Tre'quan Smith had 1 catch for 13 yards vs a so call bad ATL team. 1 catch from your third rounder.

Meanwhile his draft mate from Dallas Michael Gallup (on pace for 1k receiving) had 4 catches / 76 yards and a TD vs MINN.

Anyone still believe that we don't have a WR #2, #3 concern in New Orleans?

I will admit that you are correct. Atlanta knew that 1.) we had no one beyond Thomas who could successfully find an open spot, 2.) catch the ball consistently, and 3.) block successfully even a basic four man rush (for whatever reason). They completely took away our running game as an option knowing that our passing attack was limited even with minimal pressure. If we had a couple more reasonable threats at WR they would not have been able to sell out to stop the run. The Saints have always been their best under Payton when they were able to execute the pass to set up the run, not vise versa.

They didn't sell out to stop the run, we never tried running the ball. We had 10 rushing attempts all game and averaged more than 4ypc... it was a coaching decision to not run the ball. I have heard the excuse that we were behind so it forced us to pass, but I discount that, we were within 1 score until the 4th QTR.

Read this post:

http://blackandgold.com/saints/96007...tml#post867357

It will explain.

I understand and agree with the premise, but we were having success running the ball at 4.7 ypc, AK was getting 6 yards a pop. It was a coaching call that was not dictated by the ATL defense, and with a banged up or sick offensive line we should have put an emphasis on the run game.

Edit, as you have addressed it in other posts:
ATL ran the ball less effectively, their top backs averaging 3.8 and 3.1 YPC, but they stuck with the running game and wore our defense down going into the 4th QTR.

It felt like we swapped gameplans with ATL for one week...

This has been a run first team for the last 3 seasons and it needs to continue if we are going to have success.

That 4.7 yards per carry included an 11 yarder from Taysom Hill and five yards from Ginn. Kamara's longest carry (8 yards) and Murray's longest run (6 yards) came on back to back plays in the first quarter. Looking at the game log I see that the running game was replaced by a number of short passes, which have always been an extension of the run game for the Saints offense. Those short passes were no more effective than the running game.

They didn't sell out to stop the run, we never tried running the ball. We had 10 rushing attempts all game and averaged more than 4ypc... it was a coaching decision to not run the ball. I have heard the excuse that we were behind so it forced us to pass, but I discount that, we were within 1 score until the 4th QTR.

Just to piggy back on this ....


Latavius has had 2 games against good defenses where he's had over 120 yards of total offense yet in the ATL game, he rarely touched the ball.

I'm not really sure what Coach was trying to prove here.

Passing the ball 40+ times when you don't have to was asking for a L.

Murray had more rush attempts than any other Saint in the game. He had five carries for 12 yards. Kamara had four attempts for 24 yards with eight of those coming on one play. Taysom had one attempt for 11 yards and Ginn had one carry for five yards.