“Fact is you got to rebound, just like you do every week. We haven’t felt a loss in a long time not since almost exactly a year ago in the last game of last season,” says Saints quarterback Drew Brees. “It’s been that long since we’ve felt a loss which is a good thing, but then again you’ve got to be able to respond to something like that.”
In truth, the Saints haven’t played very good football the last three games. A few common factors have been seen in the close wins at Washington and Atlanta and in the team’s first loss of the season.
The Saints have struggled to run the ball as a team, tackled poorly and given up big passing plays on defense.
In Washington, the Saints ran the ball 24 times for 55 yards, that’s 2.3 yards per carry. At Atlanta, the Saints rushed for 26 times and picked up 95 yards on the ground, good for an average of 3.7 yards per carry. The Dallas game saw the Saints call just 13 runs for 65 yards, giving you a five yards per carry average, problem was there were just 13 runs called.
“We haven’t executed as well as we should in the run game and that’s been everybody. I mean everybody has a hand in the run game. I have a hand in the run game as much as the offensive line, the running backs, and the receivers you know blocking down the field and the situations and everything else,” Brees says. “All in all, when you’re balanced and you’re able to mix the run and the pass effectively and really just be efficient at both, then each one kind of just sets up the other and you become very efficient on offense.”
“It could be a number of different things. It could be the running backs not hitting the holes right. It could be the defenses playing well. There are a lot of things that factor into the running game,” says running back Mike Bell who tends to feel the burden to move the ball on the ground should be on the backfield’s shoulders. “We’re trying to work on it to get it better and I think that we will. We have great running backs in the room, and it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable. So we’re going to take accountability on our shoulders and try to find a way to get it better, because the offensive line, the quarterback, are doing a great job. We got to do a better job with our runs than we’ve been getting.”
You sensed this week at Saints camp that yes, players felt they could do better, execution wise, but that more balanced play calling has to be done as well, and that success on the ground will translate into more opportunities. “Obviously it starts with coach Payton and then us. We obviously have to do a good job that when he calls the runs, we have to get at least four yards so that he can still continue to call those runs, and we’re still continuing to give our offense the second and six, instead of the second and nines, second and 10s,” says running back Reggie Bush. “It goes hand in hand, play calling and us. It’s a total team effort, but we definitely have to have a balanced attack if we want to go pretty far in these playoffs.”
The Saints also in the past few weeks are tackling very poorly, allowing plenty of yards after the catch and the team’s defense has now dropped to 22nd in the league over all, 25th against the pass, and 18th against the run. A lot of those missed tackles have come in the running game. In the last four games, opposing rushing attacks have combined for 410 yards. The two largest outputs in those games were New England with 122 yards on the ground, and Dallas with 145 yards.
“It just comes down to each player at your position, just knowing that you have to own that skill and know when game day comes, you have to feel as if you’re prepared to wrap guys up and get them down,” says safety Darren Sharper.
Injuries certainly haven’t helped the Saints defense in the last couple of weeks, especially in the secondary where rookie Malcolm Jenkins has been getting picked on, think of the double move by Miles Austin last week that went for a big touchdown.
“Teams try to pick and choose their situations, and part of it’s been me. I haven’t played as well as I would have liked,” says cornerback Malcolm Jenkins whose been getting the rookie treatment from opposing offenses the last couple of weeks. Jenkins has seen double moves, picks, isolations, and simply plenty of attempts going his way to test him . “It all comes with the territory and the position so, there’s a lot of things I can still learn from the film. Some things are going to happen, some of them I can correct, so you just continuously try and get better.”
“You know it just is what it is right now and he’s learning from all of those mistakes. I will tell you this is that he rarely repeats the same mistake,” says Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. “Right now he’s such an aggressive kid that he’s going to bite on a few double moves, and he’s got a bulls eye on him on that, and he knows that. When you’re a rookie it’s even a bigger bulls eye.”
HOW I SEE IT
The cure for the problems could be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs are coming off of a win against Seattle, but they have just two wins all season. If you remember the last time these two teams met, the Saints were in the midst of a turnover problem, with a turnover here, a turnover there, every where a turnover. 38-7 was the final score last time and I don’t see anything to lead me to believe that it won’t be a similar game this time around.
Bell rushed for 75 yards and a pair of touchdowns. I’d look for the Saints to put an emphasis on the running game and look to take out a frustrating loss against Dallas out on the Bucs. 35-10 your final this week with the Saints securing home field throughout the playoffs for the first time in franchise history!
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