New Orleans Saints 19 - 31  Buffalo Bills

The Saints were never supposed to or expected to win the game today against the Bills, who are one of, if not the best team in the NFL. That being said, I wanted to see the team clean up the penalties and show some fight against a really good opponent, which they did. The team is in the rebuilding process, something we all knew going into the season, so what is most important for this team is showing that they have key building pieces in the building. Multiple young players showed up for the Saints today in key moments, with the most notable being Kendre Miller and Jonas Sanker. Kendre Miller has shown flashes in previous games, and today when the Saints relied on the run game, he took 11 carries for 65 yards and a touchdown. These numbers aren’t jaw dropping by any means, but it shows that he is potentially ready to take the reins as RB1 whenever Alvin Kamara leaves the team. On the other side of the ball, Jonas Sanker was the best player on the field, with 5 tackles, 3 PBUs, and the first interception of the Saints’ season. When Julian Blackmon went out, Jonas Sanker was called upon earlier than expected, and he’s showing key flashes in his young career.

The defense is one that visibly lacks talent, yet they had a solid performance overall against one of the most dangerous offenses in the league led by the MVP Josh Allen. Although they let up two touchdowns to start the game, the Saints’ defense held the Bills scoreless in the second quarter, providing a perfect opportunity for the offense to take control of the game, which they failed to do. Like I said above, Jonas Sanker gave the defense their first turnover, and the defense had 3 sacks in big moments (Cam Jordan, Carl Granderson, Bryan Bresee). This being said, the Saints are in need of talent on defense, with their defensive line lacking the necessary speed/agility to succeed in the 3-4 scheme. They can rush the passer and get some pressure, but dropping into coverage is an issue, one that showed up when Dalton Kincaid scored the final touchdown of the game with just over 7 minutes left.

Kellen Moore clearly had a gameplan focused on running the ball against the Ed Oliver-less Bills’ defense, and it worked well until the Saints were forced to turn to the pass game. Quick sidenote, I of course took the Spencer Rattler over at 200.5 yards, which he had hit the previous 3 games. It was Rattler’s first game of the season with less than 200 yards and 30 passing attempts, and with the way the Saints run game was working, that could become a new norm. The Saints also ran much more plays from under-center than they had in prior games this season, as Moore decided this would be a key in helping reduce pre-snap penalties. The biggest focus for both Kellen Moore and this offense, in my eyes, after the first 3 games was getting the pre-snap and offensive penalties under control. I expected them to do slightly better in Buffalo with another loud crowd, but they had 0 penalties on the offensive line, and the only offensive penalty was an intentional grounding. 

 The offense did have a couple missteps in this game, with Moore calling a Philly special in an unnecessary situation, and Rattler having yet another bad open miss in the endzone. Kellen Moore dialed up the Philly special right before the half on 3rd and goal from the 5, even though the run game had been working, and Chris Olave ended up throwing an interception. I don’t mind the aggressiveness this showed, but it prevented the Saints from being able to kick a field goal to cut the lead to 1 before the half (if they got stopped on another type of play). As you can see below, Rattler mainly focused on short and outside passes, and the one long incompletion down the middle was due to yet another inaccurate redzone pass. Redzone misses have been a recurring theme for Rattler since week 1, something I hope he can clean up, and if he does he truly can be a good quarterback for this team. Here is Rattler’s throwing chart for the game:

One of the biggest notes I have about the Saints offense so far is that it completely lacks explosiveness. Now is that on Rattler, the receivers, the playcalling, or someone else? It’s hard to tell. Spencer Rattler, while having shown some aggressiveness this season, has stuck relatively to more conservative throws. This could be said about numerous teams across the NFL though, as defenses have been scheming to prevent the deep ball and force teams to take what they are given. With as much hate as Derek Carr received, he showed to a tee how to make this offense explosive by throwing deep balls to Rashid Sahaheed, no matter the coverage. If this offense wants to compete against better teams, the deep balls will need to start showing up again, and the Saints definitely have the receiving room to make that happen. Going into this game I felt that the Bills would be a good team to attempt some shots against, as their secondary is likely the weakest the Saints have faced so far, but as I stated before their focus was on run game success. 

The Saints’ special teams unit faced scrutiny over its brutal performance last week, and reasonably so, after allowing a blocked punt and punt return touchdown on back to back opportunities. Phil Galiano, the Special Teams Coordinator, assured a better performance this week. Although their performance was better, the unit committed 3 penalties, 2 of which being critical for the team. Blake Grupe made his 2 field goal attempts on the day, but after his second he failed to kick the ball into the landing zone. This gave the Bills the ball with optimum field position in the 4th quarter, right after the Saints looked to gain momentum and cut the lead to 2 points, The second penalty, committed by Nephi Sewell who was called up specifically to help the special teams unit, was a roughing the kicker on the punt after the defense got a critical stop down 9 and just over 5 minutes remaining. This penalty was the dagger to the Saints’ chances at mounting a comeback, as it allowed the Bills to kill more clock and kick a field goal. So, the special teams did look better as a whole, but the penalty issues from the offense have seemingly transferred to this unit.

Closing and Team MVPs

I had little to no expectations for this team against the Bills, and even though we lost I honestly liked what I saw on the field. Obviously, the team did make some mistakes and there is lots of room for improvement, but the team showed fight and young players made plays. Kellen Moore is the youngest head coach in the league, and if he shows more improvement in his playcalling and scheming I will start to feel really good about what he is building. 

Offensive MVP: Kendre Miller

Defensive MVP: Jonas Sanker

Special Teams MVP: Blake Grupe