Saints Report # 2 - September 20, 2015

The New Orleans Saints are streaking.  Backwards.  They haven’t won this year.  They stumbled and bumbled and fumbled their way to a 26-19 loss to the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday.  That’s their 6^th straight home loss, after 20 straight home wins.  Drew Brees has always talked about his tennis days as a foundation for his footwork.  Well suddenly the Saints can’t hold their serve.  They took on a team that they had beaten 7 times in a row.  That streak is over. 

We know this.  The Saints have a proud tradition of making stars of new quarterbacks and Sunday they worked their magic on rookie Jameis Winston, who put on a horrible display last week.  I truly believe the Saints lost this game the day the Bucs picked up Ryan Griffin off waivers from the Saints.  For most of the game the mediocre Buc defense seemed to have the Saints play calls sniffed out.  I’m thinking the Bucs gave Griffin a game ball for his garbage dump of information.  In addition the Bucs were an embarrassed team after week one.  Danger, you could see this coming from a mile away. 

Meanwhile, I think there are 5 things critical to winning football:

1    1) Protect your Quarterback.  The Saints can't do it.  Brees was under constant duress, and there’s one thing we know about Brees at this point – He needs a good foundation to throw from, and he was dancing with the stars all day.  He also got hurt early and it affected him to some extent.  He was under duress, and off target most of the day. 

2.  2)  Pressure the other team’s Quarterback.  Can't do it.  Despite 2 sacks, they really provided little pressure and Jameis Winston sat back in the pocket and got a good look, a really good look, and knew what to do with what he saw.

     3)  Stop the Run.  Can’t do it.  Where’s the beef?  It’s there, it’s just frozen.  That big girthed defensive line got chewed up all day.  

     4) Run the Ball.  Can’t do it.  There’s a couple of reasons for this.  First, the line is not opening holes.  Secondly, it’s time to accept the fact that Mark Ingram is not an NFL running back.  Not only is he averaging a whopping 3.1 yards a carry, he threw in a critical fumble that killed the Saints in the 4^th quarter.  Meanwhile Khiry Robinson who is averaging 5.2 YPC ignited the team on several occasions with some dynamic running that got the Saints rolling in the second half, only to be replaced by Mark Mediocrity. 

5   5)  Win the turnover battle.  Besides a muffed punt, the Saints threw in the two fumbles to match the Buc’s number as the Bucs were trying to desperately fumble the game back to the Saints.

There are other problems.  The Saints receiving corps was not getting open, and this may be due to The Ryan Griffin effect, or it may be that none of them should be in the NFL.  Colston still knows how to get open, but when Brandin Cooks, who looks like a great slot receiver, is your ace, you’re in trouble.  As the rarely coherent Bobby Hebert pointed out on his radio show, can you name another team on which Cooks would be the number one option?  What if the Saints had drafted one of the 4 wide receivers who came after Andrus Peat in the first round, instead of Peat?

I can’t help but look at the last two drafts, and think what might have been.  Neither Peat nor Grayson are going to help anytime soon, although it’s possible that Zach Strief, who gave up 3 sacks and played his worst game ever, may be replaced by Peat soon. 

Throw in a questionable decision by Payton to go for 2, a blocked extra point, a missed field goal, and missed tackles in the hundreds, an interception, and this is a team this is more out of sorts than Hillary Clinton.  There are a lot of new bodies on the field and it’s more jammed than jelled at this point.  It was a miracle the Saints could have tied on the last play of the game.  But, it was a miracle that the Saints didn’t deserve and so they are now 0-2 and travelling to 2-0 Carolina next weekend.  That doesn’t bode well.