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.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Another tough divisional game. The roster is getting ripped. Keep going Saints. Win today please.

Re: Improving Defense
 

if we only give up 88 yards rushing, who cares that 50 was on one play
Let's talk about an IMPORTANT defensive stat: 15.5 Point-per-game-alllowed vs. two division foes.
Oh yeah, 7 of those were actually defensive. Make that 12.0 PPGA

Re: Improving Defense
 

Well defense help win it again. If Offense would have played the whole game like they did the last drive Saints would have had a blow out against the Bucs. Lesson learned now fix it and let's move on.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Defense didn't help win it. The defense did win it.

Re: Improving Defense
 

Getting better one game at a time.

Re: Improving Defense
 

If you had told me in preseason the offense would be this out-of-sync in the first two games, I would've said we'd be 0-2.

Considering the injuries and the kind of offensive talent they've had to play against, allowing 12 PPG is an amazing start.

Also, if you like stats:

10th in yards allowed
6th in points allowed
4th in 1st downs allowed
9th in 3rd down percentage
5th in turnovers forced

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