Jack Vegas

I will do the 1st quarter tonight, 2nd quarter tomorrow. I may do the second half later in the week. Please note, I have no special equipment or game film, and my football "expertise" comes only from the HS and college levels (played mostly safety and a little corner). So my word isn't gospel or anything.

First Quarter

Kickoff Cadet receives, dances a little too much but he had no blocks anywhere. Bad way to start, Saints on their own 15.

1st and 10, 14:54 Power-I, handoff to Ingram. Armstead stuffs the Rams DE, Austin Johnson comes up with a big nasty block at the line to spring Ingram for 6 yards. Ingram is quick, decisive and finishes the run hard.

2nd and 4, 14:18 Slant to Graham who is lined up wide against a corner. He out-physicals the guy and beats him inside, then falls forward for the first down. We've seen Colston run this play about a million times, easy money and vintage Saints.

1st and 10, 13:52 Rollout right but the outside WR is covered. McCown drops it down to Colston for a 3 yard gain, which is better than nothing.

2nd and 7, 13:32 Two TE formation stacked to the left side. Something tells me we're going to see a lot of that this season. Armstead, Kelemete and Watson turn inside, Graham blocks outside. They wall off a huge hole and Ingram hits it full speed. Nails the little DB with a nasty stiff arm, finishes tough for a 19 yard gain. Impressive display of speed and power here by #22.

1st and 10, 13:11 I am more impressed by this Ingram run than the previous two. The left side of the line gets blown up. Ingram is met at the line. Through most of his career to this point, this is the kind of play where Ingram takes a zero gain or loss, and then people on message boards argue about whether its his fault for not breaking tackles or the o-lines fault for not blocking. No need to argue this time, Ingram shakes the shoulder tackle, makes a nice inside cut and picks up a nice 6 yards. Very encouraging sign.

2nd and 4, 12:33 Cadet off tackle with no lead blocker. Graham whiffs on his man who cuts into the backfield and ragdolls Cadet down for a 6 yard loss. Cadet never had a chance.

3rd and 10, 11:52 This was supposed to be a screen to Cooks, but Chris Long, who will surely be a first-ballot inductee in the Saints Haters Hall of Fame, backs up off the line and gets his hands in the air. If Long played the Saints every week he'd be known as the greatest professional athlete in history. He tips it to himself for the interception. Tough to say McCown is really at fault too much for this one, although I'd like to believe if it had been Brees he would've guessed what Long was up to and killed out to a different play. Too bad because this was really a nice drive up until the pick.

Rams ball.

1st and 10, 11:45 I-formation, big hole for the Rams RB as Hicks and Jordan both get washed out of the play laterally. Haralson whiffs on a tackle that could've made it a 2-3 yard gain, but it ends up being a 7 yard gain instead. Everyone on the D looked bad here.

2nd and 3, 11:15Busted play, running back went the wrong way. Rams QB Hill is smart and treats it like a naked bootleg. Runs 6 yards to the empty side of the field for a 1st down. Frustrating but really not much the defense could've done about it.

1st and 10, 10:38 This was all Marcus Ball. He has this play totally figured out pre-snap and is trying to get somebody in the secondary to come up. Nobody does, but Ball comes out of his blitz and turns the play inside where Hicks makes the tackle for a 3-yard gain. However, Ball was held on the play and the ref sees that. Really nice bit of in-the-box play by a safety. Roman Harper would be proud.

1st and 20, 10:15 Another power run. Hicks gets beaten initially but slides off and recovers to catch the running back as he goes by. Just enough to slow him down for Lofton who cleans it up for a 4-yard gain.

2nd and 16, 9:35 This one hurt bad. Seam route to Jared Cook, the same play Graham runs all the time. Hawthorne actually has good coverage until Cook cuts to the middle of the field and loses him. Hill hits him with a perfect throw right over the top of Hawthorne but just underneath the safties. Tough play. Cook is one of those freak TEs. IMO if this were regular season we'd probably use Vacarro to cover him.

1st and 10, 8:58 Zone run, Keenan Lewis comes up quick and funnels the RB back toward the line where Lofton nails him for a 1-yard gain. Very instinctive, aggressive play by #28 and that's why we love him.

2nd and 9, 8:20 Rams #46 slips out into the flat, catches and runs for an easy TD. It was a little disguised as he originally looked like he was going to block. Without knowing for sure, my guess is Hawthorne owns the screw-up here. But there was practically nobody else on the TV screen as this guy just waltzed into the end zone. That is Haslett-level depressing defense. Rams lead 7-0.

Kickoff Touchback

1st and 10, 8:10 Gregg Williams has been blitzing almost every play (hey there's a shock) so SP calls some plays to slow him down. This was a designed flare to Watson. I am pretty sure they didn't expect the Rams defense to be on top of McCown that soon, but McCown kept his composure, lofted the little pass and Watson catch-and-runs for a 1st down. Watson is surprisingly quick for an old guy. Underrated aspect of the offense.

1st and 10, 7:50 Another two TE set, at least the 4th time we've seen it so far. We have our first Khiry Robinson appearance. He spins off a tackler behind the line of scrimmage and makes two yards out of it. Nice work by Khiry just to get anything, that easily could've been a negative play.

2nd and 8, 7:23 More Khiry Robinson, this time a delay draw. The o-line destroys everything, except for one guy. But Austin Johnson gets him good. Khiry runs through the hole, breaks a waist tackle at the second level and pummels a little DB. BOOM. Nice way to finish off a pretty 14-yard run.

1st and 10, 6:54 GW keeps blitzing, SP keeps fouling him up with quick passes and screens. This screen goes to #39. Cadet patiently picks his way through the traffic, Pierre Thomas-style, then gets in behind Lelito who is just mashing people down the field. Unfortunately, Lelito is the only one who felt like blocking downfield on this play or it could've been a lot more. Still ends up as another 14-yard gain and a first down.

1st and 10, 6:14 It's that 7-yard-out that Brees and Colston have hooked up on about 80 fligibitty-billion times. McCown is not Brees and the pass sails too high, but it doesn't matter because Colston trips over the DBs feet anyway.

2nd and 10, 6:09 Quick hitch pattern to Graham, who catches the ball over the middle, makes a move and gets 6 yards. It's not going to make anybody stand up and get crunk, but it keeps the offense on schedule.

3rd and 4, 5:45 Another something we've seen a bajillion times, Colston settles down in a soft spot in the Rams zone D for an easy 5 yards and a first down. We are not even testing the Rams DB's out deep, but if they're going to just give you 5-6 free yards every time you might as well take it.

1st and 10, 5:06 Play action now, probably intended to take a shot, but by the time McCown turns around there are Rams all over his case. He escapes the pocket, runs through a leg tackle and throws it away. Nice job here, he didn't take a sack and he didn't throw a pick.

2nd and 10, 4:57 More two TE fun, there's just a little hole there but Khiry powers through it and lowers his head for a nice gain.

3rd and 5, 4:17 McCown makes a poor choice here, IMO. His outside receiver is covered so he throws to Toon short. Toon has a DB all up in his business and basically has no chance to make anything out of it, even though he tried. The problem I have here is that McCown seemed to forget the left side of the field even existed. If he had checked his 3rd read, he would've seen Graham wide open on a crossing pattern on the other side of the field. Or he could've tried to look off the safety before throwing to Toon. But I guess that's why he is Luke McCown and not Drew Brees.

4th and 3, 3:30 37-yard field goal from Shayne Graham, straight on. 7-3 Rams

Kickoff Ramon Humber is a menace on special teams and makes the stop behind the 20.

1st and 10, 3:21 Patrick Robinson and Rams' Brian Quick get physical with each other, 20-yard go pattern to the sideline. Could've been pass interference on either player, refs let them play.

2nd and 10, 3:16 More aggressive corner play here. P-Rob jumps the slant route on his side, Keenan bails to the deep half and Corey White mugs his receiver at the line, disrupting the whole play. About this time, the Rams 1st round draft pick Greg Robinson decided he didn't feel like blocking anybody on this play. Rams QB takes one look at the right side of the field and then gets a faceful of Brodrick Bunkley. Sack and 8-yard loss.

3rd and 18, 2:40 Rams run the ball on 3rd and forever, get about 12 yards or so before Rafael Bush comes up and makes the play.

4th and 7, 2:00 Punt. Cooks is deep, but the punter puts it into the corner. At first it looks like Cooks might have a little room on the sideline, but one of his own guys gets in the way (Sweeting or Wade, couldn't tell which).

1st and 10, 1:41 Future Saints legend Ryan Griffin makes his first appearance of 2014. Everyone oohs and ahhhs, giddy with the hope that we might finally see a pass play in this game that goes more than 3 yards in the air. Unfortunately the second-string offensive line is also in the game, and they don't do so well at first. Ingram takes a handoff and has 3 Rams players in his grill immediately. 4 yard loss.

2nd and 14, 1:14 I can't read my writing here. It looks like "Griffin oyster at Friday, flabby hamster stops broom." Meh. Flabby hamster apparently got 5 yards though.

3rd and 9, 0:25 Remember what I said about the second-string O-line. Griffin scrambles for his life. Toon comes back down the sideline trying to bail him out, which is exactly what he's supposed to do. But Griffin is on the run and being harrassed and the ball lands just short as Toon dives for it. Still I like that Griffin kept his composure here. He even had to run through a tackle to avoid the sack. And he didn't do anything stupid. It's a good sign. Even better, there was a holding penalty at the end of the play for an automatic first down. Yay.

1st and 10, 0:14 Quick slant to Toon for a 6-yard-gain. Nice little play, again it won't make any highlight reels but it keeps the offense on schedule and that's typical Saints football.

End first quarter, I'll do the second quarter tomorrow.

EDIT*** Went back and watched the "flabby hamster" play at 1:14 again. Nick Toon runs a quick 5 yard hitch and got hammered by two Rams defenders. As he goes to the ground somebody strips the ball from him and it looked like it could have been a fumble, except I believe the ref had already blown the play dead on forward progress.

As I said I will do the second quarter sometime Sunday.

hagan714

nice write up

xan

What round did we draft Flabby Hamster?

halloween 65

I liked the facial Bunkley give the most. Good and funny write up!!

Danno

Your write-up reminded me of another unsung player, FB Austin Johnson.

He graded out the 5th best player on the entire offense. Well done.

halloween 65

Where do you go to see how the players grade out?

Utah_Saint

I think Danno is referring to PFF.

ProfootballFocus has gradings for all the players in any particular game and those add up to the seasonal gradings.

They're in the premium stats section though so you have to subscribe to the site to see them.

I doubt that PFF is the only place grading out players though. I'll bet there are other sites.

Danno

Here's a recap...

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jnormand

I think he was an undrafted free agent. Good ball player and a hell of a cook.

Marlboro Man

Enjoyed the write up. Flabby Hampster=BEAST!! lol.