LongTimeFan

I love this thread for the most part, good points made.
I love watching our defense play almost as much as our offense, they will continue to improve IMO.

If I'm correct the Saints defense hasn't allowed any team in the last 7 weeks to run over 100 yards, am I correct on this?

blacksaint

You are correct sir. They held the last 7 opponents to under 100 yards: 1) Tampa Bay 87, 2) Tennessee 98, 3) Carolina 88, 4) Seattle 92, 5) Atlanta 75, 6) San Francisco 83, 7) Jacksonville 88.

SapperSaint

I still worry about our CB's. Other than that, I feel the same as LTF.

Euphoria

I think teams realize to beat us they will have to score points on us. So the easy way to do that is attack out pass defense early (like at the start of the game). You put the pressure on our offense and take us out of the run game so we'd have to score a lot to keep up. What has changed since Deuce has been out is that we have had to come out and open up the offense from the get go. So matching the intensity from the start of the game is helping out bigtime. Holding the opponets rushing game to 100 yards is a bit misleading because they are more of a passing attack deployed against us. IF the teams come out running against us the stats would be very different.

I just don't think they are either planning to there potentcial or maybe they aren't as good as a lot of people like to think. They haven't been able to rush the passer and they give up to many big plays. Go by the dollar amout these goobers are making and ask yourself are we getting enough bang for our bucks??? I don't think so.

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WhoDat205

You've been talking about the big money these guys are getting. Whose getting paid relatively big bucks outside of Grant? Also, what did you see Grant not doing this year that he has done in previous years?

Budsdrinker

Well the only stat I'm really interested in is W's but for argument sake none of these 7 teams abandon the run against the Saints. Here they are in order beginning with Tampa.
Attempts Yards
32-87, 34-98, 28-88, 21-92, 24-75, 21-83 and 23-88. It would be one thing if they only attempted to run 10 times but this is a min. of 21 attempts. No matter how you slice it that's good Defense. Other than Brady, Manning and Thank God we have Bree's there isn't many QB's that can beat you when 1 dimentional.

WhoDat205

Rank_______Att.s_ Yds
1 Tennessee 153 528
2 Minnesota 199 563
3 Baltimore 212 593
4 Pittsburgh 157 608
5 Dallas 186 675
6 Philadelphia 204 743
7 Green Bay 202 750
8 Washington 200 760
9 New Orleans 212 775
10 NY Giants 193 808

This is the top ten rush Ds in terms of yards. Us and B'more have been run at the most with 212 attempts. I thought that was interesting.

I won't argue that teams will want to exploit the pass against the saints, but at least part of that is the rush D.

"defence's personal to allwats double team or watch is over, that one reason why the saints or not any good." - Vador101

Euphoria

Smith is bringing in 500,000 call that what you want... but he's suppose to be slatted for a big raise but based on what??? I haven't seen Grant do anything more or less the past few years. I just don't see him living up to the over 2 million he's getting this year.

But I am not trying to call out players on the D line. I think they are playing to there potencial, meaning maybe we need to upgrade there and look the one making the bank and see if he isn't living up to 2 million a year worth of Defense.

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papz

Agreed... both Grant and Smith have tapped out to their potential.

Next draft...

Draft 3 offensive lineman and 4 DL's. I think that might fix our problem. Actually it won't... we don't have that many high round draft picks. We should explore some trades this coming offseason. Maybe, just maybe, we can get a 3rd rounder for Smith and a 4th for Grant. I know it's still not high enough... but it's better than keeping these overpaid scrubs on our team.

Euphoria

Look guys you can pull up all the run defense stats ya want to but the fact of the matter is teams are beating us by going to the air. If they came out and ran against us and our run D was according to the stats I'd say good job but its not the case. Teams open up against us because we can't put pressure on the QB. You can get stats to say anything you want them to say.

You have to look at the BIG PICTURE. Saints D is ranked 21st how do the Saints go from 9th in rushing D to 21st overall ranked??? because teams scrap the run and pass on us and passing D we are HORRIBLE 27th ranked.

Stats are misleading unless you look at the big picture and study the games. We need an upgrade on the D line. We need someone on the line that needs to be doubled teamed to free up someone to penatrate and blitz.

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