I do want to say, my heart is saddened to hear about Willis' season being over - I hope it's not true, but, probably is. Chris Borland has played well, but, he's not Willis. Willis will almost surely end up with a bust in Canton - you can't just replace that. His leadership, his experience and not to mention his pure physical gifts. It sucks to see something like this to happen to, not only a great player, but, who seems to be a great person as well. Today, I'm pouring out a little bit of my coffee for him.....
What always has to be remembered in a game like this are a couple things:
1. The Saints had the longest active home winning streak of anyone in the league. The Dome is a hard place to play and the Saints are a very talented football team.
2. We were playing against, statistically, the best QB in the game right now.
With those two things considered, I thought we played a heck of a football game. It wasn't the cleanest, it wasn't dominant, it wasn't always pretty. But, we found a way to win. Above everything, I saw in this game, what we didn't see in the losses to Ari, Chi and St. Louis - a team that fought to the end. In the end, the Rams loss might be one of the best things that happened to our team - if having our backs against the wall now gets our guys to play with an edge again. I saw an edge to the way they played. Yes, there were drops, yes, there were missed blocks, yes, there were blown coverages, but, there was a fight and an edge to the way they played.
As usual, I'll start with the positives on Offense and work to the negatives:
Offense:
Positives - We ran the ball with a determination and, for the most part, ran the ball well. I thought CK's pocket awareness was MUCH better this game than last game. I thought, for the diversity with which NO threw at us from their defense, we did a pretty good job of executing through that. There was a lot of back and forth chess match going on between Roman and Rob Ryan. The biggest positive from this game was, there's still a lot of food left on the table. We're doing better, from an execution standpoint, of a lot of things that plagued us earlier in the year, but, had some BIG drops in the game. I can't remember a game when we had that many drops from our receivers. Boone had a much better game than he'd been having. Did a good job on some pulling blocks and did MUCH better in pass pro - as well as Iupati. I thought Iupati played the best out of any our lineman. He was dominating in the run game and solid in pass pro. I think a lot of it had to do with a commitment to the run towards his side. If we can get that kind of thing going a lot - he'll keep playing at a pro-bowl level.
Negatives: There's still a lot of "little things" to work on. When I look at an offense like the Saints compared to ours. What I see more than a lot of schematic difference, are "little" things in execution. Sometimes, it's how guys will "sit" in or "work" some zones. Sometimes, it's in throwing the ball away when a call doesn't work. Whatever the situation, they have an offense that is very good at all the little things. Sacks were still an issue in this game. Some of it was on the O-line, one was on Carlos Hyde, a couple were on CK himself. There needs to be an understanding - at all times, that sometimes, you're not going to win on a play, when that happens, get to your checkdown or throw the friggin ball away! We tried to dial up a couple homerun plays during the game and when they didn't work, CK ended up putting himself into a bad situation. The Saints had the same thing happen - they dialed up a homerun play - it wasn't there, so Brees got rid of the ball. CK has to do those things, you can't put the team into a 2nd and very long situation, the odds of making a first down go through the floor.
Marcus Martin played better, but it still sucks that Kilgore's injured as Kilgore was playing better IMO. I think he still looks a little overmatched, especially against a NT alignment.
Receivers have to catch the ball. Could some of them been a little better thrown? Yeah. But, you still gotta catch the ball. That's why you're in the NFL, because you can make catches others can't.
Defense:
Positives - Our secondary was a big positive in this game. We didn't get a lot of intense pressure on Brees, but our secondary played very solid in this game. Our 2 sacks at the end in OT came, really, as coverage sacks. They, at times, gave up some bonehead stuff, but, overall, they had some outstanding plays. The positives outweighed the negatives. If Aldon can be anything close to what he's been in the past, our secondary is going to look very good over the rest of the season.
Chris Borland has been a bright spot. I'm still super bummed that Willis will be out, but, you can see the affect of having 2 very good, leaders at the position. Just like how the Ravens would seem to consistently "find" LB's when Ray Lewis was there, we have that as well. I don't think it's as much a matter of "finding" these guys, it's having great examples at the position playing ahead of these guys. They get coached at all times by not only their coach, but a guy who's playing the position as well.
So, I'll give a quick scouting report on Borland to help out with the analysis:
He's a very aggressive LB who plays with a downhill mentality. Plays without hesitation, when he sees it, he goes and gets it. High motor guy, will chase down plays from wherever he's at. Plays very low at the POA(point of attack) and slips blocks well. Can be violent in the hole against a lead blocker, but struggles against Guards in the hole. Has a nose for the football and will usually end up around the ball. Reads lineman well and flies around to his spots in pass coverage. Tends to be a little stiff in his coverage, plays coverage more like a college style looking for "landmarks" instead of receivers. Chases plays with good angles and doesn't overrun plays often. Can be a little too aggressive when coming from the backside on plays. Plays faster than he is - his high motor and ability to read what he's seeing allow him to play faster than he truly is.
Going back to secondary, Bethea continues to impress. To me, I think he's playing the most solid football of anyone in the secondary. He hasn't been a culprit on many plays and has provided quite a few "splash" plays. You can see it on the field that he's really emerged as a leader in the secondary.
Negatives - After Ian Williams went down, our run defense went down as well. Not all of NO effective runs came against our 3-4 front, but, Dial seemed timid at the POA. He also got little to no push in passing situations from our base defense. Our pass rush was inconsistent, but was helped by our coverage.
As positive as the secondary was, they did have a few negatives. Eric Reid was beat deep several times. A couple of them, I'm not sure about. Some of the plays that look like he's the culprit, I'm not 100% sure about, the defense is really hard to figure out what we're trying to do on those plays, so, I can't be sure he really is at fault of not. We had a big blown coverage late in the game that allowed the Saints to convert a huge 4th down that led to the TD to take the lead.
Overall though, the defense went up against one of the best offenses in the league in a situation where they have, historically, been even better - averaging over 35 points per game in the Dome and held them to 24 points without 3 All-Pro's. That's pretty good.
As usual, breakdowns to follow
