Danno

Atlanta Falcons 45, New Orleans Saints 32

Here are the top-graded players and biggest takeaways from Falcons’ 45-32 win over the Saints on Monday Night Football:

New Orleans Saints

Quarterback grade: Drew Brees 67.9

Brees clutch with heat on, but made questionable decisions with no pressure

Monday night’s performance was a microcosm of what we’ve come to expect from the Saints’ quarterback over the past few years. At times he made dazzling, highly-difficult throws into tight windows, racking up 172 yards on six-of-nine targets 20+ yards downfield. Interjected between those were the head-scratchers— no pressure, no blitz, yet Brees would try to fit a ball into a non-existent window for seemingly no reason. He only had one interception in the box score, but two others went through the hands of Atlanta defenders.

Top offensive grades:

RT Zach Strief, 79.6

WR Brandon Coleman, 78.9

RB Mark Ingram, 77.8

LG Tim Lelito, 76.7

TE Coby Fleener, 76.7

The good, the bad, and the ugly: Ingram, drops, and Peat

Let’s start with the good, and it was unequivocally the ground game for New Orleans. If the defense hadn’t dug them a cavern to crawl out of, Mark Ingram could have easily run for 150 yards. Instead, he has to settle for 79 yards and four broken tackles on 16 carries.

The bad came from the drops by the Saints’ playmakers. Michael Thomas, Brandon Coleman, and Coby Fleener all set or tied records for targets in a New Orleans uniform, but all dropped at least one pass on the day.

And finally, the ugly is Andrus Peat’s chances of staying at tackle long-term. In All or Nothing, Dwight Freeney talked about setting a tackle up with the speed rush all game, and then hitting the spin move for critical situations. Well, there was no need to even set Peat up Monday night, as Freeney went to the spin repeatedly with predictable results. In the end, the second-year offensive lineman allowed a sack, a hit, and three hurries.

Top defensive grades:

CB Ken Crawley, 83.9

CB Sterling Moore, 78.6

DE Kasim Edebali, 75.4

CB B.W. Webb, 73.9

DT Nick Fairley, 72.0

Drubbing leaves little reason for excitement

There weren’t many bright spots on defense for the Saints. Out of their 11 base-defense starters, eight earned below-average grades in run defense. Craig Robinson, who led the team with four defensive stops, was the only player to finish with an above-average grade against the run. In the passing game, both Sterling Moore and Ken Crawley did perform pretty well. Crawley was targeted a game-high nine times and allowed just three catches for 34 yards with a pass defense.

Most impressively, he held Julio Jones to just one 16-yard catch on five targets. Moore allowed just one catch for 6 yards, and on the one time he was targeted while covering Jones, he made a nice play to break up the pass.

The Saints still need to generate more pass-rushing production; seven different players had at least one pressure, but it wasn’t nearly often enough for Matt Ryan’s 35 dropbacks. Only Kasim Edebali came away with an above-average pass-rushing grade; he accounted for nearly one-third of the defense’s total pressures, with four hurries on just 14 pass rushes.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-atl-no-grades/

ChrisXVI

I like a lot of what I've seen from Ken Crawley. He seems to be improving every week. At the moment though he kind of reminds me of Corey White in the sense that there's always that one bad play at the worst time. But for only being three games into his NFL career, Crawley is looking very promising.

jeanpierre

He's only played in three games - professionally. He's a rookie that's gonna get better...

K Major

For what it's worth ... Lutz sure does have a strong leg. That 57 yarder looked good from about 65 yards.

dizzle88

It really did, it was perfectly on point in terms of accuracy too.

Hopefully this is the confidence builder that will allow Lutz to be automatic.

frydaddy

Yep. The 61 yard attempt had enough on it for another couple of yards I thought. He definitely has a strong leg.

Utah_Saint

If I remember correctly, Breaux struggled a little in his first few games after being thrown into the fire too.

blackangold

This organization doesn't know how to build defense.

They have spent too much time and money on adding DBs (who are mostly hurt or suck--Byrd). We need to spend some big time money on the D-line and LBs this offseason. Look at teams like Carolina, a bunch of no-names in the secondary but a very good front 7. That is how you build defense. Payton and Loomis are too caught up in "skilled" positions and don't pay enough attention and money for the "trench" players that really matter.

Crusader

Thanks for posting Danno!

I agree on Crawley, he is raw but showing flashes.

jonnyrotten

I will jump on the Crawley bandwagon. Kid has gone against top notch receivers. Kudos to him for job well done thus far.