Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

By Amos Morale III amorale@nola.com,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune


Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford posted some career numbers against the New Orleans Saints Monday night and was sacked just once. While Saints players and coaches said the defensive showing was "lackluster," linebacker A.J. Klein offered his take on why the defensive front was unable to consistently get to Bradford.

"We have to be able to cover long enough to get more pressure on the quarterback," Klein said Tuesday afternoon. "We didn't do a good enough job on our pressures when we did blitz and obviously our man-to-man coverage and some situations that we gave up the edge and gave up some runs.

"We just have to better overall. There's really no if, ands, buts or way's around it."

The Saints had busts in their coverage that lead to a touchdown for Stefon Diggs and a few big catches for Adam Thielen.

Klein said personally he has to be better in coverage and pointed to specific instances where he felt he gave up plays.

He pointed to a third-and-5 on the Vikings first drive where the Vikings were in a bunch formation and Diggs was able to make a play extend the drive which lead to a Minnesota field goal.

"They ran a little bunch formation and ran Diggs underneath and I tried to chase him down and he just out ran me for me," Klien said. "The technique portion of that -- getting in the way of receivers and being sound in my match principals to allow our d-line to get after 'em."

Rest of story:Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says | NOLA.com

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

How long is "long enough"?

Seems to me, they weren't getting pressure on Bradford because that makeshift o-line was stopping them dead on their tracks... unlike the Saints o-line, which was constantly pushed into Drew's face... in shotgun formation.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Too much zone coverage. Muhammad needs to play on Sunday. Kikaha was invisible. Deactivate Harris, insert Moore and/or Crawley.

Side note - AJ Klein is a very good linebacker. My fault Hagin, you called it months ago.

DC Dennis Allen has work to do. Plan A failed miserably.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

They were never going to get to Bradford, because it was a ton of three man rushes, and I don't recall seeing any blitzes. Maybe one... Maybe. I'm not even sure about that.

But all of the coverage busts meant that Bradford didn't even need time. It was just not good in any fashion on that side of the ball. I continue to be puzzled as to why a team who struggles to stop anyone, would not blitz far more often. It's a very risky thing to blitz often because of holes it leaves in the secondary, but when your secondary is leaving a Grand Canyon for the QB to throw into, and your defensive line isn't generating any pressure, you have no choice.

Yeah you'll give up some big plays, but you'll also increase the odd's of creating turnovers, which is how our defense lived throughout the entire 2009 season. I didn't like Gregg Williams' defenses after that year, because they continued to give up yards, but the pressure and turnovers seemed to disappear; but at least for that one season, it worked. Nothing Dennis Allen is doing is working. He coaches like he thinks we have 7 hall of famers out there. Just send them out there and let them do whatever.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

I was screaming at the tv every time we actually got pressure and it effected Bradfords throws. I don't understand how they can't seem to grasp this.

I know we blitzed at least once for sure because the announcers made a point to cradle Cooks sack for holding off the blitzer. But I am sure we blitzed more but the fact that we can't recall it was because it was so ineffective, it looked like a regular play.

I stand by my comment that the game plan, on both sides of the ball, was absolute garbage. And to make matters worse, did we adjust at all after half time? Nooooooooooooo. This game stunk to high heaven in all sorts of ways and I am not looking forward to this week against the Pats. I hope they don't embarrass us to bad.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

PJ in my opinion was worse than D Harris

Diggs first TD was Vaccaro's fault, he was staring at Dalvin Cook during the play action

PJ could have levelled the playing field by having solid coverage but he just let Theilen run straight past him, Theilen ran 2 routes all game, a crossing route and a corner route and PJ didn't get near to him on either.

Really disappointing by a guy who showed some promise, Cooks and Gronk will murder us.

Also there was zero interior push, and you know who generated push in the preseason? Tony McDaniels.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Some NFL teams play 3-4. Some play 4-3. Saints play 0-0.

Zero pressure and zero coverage :disgusted:.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

cover long enough???

They should only have to cover 3-5 seconds not 20 seconds.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

The pressure would have got there, PJ williams, Harris and Vaccaro just completely ignored there assignments.

It's hard for the D line to get there when our DB's blow their coverage between 1-2 seconds after the play has started.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

I don't think there is any need for finger pointing with how bad the D did. They didn't get any pressure on the QB. And the DB's don't give us anything to prove that they aren't to blame either.

When you start the first play of the game on D and you only have 10 on the field that doesn't say much for the D. There were a few broken coverages but there was tons of not getting to the QB.

I also give credit to the QB because some of the passes you could not defend against he threw them in great spots that no defender could get to. It was the perfect storm for our D. But to point the finger at the DBs solely isn't the right anwer either.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Our run defense is solid. Very solid. Who needs to run if they know throwing the ball means automatic yards. It's looking like teams won't even have to attempt to run.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Meh, we let a rookie run for 130 yards in his first start, we aren't solid by any means.

Interesting and depressing stat - in 2016, the vikings had 3 drives that were 80+ yards, they got 2 in 1 game against us.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Another interesting stat: 4 out of 5 is 80%!
Also in 2016 the Vikings offensive line was completely different.
5 new starters against the Saints.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

DA let it all hang out in preseason showing his hand but getting the win. Now that the season is here he is coming up short with the game plan. He has the tools but he is trying to outsmart everyone else like his mentor Payton.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

That's what I was thinking. It seemed to me that anytime a Vikings RB wanted the edge it was there for the taking.

I'm not qualified to determine whether the problem can be fixed with what we have. It's hard to think it couldn't, but heck they ran all over us Monday night.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

We've been listening to this song for to long. Fix the D

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Kikaha is coming off a ACL tear that too a year to recover from lets give him a few weeks before we start expecting real numbers he only played 25+ snaps. Would like to see Muhammad as well. I mean we had one sack The WHOLE Dline was invisible.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

The truth is that the team didn't play well in any other aspect than field goal special teams.

But the Vikings are much improved going into this season, which many of you were unwilling to accept.

#bountygateappeasement

Sent from my FRD-L19 using Tapatalk

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

The theme song of our defense

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

If Kikaha wasn't 100% after ACL rehab, he needs to have a seat. Coaches, trainers, medical staff had all off season to evaluate his progress. We aren't good enough on D to have guys not playing at full strength.

Based on what I saw and read on Muhammad during camp and subsequent pre season games, he earned the right to be on the field more vs Vikes.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Deuce has been preaching this concept for nearly three years now. We still don't have that ability to "set the edge" and limit those substantial gains.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

I never ever had doubts about that Vikes defense. Up front, these guys are about as good as it gets. Coach Mike Zimmer knows defense.

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

one on one blocking was a dream come true for the vikes

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says
 

Re: Saints need to 'cover long enough to get more pressure' on QB, A.J. Klein says