RailBoss

It may be my imagination but teams that come out aggressive and physical seem to blast our players into a tailspin. We seem to have the most problems with teams like the Hawks and 49ers who set the tone early and our guys start making mistakes. The Cowboys game followed that same pattern they were hyped out of their skulls Sunday night and dominated both sides of the ball. The saints were on their heels the entire game and
even players who are normally consistent got owned.

hagan714

the saints have always had trouble with physical teams under SP. Both om offense and defense. we do not draft or sign FA to build a smash mouth team. kill them with speed and finesse seems to be our motto.

halloween 65

I would love a smash mouth O., and a D that inflicts pain. I'm all for it, have been but we seem to get players that are soft or become soft, especially when they get PAID!!

|Mitch|

A smash mouth offense will have to wait until we get a new coach... Payton was a QB and loves the finesse, vertical, big play offense and that's what he has built...

SloMotion

I'm not discounting that theory (or following stuff closely as in previous seasons), but pretty much everybody has problems with the Seahawks & 49er's, though not SFran so much this season. Those teams were/are brutal, . It is a good point about the Dallas game though ... they haven't exactly been a dominant team as of late and I can see how raising their level of physicality in that game was a factor.

darstep

We have seldom owned the line of scrimmage; either side of the ball.
I've never liked that. Our air superiority has carried us during recent success.
One of the side affects of that is NOT being able to flip the switch on 3rd and short.
Any team that can run the football will give us trouble.
Our defense becomes sluggish and even slower to the ball as games unfolds.
When a team runs for a buck-fifty, their QB doesn't have to be stellar, just efficient.
Our defense just has to man up! Make some things happen at the basics.
Own your spot and your man. Something has to change.
I would accept either/or. Snuff the run with no sacks OR give QB's no time at all.
Just pick one...start somewhere and build on that.
Right now we are no where and can't stop anything. Our offense needs some help.
My preference would be to stop the run and control the line of scrimmage.
When you get stood up on a football field, you become useless.
Week in and week out we are being man-handled.
I know these guys have pride. I'm waiting for it to kick-in.

**SaintSince67**

nutria

From the Who Dat Social Club site posted after the embarrassing loss to Seattle where Marshawn went beast mode on the Saints, very true still today:

I ask myself this, and the honest impression I get is: Sean Payton’s act is wearing thin. In 2009, it was revolutionary. In 2011, it was running at peak efficiency. In 2013, everyone knows what’s coming. Jon Gruden, who knows Payton as well as anybody, predicted a Pierre Thomas screen pass moments before it actually happened. The Seahawks defense also predicted it, and snuffed it out in a hurry. Here’s the thing: I knew it was coming, too. So, I think, did half of America. It works well against lesser teams. Against potential champions? Not so much.

And if that’s the case, what we witnessed was a systemic failure. No amount of adjusting would have helped. Payton’s offense is predicated upon creating mismatches and taking advantage of them, or creating confusion by flooding zones with too many receivers. It’s a classic strategy: even when outnumbered, if you can create a local superiority of numbers you can break through the enemy’s lines and roll up his flank. It’s what the Wehrmacht used over and over again in order to prolong the inevitable, and it works in football, too.

What we saw in 2009 was von Rundstedt vs. Budenny, 1941. What we saw this weekend was Zhukov vs. Heinrici, 1945.

VegasSaint9

That was an awesome analogy.

VegasSaint9

Yeah, and about the screens, the run game against Carolina, and Seattle with short passes would get us down the field, but as soon as we got to about their 20-40 yd line, he would throw a screen for a loss then Drew would be forced to a 2nd or 3rd and long. I remember almost being able to call the plays based on the personnel on the field. Against Seattle we were approaching the red zone, and SP called not 1 screen pass, but two! Back to back. I thought to myself theres no way hes going to call 2 in a row, yet he did it anyway. (Seattle playoff game)

captainshawn

Wow, I never realized how much we suck...