Another week sadly the same story for the Saints, a gruesome offensive display that put too much pressure on the defense and the defense could not hold as the Saints fell to their worst defeat of the season losing 26-9. There’s not much good to take from this game, read this article as Saints fan therapy.

Team Stats 

(Saints/Bucs)

Final Score: 9-26

First downs: 16-21

3rd down efficiency: 5/14 – 8/15

Total yards: 197 – 353

Red Zone Efficiency: 0/2 – 3 / 4

Penalties: 7 for 58 yards - 11 for 91 yards 

Turnovers: 3- 1

Time of possession: 28:49- 31:11

Takeaways

Offense

        This section has basically been the same throughout each of the 4 games, the offense again had no rhythm, struggled mightily in the red zone, and was terrible on third down. The big difference this week was the pass protection wasn’t the problem, at times Carr had tons of time to make a play, he either waited too long on those plays or nobody was open. 

        Now, the o-line wasn’t perfect of course Carr was flushed out of the pocket, and he had to step up to avoid pressure on several occasions but overall, the pass protection was good enough in this game for the offense to be able to function, but it still didn’t. The line again wasn’t great run blocking but was better than previous weeks, still need to see some movements in this area.

        The biggest issue was the Saints passing game, it looked as if it had pretty much all year, out of sync. Carr struggled to find anyone open and when players were open, he struggled to connect. Was the shoulder limiting him? Hard to say he certainly had the arm strength in this game but quite a few of his passes came out high and that could have to do with the shoulder injury limiting his throwing motion. 

        The offensive play-calling looked flat-out terrible, the Saints were 5 of 14 on third down, and unlike previous weeks they did have more manageable third down distances to navigate the Saints had at least 3 third and 5 or below that Pete decided to dial up deep passes for, instead of trying to use Thomas, Olave, Shaheed and Kamara’s elite short-area quickness and route running to try and convert at or just past the sticks. This has been a big part of the Saints struggles on third down this year, on many occasions, they are trying to bomb downfield instead of just trying to keep the drive alive, which is what this team has so desperately needed.

        This offense has too many elite playmakers to be struggling this badly and something has to change, everyone behind the scenes with Saints has been hyping up pass game coordinator Ronald Curry, he interviewed for Tampa and Denver’s OC positions this off-season maybe it's time to give him a chance to call plays fulltime (he called plays in the preseason). Would Curry fix everything? Probably not, but at this stage it can’t get much worse. 

        I can’t keep being held hostage for 3 hours a week watching a Pete Carmichael run offense, it's physically painful and frankly soul-destroying to watch, He is wasting prime cost-controlled years of Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed and the backs 9’s of 2 Saints offensive legends in Kamara and Thomas. 

        If Dennis Allen wants to save his job, he needs to do something otherwise he is going to be the captain going down with this horrendous offensive ship.

Defense

        The defense was again good but not great, in a similar fashion to the Green Bay game the Saints secondary did as much as they could, they gave up some plays but hardly a surprise given the number of snaps they faced and how much time the QB had, not to mention they were again down their CB2 and were down to safety 5 after Lonnie Johnson Jr. left this game with a hamstring injury.

        The D-line struggled mightily to generate consistent pressure in this game there were far too many plays on key downs where Mayfield had an age to throw. The Bucs entered the game as the 32nd and when they wanted to run earlier in the game, they could the Saints clamped the run game as the game went on, but the damage had been done by this stage. I’m worried the D-line we saw in weeks 1 and 2 were a product of the poor O-lines they faced rather than it being the D-line improving, hopefully, I’m wrong.

        I’d expect when I look through PFF the Saints defense to have had their most missed tackles in a game so far this year, the tackling looked really poor at times and cost the Saints. On the Bucs first touchdown drive, the Bucs faced 3rd and 8 on the Saints 13. With nothing open Mayfield checked down to RB Rachaad White, he looked to be easily stopped about 3-4 yards short of the sticks before making Pete Werner and another Saints defender miss, before converting the down and scoring a touchdown 3 plays later.

        The secondary made enough plays to have been competitive in this game, forcing another interception (their 5th of the year) and nearly having another when Lonnie Johnson broke on a pass over the middle and unfortunately dropped it (unfortunate as it would have likely been a pick 6). Marshon uncharacteristically struggled early against Evans before Evans left the game with a hamstring injury, Lattimore gave up at least 2 receptions for 36 yards to Evans but could have been more.

        Overall, the defense without the pass rush playing how it did the first 2 weeks will be good but not great. Enough to keep the team competitive in games but likely not enough to win them games alone. So, unless we see the offense finally do something the Saints better hope the pass rush comes back. 

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

Bryan Bresee

Isaac Yiadom

Blake Grupe

This was a hard list to make after a game like that. Bresee has been a threat in every game so far and finally got his first solo sack of the season per ESPN had a further 3 TFLs one was an excellent play where he was in the backfield in an instant and dropped Rachaad White for an 3-yard loss. The Saints finally look to have hit on a D-line 1st round pick. 

On first view, Yiadom looked good again, with 2 PBUs and an interception. I’ve been very surprised by Yiadom as previously he’s mainly been a special team player, for him to have played how he has the last 2 weeks has been impressive.

I gave the final spot to Blake Grupe, he was clutch again scoring all 9 of the Saints points with a long of 44, a good comeback after the bad miss in Green Bay for the rookie kicker.

Stock Down

Pete Carmichael Jr.

Derek Carr

Chris Olave

        I don’t need to add anything to the inclusion of Pete Carmichael here. Carr was poor maybe the shoulder hindered him but then maybe he shouldn’t have played. He missed throws and sailed some high, Carr was close to cracking this last week. This felt like the right time after averaging 3.4 yards per attempt, Carr was supposed to be the solution to the Saints QB woes he does not look like that 4 games in. Finally, Chris Olave, I don’t expect him to be on this list many times this year, but something seemed off with Olave this game. The broadcast showed routes where he didn’t look to be fully engaged and putting in maximum effort. I never want to question a player’s effort, but the clips did look that way. I wonder if we see him on the injury report this week after he took a bit hit on a screen early in the game, he didn’t look right from there.

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