Saints Defense in Decline?

Based on memory, not research:

(1) Greer was one of the best 3 CBs in the league last year, not so much this year
(2) Turnovers haven’t been there. We’ve been unlucky recovering fumbles and haven’t been generating interceptions
(3) We haven’t faced any rookie QBs in a while
(4) Random variation
(5) Not enough swagger

(one of those was a joke)

1. Lets be honest… Greer and Porter have played poorly the last 3 weeks.
2. Scott Shanle is one of the worse coverage LB’s in the NFL. I read a stat that he was the most targeted LB in the NFL and TE were averaging 9 yards a reception.
3. Outside of Vilma and Harper our other LB’s suck at blitzing…
4. Our front four is average.

We’re not doing great against the run. If you noticed yesterday, there were some 3rd and 10 yds plus that were converted from Cincy. 2-3 on 4th down conv. The defense is on the field way too long.

  Greer and Porter are not playing like they played last season. Lack of pressure on the QB.

Are the Saints simply facing better offenses and quality quarterbacks?

I think this has a lot to do with it.

We’re definitely facing better QB play, which is what is skewing the numbers. However, a large part doesn’t have to do with Greer and Porter at all. The fact is, is that all you can ask of your cornerbacks is to stay with a player for 3-4 seconds and keep it tight. You can’t expect corners to cover forever. We could have Mel Blount and Rod Woodson back there and they’d be struggling at the moment. Why?….no pass rush.

QBs have an eternity to pass against us at the moment. You can’t expect to give QBs 5 seconds plus constantly. When we send in a blitz, it still gets picked up. Outside of Ellis, who should never be relied upon to be a pass rusher as an interior lineman, our pass rush has been terrible this year. We get no consistent pressure. Without that help, our secondary will naturally struggle, it’s simply the way the game works. In addition, without that speed and athleticism at OLB our blitz packages struggle to get to the QB as well. There’s a reason the only time we get pressure on blitzes is with Harper or Vilma instead of our OLBs. We have got to get younger, faster and more athletic at those positions or we’ll be wasting 2 of the better CBs we’ve had in our history. Our DBs are deep…but nobody can cover forever.

.. if the opposite QB gets pressured “meanigfully” which it hasnt happened much as of late

And everyone would gripe about how bad they are. This is a self forfilling prophecy waiting to happen

Yes…in Dallas.

On 4th down GW seemed to put us into man to man coverage and back our corners off. Our corners haven’t been playing extremely well(especially Greer) and we’re not generating a good enough pass rush. I think those are the elements to our decline atm. Hopefully it will all come together around playoff time when it needs to.

ST have been horrid ALL year, putting our D in terrible field position. Did Cincy ever start their drives further than their own 40?!?!?! While certainly not the only reason for a questionable D performance, it doesn’t help that the opponent’s O only has to drive half the field to score!!!!

/frustration with Greg Mac(not the)Mahon

the game would have been much different and we’d be looking at the defense’s performance on Sunday in a different light. We probaly would have held them to 19 or 22 pts. We would have had the ball with 10 minutes left in the game and an 8 pt lead and the momentum. The momentum switched at that penalty.

Our whole performance could be improved hugely if we cleaned up the penalties. If we had only half the penaties, we would have dominated this game. Ironically we won in large part becuase of their offside penalty.

First of all in the begining our offense was struggling to drive down the field using a lot of the clock and once getting in the rezone were letting penalties, sacks, fumbles and interceptions negate the drives but our defense was relatively rested and able to cover their backs. Now we are make absurdly fast drives down the field. Abet having to settle for field goals more than last year but still not eating up much of the clock and putting the defense back on the field much quicker and more often. This in itself will give the oponents more opportunitines and wear down our defense. Even before the other offense teams were able to drive down the field fairly regularly but our defense goal line stance was superior and often limited them to 3 points. As our running game comes back stronger and more consistantly our defense should be better able to return to form and if we can eat up more clock the other teams will have less oportunties to expose our weaknesses, and yes we have some, but then everyone does which is why so much time is spend studying game tape.

If you score more, you give the opposing offense more chances to score in turn. We can’t blow every team out 34-3. The more opportunities a team has, the higher the probability that they will score.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

1. Less frequent blitz plays called by GW has shown up the front 4’s inability to pressure opposing QB’s, while appearing to help stop the run.

2. Two out of three Saints linebackers are slower than most, poor in coverage and … generally unspectacular – trying to put it politely so Stu doesn’t jump down my throat.

3. DB’s are forced to do more work because of both of the above, meaning on their off days, the whole defense looks poor.

I’m wondering if the fall off in the defense has anything to do with chemistry. The secondary has seen a lot of different players in different positions the last few weeks. That has to affect the practice sessions and how guys play together during the game.

The level of competition is a tempting excuse, but I think inaccurate. The Falcons and Steelers are two of the best teams in the in the league, and neither put up exceptional offensive numbers against the Saints (Falcons had less than 350 total yards in regulation). Ryan had 228 yards on 63% completions, and Roethlisberger had 195 yards on 61% completions. All three QBs since the bye have had much better numbers.

The lack of a pass rush has been a problem all year, so I don’t think that can really be the cause of recent performances either.

I do think the return of the big plays and fast scoring is part of it, but that can’t tell the whole story. The Saints may not have been doing a lot of that earlier in the year, but it was happening, and the defense didn’t seem to suffer because of it.

Team and unit chemistry is impossible to quantify and hard to identify, but I think it’s probably the single biggest factor. The good news is that it should improve over the next month.