CharityMike

The Saints are dealing with several injuries in their secondary at the moment, which makes it hard to find the right players to slow down opposing passing games.

One way to alleviate the pressure on the defensive backfield is to generate a strong enough pass rush that quarterbacks don’t have time to find holes to exploit, but the Saints weren’t able to get enough of one going to satisfy coach Sean Payton in their 31-19 Week One loss to the Cardinals.

Payton said the pressure “wasn’t good enough” and cited Arizona’s first touchdown, which came when Carson Palmer threw to John Brown after camping out in the pocket far too long.

“We had some hurries and some pressures, but, obviously, when a quarterback can have that kind of time, the very first touchdown, the quarterback, Carson Palmer, flushes to the right, and if you count and you watch, and you watch, and you watch, that wasn’t like five Mississippi, that was like nine,” Payton said, via the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “So that’s hard to play back-end defense if we can’t get to that player quicker and not give him that type of time.”

It wasn’t hard to see pass rush being an area of concern when the Saints decided to release Junior Galette this summer and the team is going to need second-round pick Hau’oli Kikaha to make a quick transition to the NFL after recording 19 sacks in his final collegiate season.
Sean Payton: Pass rush “wasn’t good enough” last week | ProFootballTalk

So how we gonna fix this? Fire Johnson and Vitt would be a start for me.

saintsfan1976

Why? They don't play.

Rugby Saint II

DT and WR will be our Achilles heel from the looks of things now.

blackangold

Blitz more.

Can't tell you how pissed I was watching 3 rushers at times. That's crazy, we should be sending at a minimum 4 and should be sending 5 most of the time. Simplify the DBs responsibility by playing MAN and blitz the QB. We are way too conservative on play calling from the offense and defense. Too many people are afraid to make mistakes instead of just playing aggressive football; man Greg Williams would have a field day with all the talent we have now...

Seer1

In other news, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton legally changes his name to Sean Obvious...

Joker

This maybe a little off topic but does anyone in this group think Sean Payton should be fired?

RaginCajun83

|Mitch|

Not I; And I may be in the minority, but I thought the pass rush was adequate... Kikaha and Jordan almost got to Palmer on numerous occasions... To the extent that Kikaha was being bear hugged quite frequently, which the refs surprisingly failed to find the flags...

blackangold

Almost is such a misleading word...

lumm0x

I think this whole statement is misleading. I thought Jordan and Kikaha had very good games generating pressure. I would agree if he said we got no pressure or performance from the interior of our line. We got no push up the gut but from the edge we were pushing the pocket.

And no Payton should not be fired. If he ever leaves it will 100% be during an offseason. Anything else would be ridiculous.