Saints Defensive and Special Teams Player Grades vs. Giants
by Andrew Juge on Oct 20, 2009 6:15 AM CDT
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PrintSee below for the grades of the Saints' defense and special teams vs. the Giants. The letter grade represents the player's grade for the game, and the GPA in parentheses is their cumulative GPA for the season of all games combined.
DEFENSE:
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I think C- is too harsh on Morstead. Frankly when you are facing a dangerous returner I’d rather a touchback than a big punt return. And that sleeve tackle he made on one kickoff was sweet. I’d say a C+ since I know there’s no way you’ll give him a B- which is what I think he really deserved.
Ditto for Carney. Yeah yeah extra points are supposed to be automatic… whatever. He wasn’t at fault for that one. It’s very hard to kick an extra point when half your line in front of you (OK only two guys but that’s still two guys too many) are flat on their butts halfway through your approach. He deserves at least a B for his actual performance with maybe a downgrade B- because of the XP block if you’re really feeling anal.
I agree about Morstead
mediocre punting and kickoff game takes him out of A, but making TWO solid touchdown-saving tackles(one an assist, but still) gets him respect. As off as his kicking was, compared to other weeks, I’m still loving what he’s doing on the field. And we’ve had much worse punters than him on his bad day. Not that that improves his grade any, just sayin’.
"Brees will kill you, but he lets you decide how fast he tightens the garrote." -Chris Brown
I dunno
about the punter tackles. That’s kind of like lauding John Elway for engineering a 4th quarter comeback, when he’s part of the reason there was a deficit to overcome in the first place. Glad he didn’t dive face first into the turf, upset he didn’t put it deep enough into the end zone making such a midfield tackle unnecessary. Little bit of a wash, but you’re still losing 30 or so yards in field position.
"Paralyze resistance with persistence" -Woody Hayes
Any time
a scrawny little teen age kitten aficionado is the only guy that can drag down Hixon, he get’s cred, even if he directly contributed to the run. Not an A, but he could have been a lot worse. Also, Hixon ran two or three kickoffs out of the endzone, because he knew we weren’t tackling him. That’s not Morstead’s fault. Maybe in the sense that he needed a better trajectory to let the coverage get to the endzone, but he still buried Hixon, and the coverage let him out.
"Brees will kill you, but he lets you decide how fast he tightens the garrote." -Chris Brown
i didn't see anyone else
tackling him. The special teams was not good during the game
Superbowl bound!!!...I know! do you?! Go Saints!!
by skinnykinney on Oct 20, 2009 9:52 PM CDT up reply actions
it's troy evans
and i think he played a pretty solid game for a career special-teamer. obviously we’d prefer fujita, but let’s remember the giants have a pretty freakin good offense—especially their o-line—so i think your grades are a little harsh. i was very pleased with our defense, and i don[‘t think it’s fair that most of our defenders (excluding the secondary) have “GPAs” lower than 3.0. Dude, we have a top-10 defense. Come on—do you really think our front seven are just average?
Also I have to echo the good feelings about Morstead—did anyone see former Saint Steve Weatherford botch the hold in that Jets-Bills game? Yeah, I’m happy with Cat Man.
Defender grades all seemed completely fair to me. The D-line was not hitting Manning or stuffing the run, and Shanle was the standout linebacker, no question. Forgetting the td-nullifying late hit, Vilma’s day was all-around mediocre. He wasn’t containing on tackles or covering short passing targets, and if he had made a play on Jacobs’ penalty-nullified td, it would have been a non-issue. It may have been just playing the cards dealt, but if NY wasn’t in panic mode for 80% of their offensive snaps, the lackluster play of the front seven(excluding Lunchpale), would have been a big story. I would have given Sharper a lower grade, personally, because his one great play didn’t count. He got scored on and beat deep. His only bright spot was a batted pass when he blitzed. I love his hawkishness, and wouldn’t change a thing about his play, but it wasn’t a good day for him at all, really
"Brees will kill you, but he lets you decide how fast he tightens the garrote." -Chris Brown
jful
the GPA’s are not something I came up with out of thin air… they’re adding up all the grades from each game. Everyone in our secondary is above 3.0, speaking volumes about how well they’ve played. Shanle is over 3.0, and Vilma and Fujita are both just under. As for the d-line, Ellis was around 3.0 until a mediocre performance against the Giants – and Smith/Grant’s grades are a reflection of their season: 2 pretty good games, and a few quieter ones.
I'm looking at it from a big-picture perspective
I completely understand where you get the cumulative GPA from—and that’s what doesn’t work for me. If you use the grades to get an assessment of our defense as a whole, their team cumulative GPA is a B- (2.83—and I even took Troy Evans out from that average), which I think underserves their performance as a top-10 defense.
I agree with your assessment that the secondary is playing well—and that shows up statistically—but we’re also 5th in the league against the run. I know some of that is b/c we’ve been up by so much and force teams to run, but we’re allowing less ypc and fewer long runs than last season. In addition, there’s an intangible but unquestionable huge improvement in the play of our line—they just seem show up on the field a lot more than last season. Against the Giants, of course, they weren’t as good as previous games, but that wasn’t my point.
I think our defense gets a solid A, maybe an A-, for its performance through the first five games. Their play has allowed us to claim the largest point differential in the NFL—we’re winning by nearly 20 points per game—and I think that’s pretty freakin amazing.
good points about run defense
Some interesting stats on the Saints defense overall:
longest run – 18 yards (1st, and that wasn’t a TD)
rushing yards/game – 83.4 (5th)
rushing yards/carry – 3.8 (T- 10th)
rushing attempts/game – 21.8 (3rd)
pass completion – 53.2% (1st)
pass yards/game – 217.8 (T- 14th)
pass yards/attempt – 6.2 (T- 4th)
passer rating – 56.7 (1st)
sacks – 12 (T- 17th)
3rd down conversions – 27% (2nd)
turnovers – 15 (1st)
turnover differential – +9 (1st)
points/game – 18.6 (T- 9th)
That does not look like a C+ defense to me at all.
so i looked over them again
and i don’t think i disagree with the grades for the giants game, but instead for the previous ones that i must’ve missed that cause the gpa’s to be so much lower than i’d like.
B- or C+
they made some great plays on deep balls early, but the giants still put up 27.
the INT was brought back because of a defensive penalty.
and the eli fumble at the end of the first was big.
but 27 points is still a solid amount.
They played good. so in the end i give them a B-
a few drops by giants TE and WRs helped. The Defense could have easily given up 34-41 if drives werent stopped because of dropped balls. But then the saints would have kept brees in for another 30 points making it 78 to 41.
Congrats on the big win from a Panthers fan
I bet Antonio Pierce feels a little silly about his comments on the raiders game.
Harsh grading on Ellis
Seems to me he was getting a consistent push up the middle while being double teamed on just about every pass play. You don’t have to get a sack to disrupt passes. I’ll grant you he didn’t look great against the running game, but not many interior lineman do against the Giants RBs. I’d give him a C.
This game was selected for NFLReplay on NFL Network this week. I’m going to watch the defensive front four especially close. Perhaps my jubilation at the offensive performance in the first half blinded me to any faults on the defense.
play calling
Not sure if its Jonathon Vilma, GW or some combination of both but, the defensive play calling was great this game. Pretty much flawless.
It seemed like we had some execution errors, sloppy tackling, losing a receiver in coverage, etc. but they play calls were right on. There was at least one play were we lined up to blitz from one side of the line…eli read it and called out the block on the blitzer and we switched our blitz to the other side. Not sure who makes that call, but it kept the Giants "great"offensive line off balance all day. A lot of great stunts, twists, etc on blitzes. I guess its mostly G-dub, but Vilma, should get some credit as the on field general.
by jamaican drew brees on Oct 20, 2009 1:46 PM CDT reply actions
seems like the individual grades should be a little higher if the defense's overall grade is a B
and received 28 votes for an A. Not to mention that the defense totally stifled an undefeated team, forced turnovers, was never really in jeopardy, played a large part of the game without a starting linebacker,and had a garbage td scored against them late in the game when a lot of reserves were playing for both teams. The the game was already decided. The Saints had given up only 20 pts at that point=, we never trailed (yes the defense gets credit for that as well as the offense)and the score was 48-20 wwith 4 minutes left. And you also have to consider that the defense had a lot of plays to compete on because the offense scored every time they got the ball ands they were in a semi-prevent defense a large part of the game.!
"Indecision may or may not be my biggest problem" - Jimmy Buffett
To accurately grade individual players, you also have to know what their assignments are.
Sometimes DTs main job is to occupy a double team so someone else can get the sack and all the glory. Sometime a CB may blitz but he may just prevent someone like Mc Cray to NOT get a double team. And you never know which player has a contain responsiblity or is spying on a QB or RB and it nay affect the way you perceive he performed.
"Indecision may or may not be my biggest problem" - Jimmy Buffett
lots of receivers were wide open and the score could have been totally different if Ely hit them
Ely pretty much threw the game away. He had guys open. Saints D was good enough, but I wouldn’t say they were great at all.
And what was the deal with giving up that last TD to the Giants? That was PATHETIC.
That TD was an example of why Young and Gay are backups on the team. If any of our starting secondary gets injured, it will create an immediate and thoroughly exploitable weakness. Hopefully Jenkins comes around quickly.
"Brees will kill you, but he lets you decide how fast he tightens the garrote." -Chris Brown
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