postive things on Roger Knight but I have no idea about him. Overall I feel better about our linebackers than I did last year.

Secondary -- Amazing how much better a pass rush can make the secondary look. The Titans don\'t really have a deep threat and I think our secondary will be fine. We need to get to McNair though.


Offense -- We\'ve got to get away from running on 1st and 2 down everytime. We need to set up the run with the pass.

I think we are capiable of blowing the Titans out. I don\'t think they can put up over 21 points. I predict -- Saints 28 Titans -- 21

[Edited on 19/9/2003 by BillyCarpenter1]

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

i think you are right, Billy, we always run on first down, and then on 2nd down as well, the other teams defense will read that every time, another thing i think the offense needs to work on is, passing to more than just one receiver, last week, although we won, most of the balls were thrown to Joe Horn, i think we need to spread the ball around the field, if we do that, we will confuse their defense, and they won\'t be able to defend the pass, that\'s when we start coming with the run

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

While that would be great, I hope they pressure McNair as well.

Just kidding.

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

To me, the struggles the offense had last week, in the first half, was a good thing. Hopefully it showed McCarthy that he needs to spread the field more and take advantage of the playmakers we have on offense. Why pound Deuce up the middle? I see no real advatage of doing this.

If the passing game get\'s going early Deuce should be much more effective. If Brooks is hot this game could be over with quick !!

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

LummOX -- LOL

What do you think about this match-up LummOx. I\'d really like to hear your thoughts??

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

and if the passing game gets going, then we can get the running game going, and if they both go well, the Playaction pass will be available

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

i think the saints will win this game . The only drop off i see will be fred thomas , but i think if we can get a decent pass rush and our offense plays like they did in the 2nd half on the game last week i see no reason why we can\'t win by 10 points

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

Jared21, if you remember correctly, Thomas was fighting for a starting spot on the roster in training camp, i think he will play fine, and also, we have a great run defense, so if we can rush Mcnair, stop the run, and stop the pass when mcnair does get one out there, we should be able to blow the titans out.

with 5 starters out, how will our defense hold up?
 

Oddly enough, this is a game where I\'m not too worried about us defensively. Even with the injuries, I don\'t think there could be a better match-up for our defense than the Titans in the condition they\'re in. I worry about us offensively, and I\'ll explain why.

Defensively, I think that the Titans O-line is made to look better by McNair\'s ability to escape the rush and get to the lanes he needs. They don\'t run the ball particularily well anymore unless McNair scambles alot to add to the production. Their recievers don\'t really scare me and I don\'t think Fred Thomas is a liability in the corner. He\'s fiesty and will fight for the ball. Like the article you posted stated, Tebucky will be around to double cover Mason and after that there\'s not much. Erron Kinney is not one of the faster TE\'s in the league and can be easily kept up with. They may just need him to hang around to block if our D-Line plays like last week. I think the key is containing McNair\'s roll outs to open lanes and making him throw from the pocket. I\'m not worried that the Titans will bull as with the rush. McNair has to beat us for them to be successful. I\'d like to see alot of early heat at the QB.

On offense is where I see mismatches just because of the Titans DE\'s. Carter and Kearse could be trouble for Riley and Gandy. Likewise, we made need alot of double teams or chip blocks to help these two out. God help these guys if they send Bulluck on the blitz alot. Where the Titans are weak is in the middle of the DL and at MLB. Calmus is hurting and they have no depth for rotation in the middle of the line. They\'ve even talked of Carter moving to DT so that says a bit. We will have to run Deuce up the gut to keep them honest. We should be able to create mismatches in 3 WR sets, like we pretty much do against anyone. They have an athletic secondary that will be made look better if we struggle holding back their pass rush. They run the 46 so they aggressively play their safeties near the line to hold the rush. We will always have a mismatch on the outside and we\'ll have to exploit it to back the safeties up and then we can let Deuce run wild. My take offensively is we need to pass early in the game. Slow them from blitzing their LBers and force them into doubling us up on the outside. Come the end of the game, 50/50 run/pass, but 25/75 in the first half and run late.