A quarter of the way through the 2016 NFL season, with 12 games remaining, the New Orleans Saints are making fans queasy. As with last season, New Orleans is playing like one of the worst defenses in the sport. Through four games, the Saints have allowed the second-most yards in football and the most points per game. According to DVOA, they aren’t quite as bad as they were in 2015 but are still ranked just 30th. Things are not going well.
It isn’t all because of personnel and execution. New Orleans has also fallen victim to some injuries and has played a pretty tough slate in terms of opposing offenses faced. It has already faced Oakland, Atlanta and San Diego as three of its four opponents. Those three teams have the first, second and seventh offenses in the NFL. Tough sledding indeed.
But part of their successes had been because they faced the Saints. New Orleans, a “horror show” according to the Washington Post, is routinely gashed on the ground and can’t stop the bleeding when an opposing team gets rolling. It has allowed the most yards in the league dating back to 2012. This has become routine.
Injuries have been part of the issue, and they are also part of the reason to be a bit optimistic moving forward. The team has a bye in Week 5, after which a number of the injured defensive starters could be back on the field. Cornerback Delvin Breaux, defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins and linebacker Dannell Ellerbe could all return to action in Week 6’s game against Carolina. Having players return is no guarantee of a changing of the tides on this side of the ball, but it will certainly help matters to have more options and better skill in the rotation.
What also helps is that NO has some successes to point to and hopefully repeat moving forward. Though it ranks near the bottom of the NFL, not every game has been a complete washout on defense. In Week 2 against New York, the Giants were held to 16 points and zero offensive touchdowns. It was a remarkable outcome considering how the matchup between these teams went in 2015. The Giants moved the ball, but New Orleans beared down in the redzone, forced numerous turnovers and held down the running game.
Those were all key ingredients to a winning formula, even though the team ended up losing. In Week 4 against San Diego, some of the same skills were on display in a Saints win. The Chargers managed a lot of points, but they couldn’t run the ball at all (38 total yards on 21 attempts) and had three turnovers.
Continuing to force turnovers will obviously be key, but so will the run defense. Ellerbe could make a huge difference in that department, as could Rankins. The team overall has found some things that work without them too. There were lapses in technique and hand placement that needed to be shored up before the San Diego game. Safety Kenny Vaccaro also felt that some players were lacking a winning mentality. It wasn’t that they weren’t giving full effort, as Vaccaro describes. It was more an issue of not knowing how good they could be and ignoring the media scrum surrounding their porous unit.
It won’t be easy for the Saints to turn around a trend like this that has been rolling against them for years, but the strategy is evident. Not every game is going to look like the match with New York, but forcing turnovers, selling out to stop the run and clamping down in the redzone are winning strategies. It will also help to get healthy! There is nowhere to go but up.
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