Interesting facts about last year's defense.
 

The Saints TEAM allowed 405 points total last year. That gave the defense an average points allowed of 25.3. But even on NFL.com's site, they let you know all these points didn't come from simply not stopping people. They include punt returns and kick returns, as well as the opposing team's defense scoring due to a mistake by our offense. Well, that's not really fair, as the defense has no control over that. So I did some figuring. The Saints OFFENSE gave 21 points directly to the D, 2 fumbles and 1 INT returned for scores. That's 21 points. Take this from the team's average, and that drops it to 24 points allowed even. Compare that to a Minnesota who gave up ZERO points off turnovers by the offense, as well as Indy and the Jets, hell, even Eli and the Giants. But Indy and Minny's defenses are ranked close to ours overall, so i'll stick with them. With no subtraction cause of this number, Indy's defense allowed 21.7 points a game, and Minny's 24.7. Now you could suppose at the rate Peyton was throwing TDs last year, the opposing teams were forced to throw early and often to keep up, allowing Freeney and Co. to tee off on QBs, thus not allowing those teams to play their games, thus lowering their scoring numbers, or not. Either way, we just passed playoff Minny in points allowed, and are not that far off Indy.

Now special teams. Each team allowed either a punt return or a kick return. Take ours out, we go to 23.5. Minny goes to 24.25, and Indy is around 21.4 or 21.5. So just taking those figures out, we shaved two whole points off our points allowed. And although I could, I won't even look into the times our offense gave the opposing team the ball in scoring position. Off top, in the Seattle game week one, a pass was intercepted late in the game that gave Seattle the ball inside their own twenty. Not much the D can do about that. But just sticking with this, 2 poins off our average is significant because our offense only scored 21.8 points per game. That's more than only 3 playoff teams, Atlanta, St. Louis, and the Jets. The closest team above us is Seattle, and they scored 1.4 points more per game than us, and it just gets worse for the better teams. But let's look at some other places our offense got points from. They were given credit for points on 2 kick returns(special teams), one fumble return(defense), a blocked punt(special teams), and a safety(defense), which equals 30 points, assuming all extra points were made. That drops their average to 19.9 points per game. That's 4 Tds and a safety, which was about the norm for every team above us who made the playoffs. Some had 5 additional scores, which would subtract 35 points from them instead of 30 like us, and some had way less, like San D with 1 KR, 1 INT return, and a safety. So top to bottom, we stay about the same. And compared to Minny and Indy, whom I compared our defense to cause they were pretty close, our offense wasn't even in the same league.

Basically, if our offense averaged what playoff team's offenses averaged, we would have easily outscored the points given up by the D, even without taking into account the situations like the Seattle game. I think that would have been enough to win one more game for us, and get us into the playoffs, especially since out D was top 10 in takeaways. Fortunately for us, the front office realized this, and made moves that will concentrate on keeping the offense on the field more, and the defense on the field less so we can realize this turnaround. There is no reason our offense can't be more efficient, and help not only our defense, but the TEAM as a whole with this efficiency. When I think of the changes made on the offensive side of the ball, no lie, I get a little excited. Cause I think if we have the type of offense we are capable of having, we will accomplish big things. Just think about all those first quarters we didn't score, and red zone turnovers which leads to zero points. Subtract those, and we are looking at a possibly winning, and very good team. Geaux Saints. :D

Left out another couple -- You need to consider how many times the offense turned the ball over in our territory -- a fumble inside our own 20 means points also -- how many 3 and outs (a defense gets tired)

But really -- the Saints defense was putrid last year -- I don't care about all of the other things the stat that always killed us was the running game -- you don't let the opponent run for over 200 yards at will --

That's true for Saints, but your first paragraph answered your second paragraph. If our offense is significantly better than 29th in TOP this season, has far less three and outs, and doesn't put the D in untenable situations with mistakes, the defense does not gice up 200 yards rushing. With out offense on the filed more, the opposing team's offense is on the field less. That alone reduces yards and points given up.

...yeah and if we scored more points than the other team we win more games to... lol.

In a nutshell, damn skippy Euph. :D

Those are some interesting stats that show a clear path to improvement. That said, I doubt that these numbers are all that unique to the Saints. I'm guessing a lot of teams gave up points on turnovers or gave the ball up in the red zone, or whatever.

The Saints OFFENSE gave 21 points directly to the D, 2 fumbles and 1 INT returned for scores. That's 21 points. Take this from the team's average, and that drops it to 24 points allowed even. Compare that to a Minnesota who gave up ZERO points off turnovers by the offense, as well as Indy and the Jets, hell, even Eli and the Giants. But Indy and Minny's defenses are ranked close to ours overall, so i'll stick with them.

I understand that Whodi, and I read your post. All I'm saying is that most teams have a fumble or INT or blocked kick returned for a TD in the course of a 16 game season.

What is your point? That if the offense doesn't create turnovers for scores the defense isn't that bad?... the Saints win more games?... what?

You're correct, those numbers need to change. You know what else, the Saints need to improve their efficiency in the running game too. How many teams do you think are saying the exact same thing right now? We need to limit turnovers and big plays. As I said, it's interesting to see the impact, but it doesn't seem all that revolutionary an idea.

Nice analysis Whodi.

I thought it quite insightful.

I guess, I agree, though I suspect for slightly different reasons, improving the offense is definitely a requirement. A good offense is most consistent when its OLine is playing well. I am very excited about our upgrades there.

I think that, beyond the stats, as they say, it is critical we improve our run defense. We simply can't win if the other team can keep the ball as long as they feel like by running on us. I'm not going to do a statistical analysis right now, but consider the games you saw. Teams were able to get running games going on us at will - consider the Arizona game. When this is possible it is very hard to win games.

I guess, I still believe that improving the interior of our defense is THE most critical thing left to do for making strides to the playoffs this year!

all i no is we were last in defence and .500 8-8 THATS ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE WINS !!!!

saintswhodi

I ran this earlier on the "Brooks" Thread , you might have some fun with it ....

Time of Possession is always an interesting stat , it creates a couple of variables . For instance , ask " Where did the Saints defense rank in 2004 ?? " and 9 out of 10 posters would say dead last . Total Yards per game allowed is a bad way to check a defense , because it does not factor the offense pulling up lame .

Consider yards per play as an average , it factors the yards allowed by the amount of time on the field .

The 5 worst N.F.L. defenses 2004
5. Minnesota
4. Indianapolis
3. Oakland
2. Kansas City
1. New Orleans

Yards Per Play Factor , and the order changes .

5. Green Bay with 5.7 yards per play - 967 plays
4. Minnesota with 5.8 yards per play - 1018 plays
3. New Orleans with 5.8 yards per play - 1067 plays
2. Tennessee with 5.9 yards per play - 977 plays
1. Kansas City with 6.3 yards per play - 960 plays

I saw it 08. And your TOP post. And your Brooks first half passer ratings posts. Kinda what motivated me to take a look.

Man! Really? Why didn't we sign more Wins this offseason? That sucks.

PS - what's defence? Is that like the thing you paint? De fence. B/c I thought we were last in defense.

"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization." - Eric Narcisse

Our defense sucked unless I missed something. More than anything else we just couldn't stop the run. We couldn't stop the run early in the game when we weren't tired, and we couldn't stop the run late in the game when we were.

Yeah, that 29th ranked TOP by the offense wouldn't make a defense tired or anything. We couldn't score or get a first down early either. Even when the defense gave us THREE turnovers in the first haf(Seattle), we could only manage 7 points for the entire game and about 60 total rushing.

improving ball control will always help the d. there aren't as many chances for the other teams o. i don't think you can argue at all that our d was just terrible last year for the first 12 games. i don't think that it helped that we didnt score in the first quarter last year for the most part. basically i thought we played really well last year the final 4 games. mainly though more then anything and tell me if this sounds new or not, we need to stop the run better this year. you may have heard something like that the last few years. all i know is when a team runs, in the first quarter of a preseason game this year, for like 100 yards , i am not going to listen to has about the two runs that distorted the stats. if anyone at all remembers that from last year. according to has at some points last year we were only letting up 3.7 yards per caryy. well mind you that was because he took out the 48 yard run and the 38 yarder. somehow they didnt count.

We can come up with all the facts we want
about our Defense...but the bottom line is...our
Defense was last in everything last year and
if the Defense don't do a lot better then that
this year ya can look for the same thing.
A 8-8 SEASON AND NO PLAYOFF!

:evil:

Wow, namecalling kinda early in your tenure here huh? Can you explain to me that an offense that is 29th in time of possession, committs frequent red zone turnovers, puts the defense in untenable positions due to regular turnovers, and could not score the VAST majority of the year in the first quarter, and barely in the first half, HELPED the defense?

And then explain to me how in the first game of the year, the defense gives the offense THREE turnovers in the FIRST HALF, yet for the game the offense manages only SEVEN points. Explain to me how the defense held Seattle(A PLAYOFF TEAM AND DIVISION WINNER OF THE NFC WEST) to 14 points deep into the secodn half, only to see the OFFENSE throw an INT that gave Seattle the ball in their own red zone, and sealed the game. Explain how that HELPED the defense to this knucklehead.

Ravens were one of the top rushing teams in the league, so was the Falcons last year. For the Bucs, Brad Johnson threw for over 3000 yards, 22Tds and 6 INTs in only 13 games. Brady his first year as the starter, their first Superbowl, threw for 2800 yards and 18 TDs. I think they got past the 50 once or twice. Kerry Collins and the Giants had a pretty damn good offense the year they went to the Superbowl. HE had 3600 yards passing and 22 Tds that year. Seems like a decent offense. And that's not even mentioning the rushing. These offenses were at least efficient, ours wasn't.

Hmm, I see how my statement:

could be taken as me saying they were balanced. I don't know how, but somehow that's what you got. I'll explain though. When you lead the league in rushing, even if that's all your offense does well, you eat clock, keep the opposing team's offense off the field, keep your defense rested and gives them time to make adjustments. That should be obvious. We were 27th in rushing. That was an OFFENSIVE problem, not a Brooks problem or any other single player. I mainly blame McCarthy for changing the offense, but that's here not there. Now please, find the word balance in anything I said here or in my previous post. I never said it. I said EFFICIENT.


Then how do you defend Aaron Brooks? If there wasn't the stats for his supporters to stand on(yards and Tds), he would have nothing at all. Man, you are doing yourself in here.

Ask the people who voted him in the pro bowl that year. Oh my, those would be the fans. I guess the millions of people who voted him into the pro bowl lose their cedibility too huh? I think we only have to worry about that with one person here.

I don't know. Do you consider 22 Tds, 13 INts, an 83.1 rating an 3600 yards good? With Amani Toomer as your number one option?

Success as in NEVER winning a playoff game? I remember years when we would battle the Eagles for the number one D in the league all year, what did it get us? any playoff wins? Out of the first round? If the defense is the almighty hammer you want it to be, then shouldn't we have been in the NFC champ game every year with the Eagles with the defenses we had. We weren't. Not until we got a semblance of an offense to go with a good defense did we win a playoff game.

You may watch the games, but you don't remember them well. Derrick Brooks had FOUR TOTAL TDS that season for the Bucs. 3 off INTs and 1 off a fumble return. He had all of those by week 7. Mike Alstott had 4 TDs by week 6. That means he could have only LED the team until week 5, because Alstott had 4 to Brooks' 3 by week 6. Brooks got another oen the following week, but Alstott still had 4 by that time. Also, Brad Johnson had 6 TD passes by week 4. That beats both of them. So how did Brooks lead the team in scoring until week 8?

400+ yds per game........nuff said!!!!!