Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

It wasn't the prettiest performance by the Saints but once again they found a way to win. At this point of the season, the Saints are far from dominant but there's something to be said about a team that continues find ways to win. Last week they won a shootout. This week they won with defense and a powerful rushing attack. At 3-1, they now find themselves alone in first place in the NFC South and still haven't come close to playing their best football yet. All things considered, this team has to like where it's at after starting the season with that ugly loss to Tampa Bay.

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Defense dominates after shaky start
It was an ominous start for the Saints defense. The Giants marched 75 yards in 10 plays to score a touchdown on their opening drive and made it look easy in doing it. Eli Manning completed 6 of 7 passes for 42 yards in the series, capping the drive with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Sterling Shepard. From there, the Saints defense dug in and kept the Giants out of the end zone for the rest of the game. The Giants managed to gain just four first downs and 42 total yards in their next five series as the Saints seized control of the game. Linebacker Demario Davis led the effort with game highs of 11 tackles and two sacks.

Alvin Kamara enjoys career day
The second-year running back had a remarkable second half, rushing for 102 of his career-high 134 yards and scoring all three of the Saints' touchdowns. The Saints needed Kamara to come up big as they held off the Giants and iced the game with a dominant rushing effort. The 173-yard rushing effort marked a season high and something to build on as Mark Ingram returns from suspension next week.

Wil Lutz enjoyed a perfect afternoon
Wil Lutz was the Saints’ best player in the first half. The third-year place kicker drilled field goals of 42, 34, 37 and 22 yards in the first half to account for all 12 of the Saints' points before intermission.
Lutz was actually 6 for 6 because he was forced to re-kick a couple of field goals after one of his attempts was nullified by a holding penalty and another was ruled to have been booted after the play clocked expired in the first quarter.
Lutz has quietly put together a strong start to the season. The Saints' kicking game has never been better .

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Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

You can't catch Kamara till tamara!

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Ginn has to go. He’s just sucked all year and almost single handedly cost us the game. We still need someone else to step up at receiver.

Have to get TDS instead of field goals

Davenport is going to be fun to watch.

We didn’t get killed by huge plays

Good thing Ingram is back because our running game sucks outside of Kamara. We closed it out pretty good but we are going to need him to control the clock. Everything else he brings is just a sweet bonus. Should help keep the defense off the field a little longer. I also think he brings swagger to the entire team.

3-1 in first place is awesome but NY isn’t a very good team. We need to continue to improve because if our offense stalls against teams like the Rams we are screwed.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Alvin Kamara ... he's a special player.

He has literally put this team on his back the last 4 games. If this O line can stay healthy, having Ingram back will make this running game a deadly combo ... again.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

He is something special. We would be winless without him. 100%.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

OBJ was pretty much a non factor ... a testament to how good Lattimore is on those boundaries.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

He gave up 4 catches for 49 yards when in direct coverage of OBJ. I’ll take that all day. He’s given up one TD so far this year.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Has anyone noticed how well Crawley plays when Lattimore is on his game? They seem to feed off one another quite well


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Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

We are weak at WR. Probably not a big deal with MI returning. Meredith is a liability in the endzone.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Kamara can run the ball between the tackles, but he's not really a guy that can pound it in the way that Ingram does against particular defensive configurations. The Giants knew we were lacking this, so they often just sat back a lot of guys in coverage. This was the right choice for them, and almost worked. Kamara did indeed end up with a ton of yards yesterday, but we didn't really run the ball as consistently as the stats would indicate(he had a ton of short yard runs, with some huge runs mixed in between). Not having a guy that can just pound yards out makes it especially hard to throw in the redzone. I think we'll improve starting next week.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

They tried once or twice with Gileslee, but did not try with Boston Scott.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

You will se Ingram in the backfield, Kamara in the slot. Thomas and Hill on the field and the defences will just have to pick their poison.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Cameron Meredith is getting a lot of undeserved hate. He put up 3 catches for 32 yards and drew a big penalty on our last drive where he would have had another big catch and first down. I think he’s doing just fine for somebody who just hit the field last week. He’s contributed far more than Austin Carr, and people were acting like he was the next Edelman.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

It's all coming from a few that refuse to admit they were wrong. Meaningless noise.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Cameron is progressing nicely. I like what I've seen & he'll only get better.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

This supports the ridiculous talk about trying to bring in another WR (ie. Dez Bryant) that has popped up a few times recently. A receiver cannot just step into a Payton designed offense and be a factor on day one. It cannot be done. Meredith didn't reach 100% until the third game of preseason. He didn't start working with the ones until week three of the regular season. And that was with him being in ALL of the classroom and walk throughs this off-season. It would take half a season to incorporate a new WR into this offense and we don't have the roster space to waste on that endeavor.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Yep. Drew is all about timing. He’s not Big Ben or Aaron Rodgers. He doesn’t stand back and wait for people to flash open. When he and Meredith get on the same page it’ll be all good.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Finally someone slowed down Michael Thomas—the Saints star had just 47 yards on four catches against the Giants at the Meadowlands. Unfortunately for the hosts, that only worked to help spring Alvin Kamara for 134 yards on 19 carries, and 47 yards on five catches. And the Saints showed a pretty good quality in this one: The ability to win in different ways. Drew Brees was just 18-of-32 for 217 yards, and didn’t throw a touchdown pass. And New Orleans still won by 15.
SI's MMQB

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Quick take defensively :

Saints D line ....they are eating right now. The run D is a strength on this team. Barkley had one big run (Klein looked to be held on that play), otherwise he was bottled up.

Side note - shout out to Tony Romo (who actually studies film) on mentioning Rankins presence in the trenches. It doesn't show on the stat sheet, but he's been very good in New Orleans.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Thomas only had 4 catches but every one of them were big.

Taysom Hill almost plays like a TE (when not throwing the football). Should have had a touchdown through with Kamara too. He had an amazing game.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

I think he is getting stronger each week. I really expect him to be a factor as the season goes

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

I hope he does keep it up. They are going to need him to step up even more when teams limit Thomas. Right now I trust him more than Ginn.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Rankin's had a strong game yesterday. I mentioned his play multiple times. He hadn't been strong the entire year, but let's hope it continues. BTW I really like stallworth too

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Or the entire defense, right? Seriously, Latt is getting shutdown again ND the defense, as a whole, had it's best game of the year

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

The dline had a really good game yesterday, but pretty sure the Giants are weak on oline. If I'm wrong on that someone correct me, but thought I've read that is a weakness for them

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Yeah, their O-line is bad. That's why Manning got rid of the football in less than 2 seconds. Nonetheless, our d-line played solid game. In my opinion Coleman and Anzalone didn't have great game. Anzalone often looks lost and shows bad tackling technique. There was one situation that showed great and bad tackling on the same play. Anzalone tackled guy (Barkley?) with his shoulder and did nothing to stop him until Robertson wrapped him up and stopped him on the spot. Coleman is just one step late on most plays. Bell surprised me. Quicker, more decisive... I like what he showed me yesterday.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Our D will get its test vs Baltimore. Holy no moly. Physical o-line with a good deep passing game. We will see where this D is by then.

The D is coming along. I can't clown them if they ain't acting like clowns.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

The one position that is hurting us more in the passing game is the inconsistency at TE. We have to address this in the off-season...

With Ingram coming back it will not be as bad due to the fact that both are better in the run blocking department than being a true threat in the passing game. Two weeks that Watson should have had a TD...

I’m glad we were able to put something together offensively that didn’t rely on us wearing M Thomas out. Going forward I think we will see more of CM and TS in the 3 WR sets with M Thomas.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

I thought Taysom Hill adds a element that most of the NFL defenses aren't ready to handle. That's saying a lot because the Giants have a solid defense.

Some of those play calls (see fake punt) and packages set up for TH were nice. This guy is a damn good athlete.

Reminds me of Kordell Stewart aka SLASH from back in the day.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Notice how the Ravens are trying to use Lamar Jackson in the same capacity, with limited results of course...


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Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Payton and John Harbaugh are ahead of the curve. I think in the future the NFL offenses could a little become more "position-less", like the NBA where the lines between shooting guard and forward are really blurred and lots of players are just "wings" now. And hopefully the end of being tone-deaf to the spread and read-option and some of the stuff that works in the college game. It's an exciting time.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

I have a feeling about that arnold dude.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

They can win if I'm not drinking. I didn't think it was possible......but apparently they can win if I'm sober.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

You could see big Rankins pushing his guy back collapsing the pocket on many occasions yesterday.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

there was a play where one of the olineman went flying, I re-winded back to see who it was. Rankins literally tossed the guy

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Any idea when that happened? I'd love to see that when I rewatch the game!

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Taysom Hill ran over Landon Collins, that was fun to watch!

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

Want to say it was in the last half of the 4th. Not 100%.
When I read about the Giants Oline I was hoping the pressure would result in a pick or two. I think Williams especially just needs a confidence boost. The forced fumble by PJ was nice to see. It was even better to see them not doing the damn end zone celebration.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

You know what was most impressive to me about the PJ Williams forced fumble? It was on that very same field two years ago where he suffered what Payton called “one of the worst concussions he’d ever seen.” But yesterday, there was PJ confidently making a play. Respect.

Re: Observations from the Saints' 33-18 win against the Giants
 

This is true. That was ugly.