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The New Orleans Saints opened up their 2015 preseason on the road Thursday night, and the visitors dropped a close one to the Baltimore Ravens, 30-27.

Position Grades for New Orleans

Position Grade
QB B+
RB B
WR/TE C+
OL B
DL C-
LB C
DB B
Special Teams A-
Coaching C

Offense
Drew Brees didn’t make an appearance in this one, as the Saints opted to run with three quarterbacks.
Starter Luke McCown, like the rest of the No. 1 offense, got off to a very slow start. In McCown's defense, the Saints’ offense is rhythm-based, and it’s difficult for an offense to work into any sort of a rhythm when the opposition holds the ball for nine of the game’s first ten minutes.

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Defense
On the other side of the ball, the Saints got off to an awful start, as the Ravens ate over 12 minutes off the clock on two first-quarter scoring marches.
If the New Orleans defensive line was graded solely on the performance of the starters, they would have received a failing grade. Fortunately for coordinator Rob Ryan’s unit, there were some linemen who turned in noteworthy performances in the second, third and fourth quarters.

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Saints Pile Up Penalties

The scoreboard is hardly the most important aspect of a preseason contest. After all, most teams are still in the process of evaluating players for roster spots, and coaches are typically more concerned with effort and execution than they are with winning and statistics, at this point.

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Injuries Stack Up for New Orleans

Preseason injuries can inflict serious damage on a team's chances at success in the regular season. Most squads are elated to emerge from these exhibition contests with a low number of injuries, although a few scrapes are to be expected over the course of four games.
The injury bug was extremely unkind to the Saints Thursday, as numerous key defensive players made trips to the locker room for examination.

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Quote: Sean Payton on Young Quarterbacks

I think the two younger quarterbacks handled themselves well. They got a lot of snaps. They moved the ball, and I felt they made good decisions. The first thing that happens with a young quarterback is it’s just happening quicker. The play clock is quicker, on and off, in and out, up and down. It has to pick up quicker. I thought both of those guys handled it pretty well. They got a lot of snaps between them, and that was the goal coming in.

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Quote: Keenan Lewis on the Saints Defensive Starters Giving Up 80-Yard Drive

We just have to go back to the drawing board and fix it. Make corrections. We’ll be alright. I don’t even remember last year. I’m the wrong guy to ask about last year, but we’re going to fix it. It’s training camp. Things happen in football. We’ve got time, and we’re going to go back to Greenbrier and fix it.

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Saints vs. Ravens: Postgame Grades, Notes and Quotes for New Orleans | Bleacher Report

dizzle88

"We're going to go back to Greenbriar and fix this"

Sums up exactly what's wrong with the team in one short sentence, I bet there are spa's waiting for them when they get back.

hagan714

DL C- ?

DT/NT F-

lost gap assignments all game lone and got absolutely no push. Even the few bright spots could not cover up the poor showing.

DE D+
They got pushed all around in the run game. A few pass rushes saves this unit.

Gotta cut the dead weight and get these guys some reps. If this continues it will mean i will be starting even third string RB against the saints defense this year in FF.

Not sure how much i can blame the LB for not filling the gaps just yet because the DL as a whole stunk up the joint.

Secondary gets a a bit of a pass due to the lack of anything up front in the way of a pass rush. But still more than once I

"We may have lost the game, but you'll be hurting tomorrow." Doug Atkins

SaintsBro

One thing about injuries: not ALL injuries are caused this way, of course, but one factor that can influence them: if you are out of shape, out of conditioning, and not ready for fierce competition and not up to game speed, you can end up hurting yourself pretty easily out there. In general, the defense got pushed around like rag dolls, all night. When people are out-physicalled or out muscled, or when they try and do things but they're not in game shape, going against a team that is faster/stronger and in better game shape, that can be a factor on the "injury bug" as well.


Think about what killed Harry Houdini. Somebody threw a punch at him (which was part of his stage act) but he wasn't ready for it. If someone punches you, and you're not ready for it, it's gonna hurt. It's only preseason, but the Saints REALLY didn't look ready for it.

leilung

"We just have to go back to the drawing board and fix it. Make corrections. We’ll be alright."

The time to make corrections was the off season during retooling. Pre-season is time for execution and tweaking what you have. Apparently, the Defensive game plan sucked.

Is the Big Lebowski on a short leash?

K Major

Penalties are very concerning for me. The defense was slapped in the mouth early. Credit to the Ravens - that ball club is extremely physical and we had no counter punch for them with the 1st team.

In order to succeed at this level, we must consistently beat the man in front of us. Last night I didn't see it. There is time to fix issues, but the sense of urgency must be right now.


Edit: I need to take a closer look at big John. Not sure if he did anything positive last night.

halloween 65

I can't disagree at all. We're soft.

Danno

I really like how RG4 looked. Confident, poised, and looked to have provided a spark.

Its only PS-1 but I'm thinking we go with Brees, Griffin, Grayson.

Also liked what I saw with Snead, Lewis, Robinson, Ingram, Cooks (wow!!), both kickers, Hill, Peat, Unger, Spencer, Edibali, SJB, and several others.

skymike

We're going back to Greenbriar to fix this.

skymike

We're going to clean this up in camp this week



If Bruce Jenner trained in Mississippi, he'd still be a man.