New Orleans Saints 24 @ New England Patriots 27: The Morning After

At least until the third possesion then things started to click. Reggie Bush had some nice runs and effort on that drive. Shockey looked good and so did Wendys. The defense wasn’t great. Our secondary didn’t have their best night. Greer got juked pretty good from Welker Jr. out there. The run defense needs to improve some. I hate to put to much emphasis on preseason, because we never know how the coaches are dialing up the plays. I would like to think we are keeping it pretty vanilla out there, but I also had that thought for the 2007 and 2008 season. It would be interesting to see what we thought about the preseason games last year and compare to this year.

1. Casillas is a strong side backer and he plays Shanle’s position. I don’t think the Saints are considering him at weakside where Dunbar plays at this time. I think the guy that has to be worried about Casillas’ play is Shanle, not Dunbar.

2. Rod Harper has an injured hip. I don’t think he was active in the game.

This guy is lightning fast and hits like an eighteen wheeler. The most impressive down he played is when the patriots ran the ball between their right tackles. GW sent Junior blitzing off the QB right side, after the runner got about 4-5 yards down field Junior caught the SOB. I think this happened in the 4th quarter.

Hopefully we all can agree that Pierson Prioleau is horrible, and there is no chance in hell he would make the final roster.

Jonathan Casilas appeared to be one of the few players that could actually wrap up when tackling. Why is so hard for other people?

Larry Beavers had a good Kickoff return for a touchdown, however I would rather see him fully catch the ball and get 5-10 yards on the punt return, rather than have a return for a TD.

What is the deal with special teams? I know it is not the talent. The talent is there we all know that. I am starting to wonder if the special teams coordinator needs to come up with different blocking and covering schemes, because it appears every team in the league knows how to exploit our special teams defense. The NFL took away the wedge formation, I would think it would be easier to cover knowing they could not wedge a kickoff or punt return.

Pierre Thomas had a solid game. He was giving 110% the entire time he was in play. Most memorable play was the flat pass neat the goaline.

Drew Brees: I did not see that many 3 WR+1 TE sets in the game. I am actually beginning to think that Robert Meachum is the missing piece of this forumla.

Reggie Bush: STOP JUMP DIVING OVER PLAYERS. As soon as he got hit I had a sick feeling in my stomach.

My player of the game:
Garret Hartley: he did not miss any FG or PAT, in addition he proved that he can serve dual purposes. He does a solid job in punting, and a decent job in kickoffs. If you were like me, when you saw Thomas Morestead go down, your heart skipped a couple beats. I was thinking what the hell are we going to do now. Hartley pulled through, and is not that half bad.

They scrimmaged special teams – full go – for three days straight in Foxboro. They each found some weaknesses and I’m sure both teams will improve going forward. I really loved the two team practice. I think both teams got to see many more reps on their 80 man before they have to make the tough cuts. Nothing like a real opponent, and a quality one at that.

The Saints were very classy in and out of practice. They set the bar pretty high. We do they same thing with the Falcons next week, and hopefully it will be more of the same.

Good luck to you all on the season, and glad to hear your punter will be OK. Injuries suck, but pre-season injuries seem especially pointless.

Our pass defense was a lot worse than our run D. They were the ones leaving the patriot WRs with so much space and giving up big chunks of yards. Our Run D held up well, forcing the Pats to kick their first trip in red zone.

Graham kind of unimpressed me. Seems like he just needs to get more applicated to the game. He doesn’t seem comfortable out there and is still dropping the occasional ball.

Overall I think their first string outplayed ours. Everytime we tried to throw out guys were covered well and Drew had to fit it in there. Whereas Brady’s targets were enjoying no tight coverage from DBs. They also seemed to be pressuring Drew more than we got to Brady. Lets fix that guys.

Reggie looked good. Still got the speed and quickness! Pierre also looked good, grinding plays out.

It is abnormal to see anything but a basic defense in the preseason, let alone the first game of the preseason. Minimal blitzing from the Saints. The Pats on the other hand blitzed quite often which is the opposite of what they did last year. Its hard to take any stock in this game. The purpose is for the coaches to evaluate the 2’s and 3’s, that’s it. If any preseason game means anything it will be the third one, other than that, just worry about September 9th.

I distinctly remember very poor play from Patrick Robinson. Seemed like he was caught just out of position each time the ball was near him and he never learned how to tackle properly in little league football or something or just totally forgot how to tackle because he sucked in that area. Now grant you the whole team seemed to forget how to tackle properly last night but for a rookie 1st rounder trying to make a good impression, he was really bad.

He defiantly improved his chances of making the team. He has been having a good camp, and he was on fire last night. If the Saints cut him I am sure someone else will pick him up.

Not even close. 10 tackles and a sack. He was all over the place.

Gallette played well too.

Dropped sure TD on goal line. Then missed a block on QB bootleg. But before that, when he did get that long pass, looked like he was hobbling down the field. IMO he done nothing to make the team.

jr looked good, i def noticed his motor. beavers took one to the house and then followed it up with a muff (cut)!?!?! i wouldn’t get too worried about how the first team played. one of our biggest strengths as a team is game planning (which doesn’t exist in preseason)

Let us start with the pooper section shall we?

Our first team offense was absolutely horrid. We came away with 7 points on 3 possessions but should have been 0 as we went for it on 4th down instead of punting or going for a 57+ yard field goal. Brees was a little off on his accuracy, but even then he had two clear drops. The offensive line was pretty much playing like it was a game of touch football and the only word to describe it would be a sieve. Our first string running backs were also not exactly running strong. I recall quite clearly where there was a running lane to the right, a running lane to the left, and Bush decided to run forward into Goodwin and proceed to stand there til the holes closed and he got tackled. Bush has great eyes in space, but seems to really have trouble finding legit holes when he’s behind the line of scrimmage. A positive note would be the brief play of Shockey and Lance Moore. Shockey looks to be in great shape and catching and running with authority, let’s hope he stays healthy. Moore looked good in brief duty finding those soft holes in the slot that we became accustomed to, two years ago. Over all grade – Solid D Minus.

Not to be out done was the play of our first string defense. Which i will simply categorize as a huge non-effort. Our run defense seemed to be playing as usual, and by that i mean not at all. It’s hard for me to be upset at our terrible D-back play considering Brady could have taken cat naps after most snaps and still wouldn’t have been touched. Grade – Solid F.

Special Teams Coverage – yea let’s not go there.

Ok, enough of the bitching, let’s get to some things to look forward to and improvement. Casillas had a very strong outing. He was all over the place with double digit tackles in obvious limited duty. The only thing I’d take back is he didn’t wow me with his tackles or make big plays. He was simply incredibly steady. He keeps this up he’ll be the day one SLB.

Adrian Arrington. Made some solid plays and looked good for potentially the first time ever. If it wasn’t for the dropped ball in the endzone he very well might have been the player of the night for the most part. Still a sold outing.

As Stu would say, Tusk out-shined the pajama man. Equal yards on fewer carries for Tusk as well as a TD versus a fumble for pajama man. Move him up to the second string so we can see what he does with a bit more playing time next week.

DeMario Pressley actually looked pretty good in back up DT role. 5 tackles and a sack in limited duty is huge for an interior lineman.

Beavers – Sorry…not as high on him as some. Yes he had a great return for a TD…but you do not follow that up with a muffed punt.

That pretty much leads us the the baby boy we’ll call Junior. Guy dominated against the third stringers, no doubt about that. GW needs to give him the nod and move him up against the second stringers next time instead of Charleston. See what the boy can do against a slightly upgraded level of competition. Considering the gaggle of mediocrity we have at DE behind Smith, it should be fun to watch a hungry kid battle for the spot.

Ok, overall what did we expect shrug. Obviously our offense will get better and eventually click. You don’t lose 0 starters then suddenly forget how to be the number 1 offense again. More than anything, let’s hope our offensive linemen get their feet under themselves a little better and stop missing blocks that give free runs at Brees. It’ll happen…let’s just hope it happens before he gets nailed full bore. Unfortunately the two biggest worries I had about our defense still clearly showed through last night on first team. No ability to get pressure on the QB with our front 4 and a clear inability to stop the run. Again, it’s the first preseason game….guess i had my hopes up for much more considering the problems they’ve supposedly been causing in camp. Is this simply GW and players not tipping hands due to a preseason game? Or players simply playing with a lack of effort at the moment?

Well first one’s in the books. Again it’s preseason, can’t take too much out of it, especially the play of the first teams in all honesty. It’s the guys battling for roster spots that mattered most in these early games, and looks like we have a few to keep an eye out on. Let’s hope for steady improvement and enjoy the fun.

was definitely the player of the game, taking over the punting duties and ending with a 47 yd average on 5 punts with no blocks and 1 downed inside the 20. He also was 3/3 on pat’s and 1/1 on his lone field goal attempt. I think he have us a long-term kicker!

not that impressive. I’m so sick of hearing how he’s “the next antonio gates.” Gates is great and all but I’ll settle for Graham just not sucking and dropping balls like he did last night.

Was his blocking any good? I didn’t pay enough attention.

David Thomas and hopefully Shocker will hold down fort this season I guess. Just praying Shocker doesn’t get injured yet again.

But we did win TOP 31:06 mins to 28:56. mins Also, we had 21 first downs compared to pats 20.

Al woods get stood up by Maroney?

replay of Saints-Pats game @ 11:30 a.m. CST.

Whew, I thought he played well and moved the offense with command, makes me a lot more relaxed that he showed us something…

But I wasnt that impressed with Ramsey I dont think he has the arm stregnth we need
I also thought Chris Ivory looked much better then P J Hill
I thought Porter came out looking lazy and not wanting to be there.
And our 1st string O line looked flat footed in pass protection.

  My first thought was to agree with the previously expressed opinion that Morestead was an idiot to get hurt stopping a meaningless pre-season TD. Upon reflection, though, maybe we are better off with players who want to compete and win all the time, not some self-satisfied SB winners. You either care or you don’t.

The muffed punt by Beavers [giggles] was Fair Catch Interference.

He clearly called for a fair catch, yet the defender nearly ran into him, was in his alotted area when the ball arrived and interfered with the fair catch.

..It’s pre-season for the refs too. :-)