Brutal, that’s all I can say about this game. The Saints were up 17-0 going into the 4th quarter before hemorrhaging 18 unanswered points in the final quarter to lose 18-17. There are a lot of storylines to take from this game sadly, most of them are bad, so let’s dive in.

Team Stats 

(Saints/Packers)

Final Score: 17-18

First downs: 15 - 21

3rd down efficiency: 4/14 - 8/18

Total yards: 252 - 340

Red Zone Efficiency: 1 / 2 - 2 / 3

Penalties: 7 for 102 yards - 11 for 90 yards 

Turnovers: 1 - 0

Time of possession: 27:25- 32:35

Takeaways

Offense

        A putrid display on offense, is that harsh? Before Derek Carr went down with an injury the Saints had scored 17 first-half points, but frankly it was still awful. Seven of those points were from an excellent punt return from Rashid Shaheed. The offense just looks harder than it should be. Yes, a lot of that has to do with the massive issues with the o-line, but also the play-calling doesn’t look to be helping.

Every yard looks so hard, there’s very little designed quick game. No quick hitters in the passing game to get the offense into a rhythm, and no drive starters to keep them ahead of the sticks. It looks like Pete Carmichael wants to use the running game for this but the run blocking for the second year in a row now is flat-out bad. Pete saw Sean Payton for years use the short passing/scream game as an extension of the run game, I’m not sure why he’s not able to do it as well. It would help the protection issues as the ball would be out faster and would help the Saints avoid 3rd and medium/long where routinely teams have been teeing off on Saints QBs.

It is not like he doesn’t have the right personnel for it, he had the right QB in Carr before he went down. He’s got arguably the best rhythm WR in the NFL in Mike Thomas, add to him Chris Olave who has elite short area quickness/route running, Rashid Shaheed, and Juwan Johnson. I just can’t get my head around why this isn’t the core principle that the offense is built around. Right now, it feels like Pete wants the deep/intermediate passing game to be the primary option and then the quick game to be the fallback. With the o-line playing how it is, with the weapons they have it should be the quick game first with deep shots sprinkled in, not the other way around.

This conundrum only gets harder now with Carr expected to miss some time, quick rhythm passing has never really been Winston’s game (although, ducks for cover I don’t think he was terrible in relief in this area yesterday), so trying to work that into a more focal point of the offense will be harder now than before. The Saints have Kamara back this week and he should bring energy and explosion to the offense but with this QB and play-caller can they use him effectively? 

Defense

        This always felt like an unsustainable model, the Saints defense needed to be perfect for 60 minutes for the team to win, they weren’t perfect today, and no shocker the Saints lost. The defense for 3 quarters was pretty much lights out, being down a starting safety and cornerback didn’t even stop them. 

        However, there were warning signs for the eventual 4th quarter collapse, the Packers had plays where players were at times wide open in crucial situations but were unable to connect. A play early in the game where Luke Musgrave was streaking down the middle of the field and was wide open Love just flat-out missed him. Both the Packers failed 4th down efforts were the right play calls for Gb just poorly executed, especially the first where Jordan Love looked like a baby giraffe trying to take its first steps. Both 4th down-plays had players open if the Packers could have executed better.

        The 2 key areas missing this week for the Saints defense were pass rush and discipline. The pass rush was way too quiet in a game where the opposing o-line was missing 2 starters. This gave Love way too much time and allowed him to be way too comfortable, especially in the second half. The D-line did, however, arguably play their best game defending the run. 

        On the discipline front, it feels unfair to critique and I’m not going to be too harsh but the back-to-back PI penalties on Taylor and Yiadom were killer (although I thought the PI on Yiadom was soft) those penalties cost the Saints 67 yards, and took the Packers from their own 20 to the Saints 13, eventually ending the Packers first touchdown of the game. Unfortunately, Taylor and Yiadom were on the wrong side of those penalties because I think they both were excellent today, Taylor had a massive 5 PBUs, 2 TFLs, and a Sack, and Yiadom for a guy who’s mainly been a special teams player held up well and he was tested often. I’ve included a stat below that illustrates how good they both were in coverage today.

Next Gen Stats on X: "Isaac Yiadom forced the tightest window targets (7) in a game over the last two seasons. His teammate Alontae Taylor also had 5 tight window targets. Yiadom and Taylor allowed a combined 5 receptions on 18 targets, recording 9 total passes defensed. #NOvsGB | #Saints https://t.co/OV66Itbtha" / X (twitter.com)

        The expectations on the defense will only continue to be high going forward, for those expectations to be met the pass rush needs to return to week’s 1-2 levels.

Saints Stock Exchange (Sponsored By… Nobody)

Just a quick hit section each week to highlight which Saint has their stock value increasing and decreasing after each game, 3 up and 3 down:

Stock up

Chris Olave

Lonnie Johnson Jr

Alontae Taylor

        Olave was excellent again, making a brilliant one-handed grab, showing again the work he did in the offseason was worth it with an excellent contested catch down the right sideline late in the game, Olave looks like an all-pro so far this season. 

        I wanted to give Johnson his flowers for 2 great plays, the interception of Jordan Love and the crucial block that sprung Rashid Shaheed for his punt return touchdown. Johnson has been really good on special teams so far this year so got to see him make a play on defense too. For the final up I went with Taylor for the reasons I highlighted above, not a perfect performance by any means but Harvey has proved to be a playmaker for this defense.

Stock Down

The whole O-line

Doug Marrone

Blake Grupe

        I’ve cheated here a little bit, but I can’t single out one player from the o-line, everyone must be accountable for this display at the end of the day their starting QB got hurt because of the frankly awful play. Again, as highlighted above it's not just the pass blocking but the run blocking too has not been remotely good enough. 

        At this stage it doesn’t feel fair to just blame the players, I highlighted above how Pete needs to help the o-line, I also think some responsibility needs to fall at Doug Marrone’s door, it is his second year coaching this o-line the run blocking was a massive issue last year and it still is this year and the pass protection issues are completing de-railing this offense and this team overall, he has the talent something has to change otherwise this team is going nowhere this year.

        Finally, Blake Grupe, this was his first true pressure kick, there was pressure on some of his other kicks but all of them were sub-30-yard attempts. Today he had a 46-yard attempt to put the Saints up by 2 with just over a minute to play. In his words the snap and hold were perfect, and he just missed it. The Saints made a big decision this off-season to go with Grupe over the vet Will Lutz, granted Lutz hasn’t been great either but this was Grupe’s first test to prove he is legit and unfortunately wasn’t successful. 

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