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New Orleans – Three Performances of Note

Sloppy Early Defense Leaves Saints on the Back Foot

The Saints’ defense got off to a slow start letting up 16 yards on three carries to open the game including an all too easy 8-yard conversion on third-and-two for Zac Stacy on the opening drive. Momentarily the Saints recovered with a pass defense by Keenan Lewis on the next third down getting the Saints off the field before the Rams crossed midfield. However, after an interception, aided by a hit from Robert Quinn, the ghosts of Saints’ defense past appeared like an unwelcome apparition to gift-wrap the Rams a go-ahead touchdown. Credit must go to Cory Harkey for riding the tackles up the sideline for the score but allowing a dumpoff to a fullback behind the line of scrimmage to go for six is embarrassing enough let alone when it features the kind of misses up the sideline that Malcolm Jenkins and Corey White put in. Down 24-3 at the half, the Saints’ defense was never in a position to attack and they couldn’t make the plays to stand tall and dominate the St. Louis ground game even when they knew it was coming. Up front, Akiem Hicks and Cameron Jordan (-1.5 run defense each) both had one of their worst games of the season and none of the linebackers earned a positive grade in run defense. A performance to forget for a New Orleans defense that needs to rebound quickly ahead of another physical challenge in Carolina next weekend.

Rough Outing on the Edge

When you bench your left tackle you can be fairly sure your tackles are having a tough outing and so it proved for the Saints’ offensive line yesterday. On the inside, Brian De La Puente and Jahri Evans had few troubles but the other three linemen who played all had to deal with Chris Long or, in particular, Robert Quinn in one way or another and were found wanting. Before he was benched (save for one goal-line series) Charles Brown surrendered two sacks and two hits to Quinn while the Saints’ other tackles (Zach Strief and Bryce Harris) surrendered 15 pressures (one sack, one hit, 13 hurries) between them. On the inside, Ben Grubbs had to deal with Quinn on occasion when he came inside either one-on-one off of a stunt or when trying, but not always succeeding, to help out Strief or Brown to his outside. Though only pressured on 19/61 dropbacks yesterday, the severity of the pressure when it got to Brees and the turnovers it produced made the impact greater and probably made it feel like it was happening more often than one in three dropbacks.

Steady Recovery But No Spark

It says something about how the Saints rack up their passing yards that Drew Brees was able to put up 393 yards through the air yesterday without ever really looking like he was going to bring his team back into contention. The Saints got their gains through the air with Marques Colston (+1.5 receiving) and Lance Moore (+1.5 receiving) having solid outings outside while the Saints’ trio of backs were also efficient as receivers from a variety of alignments. But that’s all they were, efficient, there was no spark or threat of the big play to bring them back into the game. Brees only put four of his 53 targets (three throw aways) more than 20 yards down the field with only one of those completed on a coverage bust that left Moore wide open late on. The Rams’ defense got their hands to six passes (two INTs, four pass defenses) with perhaps Janoris Jenkins’ consecutive pass defenses against Jimmy Graham and Marques Colston late in the fourth quarter highlighting how the Saints were made to go the long way around. Ordinarily, the Saints would expect to score with ease on passes to either of their big targets in the end zone but Jenkins and the Rams were having none of it.

Profootball Focus

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Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

All little common sense goes a long way.