The Problem?
 

It seems to me that this dispute regarding who is blame for our favorite team's losses this season is unresolvable. While this has been expressed by many of the esteemed members here, I think that Brook's bashing (or loving) is not even the central issue. Brooks has not been, well, great; however, he has not been completely awful either. Many teams get by with average (by NFL standards) QBs. We however are not; instead of calling for our QB's head, perhaps we should first ask why we cannot get by?

That said, I think a shift in focus might be interesting (of course, you decide).

Here is an argument: look at this year's stats FOR THE TEAM. Since football is a team sport, no one will object to that (at least not at first).

Here are the team vs opponent stats for the year:
TOTAL FIRST DOWNS 204 203
FIRST DOWNS (Rushing-Passing-By Penalty) 74 - 117 - 13 74 - 113 - 16
THIRD DOWN CONVERSIONS 72/155 51/140
FOURTH DOWN CONVERSIONS 4/14 7/9
TOTAL OFFENSIVE YARDS 3755 3561
OFFENSE (Plays-Average Yards) 699 - 5.4 674 - 5.3
TOTAL RUSHING YARDS 1470 1534
RUSHING (Plays-Average Yards) 309 - 4.8 331 - 4.6
TOTAL PASSING YARDS 2285 2027
PASSING (Comp-Att-Int-Avg) 215 - 365 - 8 - 6.65 171 - 319 - 7 - 6.77
SACKS 24 25
FIELD GOALS 16/20 21/23
TOUCHDOWNS 26 28
(Rushing-Passing-Returns-Defensive) 9 - 15 - 1 - 2 10 - 15 - 0 - 2
TIME OF POSSESSION 30:31 29:29

These are from the team's official web site.

Now we all know that a broad stroke analysis is probably stupid, but here is my challenge: show how particulars make this generalization false - our favorite team's problem is an inability to stop the run. We have Duece (the best back in the NFL right now) and other teams (most of whom have no back comparable to Duece) and have still out rushed us by 100 yards. The only other glaring difference between our team's overall stats and our opponents is our inability to stop 4th down conversions (usually runs). Thus, I argue that the big problem with this team is our run defense.

I look forward to thoughts on this. Cheers.

The Problem?
 

JKool -- First, welcome to the board. Second, I think you bring up some very good points. If you can\'t stop the run then a team isn\'t going to stop too many offenses. You might can stop the pass but teams aren\'t going to pass that much, because they will be busy running the ball down your throat !!

Good Post.......

[Edited on 27/11/2003 by BillyC]

The Problem?
 

Nice observations, JKool. What I think those stats show is that the Saints are an average team in the statistical sense-- not surprising given their average win/loss record. The fans are upset because we thought we had above average talent this year-- average on defense and above average on offense. Our offense hasn\'t lived up to its potential and that\'s what hurts the most IMO.

The Problem?
 

Rich006,

Your observation is well taken, but what do you think of this idea:

If our defense is indeed slightly below average, and our offensive statistics (overall) are slightly better than our opponents (at least our passing stats are) or roughly equal - then, it follows, that our offense is above average?

Agreed, watching the boys this year has been, at times, quite painful.

Cheers.

The Problem?
 

The Saints defense is currently allowing 4.6 yards per attempt on the ground as an average .

Kansas City Chiefs - 4.9 per attempt
Indianapolis Colts - 4.7 per attempt

The Problem?
 

That\'s an interesting observation 08. I wonder what are defense against the run looks like pre and post Grady, just out of curiousity?

(I feel like I\'m chumming the waters here)

Where does our problem lie?

The Problem?
 

Thanks for the observation Saintz08.

Certainly this does give me pause. I assume you are pointing us to the fact that these teams offenses are strong enough to offset their weakness against the run?

Here is a thought. How many rushing attempts have these two other teams faced? You\'ll notice that teams run against us more often than they pass. Yards per rushing attmept can be misleading if there are only a few runs for big gains. That is, the Colts and Chiefs might be strong against the run most times, but allow a few big plays. It remains the case that if BillyC is right, then teams have found our weakness and are exploiting it.

At any rate, you may be on to the weakness in my argument, but I think I\'d have to hear a bit more about what it means that some teams with winning records have fairly high yards per run against stats.

The Problem?
 

It\'s not the occasional long run that makes the Colts and Chiefs look bad against the run. It\'s definitely a weakness of these teams, but they were able to overcome better than we did. Some stats:
Team / Rush attempts against (per game) / Rush yards against (per game) / 20+ yard rushes against

Saints / 30.1 / 139.5 / 9
Chiefs / 27.5 / 133.7 / 8
Colts / 26.6 / 125.5 / 10
The Colts made up for it with the arm of Manning, the Chiefs made up for it with their special teams (and a pretty good offense). Both teams should be worried about it, though. When the Colts lost to the Panthers, they gave up 189 yards rushing. When they lost to the Jaguars, they gave up 174 yards, including Taylor\'s game-winning, 32-yard touchdown run with 1:08 left.
When Kansas City lost against Cincinnatti, they gave up 200 yards rushing. In the game against Denver (which they should have lost and only won because some special teams coach didn\'t believe Dante Hall was THAT dangerous) they gave up 176 yards rushing.
Most of the time these two teams can bail their run defense out, but they are vulnerable if you run the ball well.

The Problem?
 

Ah ha.

Then we have discovered somethings. We have several problems: (1) an inabiliity to stop the run, (2) we do not have the means to consistently erase the deficit (our special teams and offense cannot bail us out in many cases), and (3) our favorite team\'s problem runs slightly deeper than one guy on offense.

Thanks everyone for you thoughts. I have enjoyed this very much.

I am still interested in the Grady Jackson question raised earlier - how has our run defense changed since his departure?

The Problem?
 

My first idea to evaluate the \"Grady-factor\" would be to look at the teams we played twice - once with him, once without him.

Carolina (with Grady): 185 / 4.9 average
Carolina (without Grady): 223 / 5.7
Atlanta (with Grady): 130 / 5.9 (including a 69-yard TD-run which lifts the average considerably)
Atlanta (without Grady): 168 / 6.0

Not surprisingly, our run defense didn\'t get any better without him. I\'m not sure what the point of such an analysis might be.
1) He\'s gone and won\'t be coming back
2) He was the \"run stuffer\" who did his job half-heartedly. None of our DTs could take his place and do what he did, although they might do some other things better. Once again: No surprise the stats look worse
3) Overall the defense might be better off playing without him

[Edited on 27/11/2003 by nocloning]

The Problem?
 

Here is one to chew on :

Top 5 defenses

Dallas
Denver
Buffalo
Tampa
Baltimore

Dallas - Nguyen 57 solo tackles
Denver - Wilson 51 solo tackles
Buffalo - Fletcher 42 solo tackles
Tampa - Brooks 37 solo tackles
Baltimore - 67 solo tackles

Saints - Rodgers 27 solo tackles
Saints - Ruff 26 solo tackles
Saints - Smith 22 solo tackles

What position did Haslett play ?????

The Problem?
 

Excellently done!

Linebacker then is perhaps our biggest problem? We have good evidence that we are not stopping the run, AND we have no linebackers that standout individually. We have first rate ends, so only DT or LB could be the weakness? Of course, the SS is supposed to help out against the run as well (...too bad Sammy is gone) ...

I think we are getting bit closer now. I have not been convinced that our run defense is not as much, or more, to blame for our boys\' losses than any one member of the offense. The stats seem to indicate a serious deficiency at LB. Does anyone else have some more evidence that might help?

Thanks saintz08 and nocloning for some excellent insights. I\'ll have to stew on all this a bit longer.

The Problem?
 

Whitehead is in the top 10 in D lineman tackles in the league
Grant is in the top 20 .

Bellamy has 42 solo tackles
Thomas has 46 solo tackles

Saints - Rodgers 27 solo tackles
Saints - Ruff 26 solo tackles
Saints - Smith 22 solo tackles

The Problem?
 

This is all very interesting, but it doesn\'t take a rocket scientist to figure out where the Saints problems are.

1. Stopping the run has got to to be the # 1 problem, because if you can\'t stop the run, then it really doesn\'t matter if you can stop the pass or not. We can\'t stop the run because we need another run stuffing tackle and a couple of linebackers.

2. Cornerback -- Our cornerbacks can\'t man up on receivers and need help from the safety to keep from getting burned deep. Which is why you see Tebucky playing so far back. This hurts because the safety cannot come up to help support the run as much as a coach would like.

Beyond that I think our defense is in pretty decent shape.

The Problem?
 

Linebacker was one of the defeciencies noted last year prior to the draft. Our linebackers often are effectively blocked. Jackson\'s departure and Hand\'s departure didn\'t help matters. Who among the free agents do you guys reccomend to fill the need for a good run stuffer?

The Problem?
 

Two UFA\'s that come to mind are :

Denver Bronco\'s - Al Wilson with 51 solo tackles
San Francisco\'s - Julian Peterson with 43 solo tackles

Both are putting up some solid numbers this year .

The Problem?
 

AL WILSON

But Denver would be stupid to let him walk.

The Problem?
 

Everyone is right to focus on the weakness of the Saints abilities to stop the run. We rank very near last in the league in rushing defense giving up 140 yds per game. This is absolutely one of the teams biggest downfalls.

There are two other areas that the Saints are setting the league pace in that are also causing great problems for this team, turnovers and penalties.

The Saints have one of the worst turnover margins in the league at -10 and lead the league in fumbles at 15. Turnovers are one of the worst killers in the league we all know how fast the odds of winning slide with each turnover in a game.

The Saints are one of the most penalized teams in the league as well and even more frustrating they lead with 41 Pre-snap infractions for false start, illegal motion, delay of game or defensive offsides. It\'s hard enough to get past an NFL defense as is, no need to spot them extra yards for a first consistently.

A heavily penalized team that turns the ball over and can\'t stop the run, with that formula it is a wonder we have won as many games as we have this year. The blame for such play is squarely on the coaches heads. A better prepared more focused team, A better coached team, one without as many mistakes and we would be solidly in the playoff hunt not on the fringe.