Improving Defense
 

I know defense looked pretty good against the Falcons, but according to ESPN "New Orleans allowed a league-worst 6.3 yards per carry in Week 1 after ranking last in that category last season at 5.2".

Dont get me wrong i was more than happy with our Defense and thought they looked decent against the run, but they have to stop giving up the big run plays. I know that the long runs make the yards per carry look a lot worse than they really are. Hopefully we can better out ranking by stopping Tampa's run game this week.

Saints will look good at 2-0 overall and in the division after a disappointing start in 2012.

Re: Improving Defense
 

It's totally because of the 50 yards from that one long run by Jackson. They only gave up 88 yards rushing all day, including the 50 yarder. And this was against a good team that runs the ball a lot, and was a score or a defensive stand away from being in the NFC Championship game last year.

The second worst defense on that list from week was the Redksins, because the Eagles ran 41 times for 263 yards in that crazy game. The third was the Seahawks against Camrolina, who were 26 for 134 but Camrolina only scored 7 points all day. The next was the Lions against the Vikings with AP's 3 touchdowns.

In short, it's week 1,opening week, a lot of teams had "bad" defensive numbers because of the matchups in week 1... the league tried to make all the games evenly matched, or "important" so teams were matched against teams that were either rivalries, equal strength to each other, or rematches of good games from last year. A lot of teams that were in the playoffs last year had bad defensive rushing numbers in week one, because of who they were playing.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Yep, take away that 50 yarder and ypc go down significantly. Actually, Harper had a chance to make a play in the backfield on that play, but was too zoned in on the QB. My point is overall, we did damn good against the run with a back that normally puts up 120-150 yards against us......all while having to deal with the clowns passing game.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Thats why I dont put much stock into stats. They dont tell the whole story. Besides that one run we pretty much shut a pro bowl back down completely. Pretty good as far as Im concerned. Plus week one stats really dont mean **** when comparing teams to the rest of the league.

Re: Improving Defense
 

two words "Steven Jackson" sub out that one 50 yard run and we did pretty good. the key was Jackson only had one big run. that was huge.

Re: Improving Defense
 

We get to see if J.Jenkins can plug the middle and see if Richardson can take advantage of it also. This week the big boys are up front. Good playing time!!

Re: Improving Defense
 

Well we need to stop the run today & make Josh "Sleepy" Freeman beat us.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Pah! It is ONE week of "stats"

Re: Improving Defense
 

Our defense IS improved and will probably get better each and every game.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Lets see how they look today.