September 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Welcome back to @everyone's favorite Saints podcast! Today we're going over some of the All-22 notes from the loss against the Seahawks in Week 3 * How much is Rattler being pressured? How open are the WRs? * Playcalling breakdown -where's play action? * The *severe* lack of pressure by the DL * Carl Granderson's growth Also, don't forget to check out https://saintsfootballtalk.com for the latest news and Ellias' written thoughts as the season progresses! https://www.patreon.com/RDMedia https://revdeuce.com Or, drop a small donation through paypal/venmo? https://www.paypal.me/DeuceWindham https://www.venmo.com/Deuce-Windham *********************************** Follow me on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/RevDeuceWindham Come hang out on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/revdeuce Check out the Podcast on iTunes/iHeart Radio/Google Play or here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/whodatconfessional Join the Discord channel! https://discord.gg/XbarFTC *********************************** A very big thank you to my Patreon subscribers and everyone who donates to the show, for making this possible. Our Rewards program is up and going now! Make sure you check it out! Wanna buy Deuce something for his birthday? Here's the Amazon wish list!: http://a.co/4qwWOt2 ***********************************
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Who that God bless. Welcome to everybody to the hood
that professional podcast. We're going to go over some of
the notes, some of the analytics, some of the stats,
some of the film of the week three loss of Seattle,
as well as what we've seen that's good, what we
see that need work, and just our thoughts in general.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Are we going to confirm what we thought.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
After that game, because I know Elliots kind of went
off of the second half there. It was good to
see him being himself. That's what you saw. You saw
the man right there, not the commentator saw the man.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
How you doing, my friend, I'm pretty good, man. I
just finished eating three boiled eggs, trying to get my
protein and a nice big salad. No no carbs, no anything.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No tuna ma, no tune of mac. Get together off
them carbs, even.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Though I could go for some some vegan mac and cheese.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Right now, Well, I mean, let's start with it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You want to start offensive defensive side of this ball,
because I mean, obviously there's there's stuff to talk about
in all three facets.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
But yeah, yeah, I mean that's let's kick off with offense,
because the listen, you have an offense sive orientated head coach,
and uh, I think we felt if there was any
chance with this offense improving, you know, throughout the season,
at any point this season, it's gonna have to come
from the play calling, yeah, and the expertise from from
(01:38):
the offensive coordinator who won the Super Bowl last year
and turned it into a head coaching job.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And keellingmore so, it's this is a weird one for
me because when you look at the film and we
actually talked about this a little bit on X you
and I talked about it with Coach Blair and everything
in our little private chap. A lot of the play calls,
when you like put them in a vacuum, makes sense
in terms of you see cover three, We're gonna call
four verts, right. The drawback comes in where Spencer Rattler
(02:09):
has struggled with these. So, for example, the Saints have
called the seventh most passes at twenty yards or more,
but Ratler's only connected on three or thirteen of those.
Just to give everybody other stats which I do have
on the screen currently. With that said, the Saints offensive
receiving room between the receivers and the tight ends had
the seventh best separation in the entire NFL, so their
(02:30):
top ten and being able to separate create space. But
those passes are being completed, so you have more calling
things that in a vacuum makes sense. You see cover three,
let's run four verts, hold the safety, attack the scene.
Rattler's not completing that. But also in the defense of Rattler,
that wasn't his game anyway. Now, I'm not saying he
(02:52):
can't continue to grow. You want Ratler to grow. I mean,
I've said it for two years now. We want to
see growth and progress the same time. If you're not
seeing in those game situations, where are the things that
Rattler does do very well that work? For example, more
play action when he's in play action he has a
seven point higher QB rating no interceptions when playing play
action versus not play action. Where are the boots to
(03:15):
get him into space where he's operating well?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
More half field designs. That's one thing that's curious for me.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Like the play calling again in a vacuum makes sense,
but with what this offense is trying to do, as
you said, is very disjointed all the way the coaching level.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's really unfortunate only because and the coach is supposed
to maximize what his player does well and minimize what
he doesn't. Yeah, and there's some visual evidence there that
some of the things that Moore is asking Rattler to do,
(03:54):
he doesn't excel it. Meanwhile, the things that he does
excel it not seeing him use it a lot. And
I know the conversation is going to be had about
moving to shuck. I mean, eventually people are gonna start calling.
But I always look at coaching to squeeze the juice
out of the fruit. You have to be able to
(04:14):
squeeze the most amount of juice out of the fruit
that you have available. And there are things that don't
feel like more is doing well. Now, you pointed out
the number of deep shots and the low percentage, and
yet if the timing isn't right. You had an old
adage for Taysom Hill pull the trigger Taysum and it
(04:35):
was a lot of times because Taysoum was a little
bit late, so a lot of his balls would die
on him. In Rattler's instance, he's just not seeing it right.
There's routes that are coming open and he's not even
getting to the progression to even see the receiver. I
think you pointed out, he's going to his first or
(04:55):
his second read most of the time, and he's not
catching anything that may be on the back and wide open.
So at some point you tend to wonder, like, hey,
you maybe draw up a max protection shot play that
specifically designed to go deep, where it's like, hey, I'm
(05:17):
going to run two routes here. One is gonna go deep,
one is gonna go in immediate chunk it. Okay, Now,
something you brought up earlier, which was Ratler's percentage on
those deep balls. I saw it with Shuck during the preseason.
I saw it. Rattler ball location is very important. A
(05:41):
lot of great quarterbacks have elite ball location. Ratless ball
location isn't elite. It's not going to be. It hasn't
been to this point, and it wasn't in college. That's
who he is. As I've consistently said, if you're going
to attack downfield with Rattler, you have to have more length,
(06:04):
more catch radius, bigger targets, stronger hands. If you have MVS,
I think in this situation and he's your primary downfield target,
Ratler probably hits on more of those. And I saw
it with Shuck in the preseason game where there was
a miss ball in the end zone and it's like, okay,
(06:26):
number one, it's a lovey that's the primary target there.
But then you look at it and it's like, if that
guy is three inches taller, about two more inches of
arm length and maybe one more inch of hand size,
that's probably he at least gets his hands on the ball.
And so I think hitting smaller targets downfield, you know,
(06:48):
it's just it's possible, yes, but it's for the elite
of the elite, and neither one of the quarterbacks have
shown that they're at that level, though Shuck does show
that he has better ball okay in Ratler. So I
think to get rather effectively a Rattler effectively downfield, they
have to get some bigger targets. Unfortunately, that's not gonna
(07:09):
change this year.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, it's not. And that comes back to my point.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Like I said, Ratler has his issues while he's developing
and U and for anybody watching or listening, uh, three
weeks in, regardless of how you feel about Ratler, is
way too soon soon to even consider Shuck For multiple reasons. One,
you knew Shuck wasn't gonna be ready to year one. Anyway,
it's only three games. I always say you need a
minimum of two hundred snaps, especially for quarterback. You can
probably up that to three hundred if you really want
(07:33):
to evaluate where they're at this season. I think Rattler
deserves more chances. But my main bone is with how
more And I think this is a growth thing that
Moore has to learn more. Can't just come in and
run his system that he's designed, that he's been waiting.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Hey, I'm gonna be a head coach. Is what I'm
gonna run. Is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay, But you get given a quarterback who's not able
to do that, you get given a wide receiver room
that's not able to do all the things you want
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
You have to adapt to that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And one thing I'd like to see for More is
to adapt because we've in spots Rattler. Look at the
forty nine ers game where he can do some things
very well and that you can move the ball with that,
you still want to see him lead more scoring drives,
more touchdown drives. Again, none to take you know, skin
out of the game for Rattler, but at the same
time more it all rolls downhill and everything comes back
(08:18):
to him. Especially as the play caller. You've got to
put your guys in a position for success. In the
same way that we're talking about how silly it is
to just be running Alva Kamara up the a gap
and man blocking just to get his numbers up. I mean,
you're just gonna get the man hit stuff for no
reason when he's been an outside zoned guy for a decade.
You're not just running him a gap runs and then
going oh wow, why are we not.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Moving the football? I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
More wants to do a certain thing, but you've got
to design what you have right now, and right now,
I do not feel this offensive unit is being used
to his most effectiveness, even though, like I said, in
a vacuum, some of the plays make sense. But if
the players you have are not conducive to that, then
you've got to do something that is so his his.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Do you have like a little bomb? Uh, it's called
a little bomb? Sound? Do do do do? Do doo doo. Listen,
As we discussed something just doesn't seem right now. I
mentioned the preseason there were times when you see Shuck
come into the game and it seemed like the offense
just moved a little bit better. It seemed to be
(09:17):
a little bit more explosive. Don't know the reason for it,
but what if the decision to go with Rattler was
a collective decision rather than something that Moore would have
just decided on his own. And I think it's worth
it to have that discussion. Even though I never agreed
(09:40):
with Shuck being Moore's guy, he also was very instrumental
in scouting him on the back end, so he is
his pick for the guy that he would like to
work with. That may also explain why the competition went
(10:00):
on as long as it did, because he was waiting
for Shuck to completely to do something that said, hey,
the job is mine, and he gave them He gave
him up to the last minute to do that. Unfortunately
he was unable. But something about the way the offense runs,
because I mean even when even when Shuck came in
(10:21):
the game, one of the two passes he threw was
a deep pass. If I'm not mistaken, he took a
shot right out of the gate, and that may be
something about him that more saw where he can potentially
run the offense he wants to run. Now we agree
that a coach should do his best with what he
has and try to alter the offense or alter the
(10:45):
scheme to fit the talent that he has. But it
does make you wonder if his preference at quarterback is
playing number two now, not because he wanted it, but
because it was a collective decision between him and the
entire unit, which Mickey Loomis has said that is definitely
something that they wanted to provide for him, that extra
(11:07):
those extra voices, so he didn't feel like he was
doing it on his own, considering he's so young and
it's his first time as a head coach at any level.
So it's just something to make you wonder about.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think it's worth because I think that's probably the
pro and.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Con of having all these former head coaches on the staff,
because I don't think Mickey Loomis really gives.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
A heck who is throwing the ball.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
To be honest with you, I don't think Loomis his
entire career has really not cared about roster management in
terms of individual pieces.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
He's always left to the coach.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But when you have some of the influences around more,
even if he selected them, I do wonder how much
that came to that decision. But then I also fall
back to kind of like some of the things I've
been talking about, like, for example, the New Orleans Saints
have a run play action the twenty third most in
the NFL, so towards the bottom of the league. It
doesn't matter if you have Shuck or Rattler, you have
a young quarterback who needs to have help. One of
(11:58):
the things that is a primary help is play action
for all quarterbacks. Every quarterback throws better a play action.
It's effective regardless of how effective your running game is.
You can average two yards of carry and play action
still pulls linebackers in safeties down.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It still helps you out. To an example, Bo Knicks.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, I'm bringing up Sean Payton on a Saints podcast
in twenty twenty five, but bow Knicks has the six
most play action attempts, Right, Bo Nicks, a young quarterback
who needs help, who is not an elite talent, even
though drafted far higher than a rattler, has the sixth most.
You look at Jordan Love the third most. You look
at Daniel Jones, who is having an incredible start to
(12:35):
the season, the most illegue forty one percent forty Almost
half of every snap they do is a play action.
And when you and I talked about this, the league
is changing. This is not the Drew Brees era of
the Peyton Manning area. Everything's gonna be shot gun pistol
formation passing. The league has adapted defense at least, and
now offenses are readapting. We're getting more of those bigger
offensive linemen, those hog Molly's bigger you know, full backs
(12:57):
are making return traditional split end tight ends instead of
those X tight ends that you see with a Taysom
Hill style right. Play action becoming even more important in
today's NFL for young quarterbacks who help them out based
on how the defenses have changed. And yet more, whoever
is going to be there has got to help his guys.
And before the people who listen to the show are
gonna be like, well, Rev, the offensive line is so terrible. Again,
(13:19):
what were the numbers I just gave you. Rattler's the
eighteenth most pressured. It's not like he's in the top five,
top ten, or even the top fifteen. Now, I'm not
saying Ruiz hasn't been a problem.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
He is.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I'm not saying Simpkins had a great game filling in
a left guard.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
He didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But the point I'm making is there are elements of
this offensive coaching system has to do better if this
team's gonna win games and more importantly, put up points,
because even if they're not winning, they still got to
show that they have a future with the people they
have at their young guys, and right now you're not
seeing that.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I'm gonna throw something out to you that I think,
even though you mentioned the offensive line hasn't been because
it's not been great, but it's not been bad in
certain areas, and certain areas has been complete bad, but
it's just from a precious standpoint. I think the protection
schemes that they use in having Eric McCoy probably lends
itself to helping in that area. But there's one simple
(14:10):
fact that we do no In Moore's opening press conference,
he said that the offensive line was the heartbeat of
the offense, of the team in general, not even just
the offense, but of the team. They set the tone.
This offensive line hasn't played a single competitive snap together
(14:32):
as a unit. For me, I feel like this team's
because of the importance of that offensive line. Until they
get everyone healthy. I feel like the floor and ceiling
of this team is incredibly limited. They didn't play a
single competitive snap together. They played, you know, during training
(14:52):
camp in practices, but the first game McCoy didn't play right,
Benning got hurt, I believe the second game. So as
a unit, they have not played together. And if that's
what is supposed to be the engine of your team,
well the engine got gunking it right now. There's a
(15:14):
reason the Bilica ain't moving because your engine ain't. It
ain't firing in all cylinders. So I really do feel
like until they get the entire offensive line healthy and
playing together, they're not going to be nearly as good
as they could be.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I think that again, there's there's layers to the levels
of issues. And just to point out what you're saying,
come about the offensive line struggling. They have allowed one
of the higher rates of stuff percentages. So what that
means is defensive linemen, linebackers, etc. That get to the
backfield to hit the running back before they hit the
line of scrimmage. The New Orleans Saints have actually even
up the tenth most stuff attempts that's nineteen percent.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So there have been areas.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I actually argue they're failing more in the run game
than they are in the pass blocking game.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
And what is that doing well?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
It certainly makes me behind schedule are difficult. Yeah, agreed, right, yeah,
completely agreed. And and even in terms of like a
stacked box, you're not seeing the Saints be very respected.
You know, even with Alvin Kamara, the Saints only see
ten percent stacked box. That's eight or more people in
the box. That's the second lowest in the NFL. Only
(16:22):
the Miami Dolphins see less stacked boxes. So, if there's
an offensive line area that needs to improve, including how
it would by extension improve the passing game, it's definitely
run blocking. And a lot of that is playing together
with one unit, healthy, playing together.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
So and light boxes should be where should excel with that.
Alvin is thriving that. I mean that when you look
back at Alvin's rookie year, when you I mean when
he was as explosive as he was, it was because
he Ingram was dealing with the majority of the stacked boxes.
When Alvin came in, he was dealing with the light boxes.
You should be in theory getting production from that and
(16:58):
you're not and you and I I still see Kevin
Banks getting man handled in the run game at times.
I see in certain plays he can sustain a block.
I see another plays where his man is the person
that ends up blowing up the play. You don't have
Penning there, and left guard, you didn't have Fuaga there.
The receivers are tiny, so they're missing blocks right, the
(17:23):
tight ends and missing blocks. It's a collective issue, but
I the fact that Kelen added in more man gap,
more duo blocking. He wants to be a people mover
in the center of that offensive line. They want to
bully people to get the run game started, and they're
(17:45):
just not doing that right now. And I think that
is a is another collective issue that they've got to
figure out a way to deal with. That is gonna that,
along with the penalties, is going to be the primary
issue with why the offense can't score points. They're moving
the ball right, they're moving the ball, but then they're
going backwards a lot, and in that limits what you
(18:08):
can call on the play sheet. It screws up the rhythm,
it messes up the timing of everything. It's demoralizing. There's
a lot of factors that go into that that can
cause an offense to stall. So it is very much
coaching oriented and yet got to get that offensive line healthy.
(18:29):
I love seeing them sit Fuada this week. I'm like, listen,
I get that he wants to play. Sit the dude,
tell his knee is better. It was. It was terrible
watching him be the last offensive lineman to defend his
quarterback to actually get there. Ratler out of bounds, like
everybody on the team, or at least that was on
(18:50):
the field, made it to the sideline, and you see
Fuaga limping or walking gingerly, and he's the last guy
to get there. That said a lot. You can't expect
the guy to hold up when the bullets are come in,
and expecting to hold up when he can't even get
over to the sideline to protect this quarterback or have
a say soul and a scrum. So I thought it
(19:12):
was important that they sent him to be good to
get pinning back. At some point, you get all five
offensive linemens started. At some point, the offense will adjust,
the scheme will adjust, and I think you could see
them start to get some traction going into October.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
This flips me to the other side defensive line. Because
I've said this for years, I'm full believe in this.
You win games in the trenches. Defensive line playing worse
than the offensive line. Specifically, in pass defense, New Orleans
Saints are the thirty second team in the NFL in
pressure rate. The New Orleans Saints have the slowest average
time to reach the quarterback. They're allowing a three point
(19:50):
almost three point two second window to throw the ball
on average, see worse in the NFL. They are twenty
sixth if I'm remembering right in getoff terms of like
how quickly they pop off the line, get and penetrate
twenty six So when it comes to that, that is
probably my biggest issue right now with the entire team.
(20:12):
I've had to pick one thing. Hey, what is causing
this team to lose games?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Right now?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
The pass defense has absolutely no pressure. And while I'm
not saying that the secondary should be absolved of all sin,
I am saying that when you're giving a the worst,
if you're giving over three seconds for a quarterback, any
quarterback in this league, to throw the football, it doesn't
matter if you've got prime Jabari Greer in Keenan lewis right,
you're going to have some secondary issues, and that isn't
(20:37):
accounting for a second year player and a essentially career
journeyman on the opposite side starting.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well. I mean, Chase Young is a big part of
that is a reason they paid him, sure that money. Right,
you look at the way Chase moves, the explosiveness he
moves with, the speed, the ferocity that he moves with.
There's nobody else on that defensive line that moved like
Chase Young. There's a reason he was a number one
(21:06):
overall pick. And so I think a lot of what
this team wants to do is very much dependent on
Chase Young. I think he unlocks things. However, as we discussed,
if you play, if you're gonna play as much zone
coverage as we do, you have to get a you
have to get a pass rush. If you don't have
the pass rush, it's harder to play zone coverage. So,
(21:28):
leaning back to coaching, at what point do you say, Okay,
in these critical downs, we should probably play man just
to make the coverage a little bit tighter, just to
make the throw a little bit harder. Because it works
in reverse. Right, to play zone, you need an elite
pass rush. But if you don't have an elite pass
(21:49):
rus playing a little bit more, man gives that pass
for us time to get there, and at the very
least the quarterback has to be better with his throws.
And so again, one of the things that I saw
when I looked, and that you know, was aggravating for me,
was seeing our linebackers drop and covering nothing like that.
(22:11):
There's something about the coverage scheme that isn't working quite well.
I'm seeing way too many instances of a linebacker dropping
into coverage. It's almost it's almost like the concepts of
the opposing offense aren't being matched very well schematically. So
you're seeing a linebacker dropping the coverage, but there's no
(22:33):
routes or no action going on around him, so he's
covering grass.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and a lot of times, guy is the Carl Granerson.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
By the way, He's only got fifty nine pass rushes
through three games compared to Camen Jordan's seventy four and
Brazi's seventy eight, and he's he leads you in pressure.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I'm talking mostly about between Warner and Davis. I
can understand dropping Grannison because Grannison has proven pretty solid
in space, I think again, because you don't have anybody
else that says good as him and dropping he's the
one that So you can't drop Cam that much. We
talked about it.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Cam has far fewer drops, so he's gonna be your.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Pro man coverage right stop with these short zone drops,
bring pressure and then rely on man.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And if you get burned, you get burned, You get burned.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Correct, And that is on that's critical downs. I'm not
saying change the whole scheme around. I'm saying on those
gotta have it downs, those critical downs, just man up. Hey,
if we get beat, we get beat, fine, but I'd
rather get beat with a guy close by and he
just got beat one on one. Then watch one of
my players not helping at all in past coverage or
(23:43):
in the rush or anything. He's just god in grass
while the other players are getting beat. There was one
play where he threw it into It was about three defenders,
but because they were playings on coverage, everybody was at
least a yard away from the catch at least, so
the quarterbacks had to throw the ball to a spot.
So again on coaching, you have to ask what am
(24:03):
I asking these guys to do, are they able to
do it? And if they're not doing it well, before
we start to swap out the components, maybe I need
to adjust what I'm doing. I would like to see
them get out of the excessive zone coverage because it's
not playing to their strengths. Right now, they're not getting
(24:24):
enough pass rush pressure to be able to do what
they want to do.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, and this is that wonderful tale of what do
you need more? If you need more coverage, you need
more pass rush, you need both. Like right now, Brian
Berz actually leads the team in pressures and is the
only defensive lineman whose average time to pressure is two
point five seconds or less. Right, So, to your point,
and when I'm bringing up the Chase Young thing, I
think really matters here. I mean because right now Cameron
Jordan's getting all those snaps. Cameron Jordan is a five
(24:52):
percent pressure rate, as in, five percent of his pass
rush snaps have resulted in a pressure. And again this
isn't like say we don't appreciate Cam, but it's clear
that this style of defense that they're one to row
with day relies on pressure that just isn't there. Like
I said, you're giving an average of three point two seconds. Right, So,
just like the offensive play call, it needs to be
(25:13):
better style to the players that are available. The defense
has that same thing right now for me, where I
get what you want to do, but you don't have
available what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You need to adjust to what you have.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
And I bring up Brian Bersee because I like Braze,
but he's flashy, he's not consistent, and if he's the
one leading you in pressures and your time to get
that means we probably need to make adjustments to better
set what this defense has available. That's not going to
work long term and you can't. I just don't think
it's a good idea. Is we're gonna wait for Chase Young.
I mean, I still believe you go out winning every game.
(25:47):
Like I would be upset if the Saints are doing
like we are just chalking up the Bills game as
an l I'd be very pissed if that was the case.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Now, US fans, we can do that. Analysts, you can
do that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
They need to go in and believe they can win,
and you do that by putting the team on the field.
So That's where I'm at with that. I think both
play calling, sides need to adjust. I have more hope
and more adjusting and growing because he's new at it
than I do.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Stay.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
But you know, again, you can't have a guy who
isn't arguably even a three down DT right now being
your leader there and hope.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
To have consistent coverage success. You just can't.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I absolutely agree. I mean, and it's a it's a
Chicken or the egg scenario. Right, It's like, hey, I
don't blitz because I don't trust the coverage, right, and so,
I mean, you had Jabar Grig, you had portas. So
Greg Williams was very blitz happy, and he could be
blitz happy because he trusted the secondary. However, I'd rather
(26:45):
get beat losing man to man than get beat because
there's wide open area. So it's like, if I'm gonna
get beat, I might as well control how I'm getting beat.
If I'm if I'm gonna get beat Sending seven, if
I'm gonna get beat Sending eight, at least it's I know,
because I didn't have enough coverage, enough players in coverage.
(27:05):
All my guys got beat one on one. But if
I'm going to be a coverage based defense that wants
to do all of this rotating and all of this
disguise and all of this keeping guys eyes on the ball. Well,
we haven't seen a single turnover outside of the funel,
but we haven't seen a single you know, interception where
it's there on the ball. Like it's not helping them
(27:29):
having their eyes on the ball. Actually it's not helping anything. Again,
And I'm looking at the inside linebacker specifically because I
don't think they have a feel for coverage. It's almost
like they don't understand that there's potential. It's like they're
not being coached what to expect that may be developing
behind you. They're just being told to drop fifteen or
(27:50):
twenty yards and play in this area of the field.
And like I said, you're seeing spots where they're being
asked to do that, but they're not guarding any routes.
They're not covering any routes. Routes are going behind them,
over the top of them, somewhere in front of them,
way to the left, and all you see is a
linebacker just standing there with twenty yards of grass between
him and the next player and nothing is going on.
(28:14):
That's coaching to me. I'd rather just say Hey, the Mario,
you take the you take the running back here, Pete,
maybe you drop middle zone a line til you take
the slot. Right, we'll we'll send a blitz and everybody
knows who that man is. You get beat, you get beat,
make the goddamn tackle. But that's a that's a to me,
that's easier than saying, hey, we're gonna drop these people
(28:36):
in coverage and and still still get beat here. So
I definitely want to see Staley continue to adjust. I
saw less sugaring. Yeah, I saw I saw less sugaring.
I saw more five man pressures. They didn't get there often,
and yet to me, that still feels better than had
(28:56):
it been for a man and not getting there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
It's it's a little you're trying, like you're trying.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, it's more excusable for me. So how about this?
Do you do you feel like the special teams issue
was like operation like the cause. The special teams thing
was the only it was the only thing that wasn't
prevalent the first two weeks.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Want to hear one stat on d line just to
give them one bit of positive because I was material
shout out to the defense.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Getting better against the run.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
They're currently the sixth best team against the run in
the NFL right now in terms of yards per attempt.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
They have gotten better at that.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We've writ that the past couple of years under DA
that's been a problem with most of the same roster.
This team's doing much better against the run, and that
at least deserves a little bit of praise. But as
far as special teams goes, I'm definitely not ready to
turn on coach Phil again. This is coach Phil Galiano's
first chance being the full time special team guy. He's
been an assistant with multiple spots for a long time,
(29:57):
first time running it, and I do look at like
you're saying like this is a we didn't see that
the first two games. Obviously it killed them here in
the third. But you gotta you you're really talking for
the most part, a lot of these coaches. Yeah, you've
got experience, but then you're equally mixed with the guys
who ultimately have the decision making. They're new, right, so
you give a little bit of leeway, a little bit
(30:17):
of growth there. The only point I would add to that, though,
I think he can clean up the coverage. He's certainly
had a great mentor in Rizzy. But the Groupie thing,
three straight games, three straight miss field goals, with a
lot of them being chip shots. At some point it
stops being hey, what are you doing wrong? Don't do
that again, and it becomes we got to find somebody else. Yo,
(30:38):
that's a pattern.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
I concur that. Did you know that Groupie ranks like
fifth or sixth a day, even maybe fourth in miss
field goals since his Rooki year.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'd have to look it up. I didn't know that.
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
You didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, it's uh. Listen, you
have a you have a roster exemption for a kicker
that's on the rock now. To me, when I look
at the way that Groupie handled the off season and
training camp is damn near perfect, right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And coach Phil has said the same thing. You're talking
about him being great in camp in preseason.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
But what I'm seeing is he's melting under the bright lights.
Whereas Charlie Smith made a couple of big kicks during
preseason that were like important for us winning the game.
Now you've got three weeks, three misses. Small scale, They
(31:39):
probably don't individually change either game. Whether he hits the
kicks or not grand scheme. Your primary issue on offenses
is you aren't scoring enough points and you left nine
on the field because of your kicker. Yeah, so grand
scheme is like if we're going into against September and
(32:01):
seeing what isn't working, and it continues into October with
you know, player issues, you absolutely turn to Charlie Smith.
I don't care if he got a CDFG on his chest.
You probably turn to Charlie Smith and see what he
can do in the games. Because Groupie has had a
consistent chance to be consistent, and yet just when you
(32:25):
felt like he was getting to a point where you
can trust him, you find out you leave a house
for a bit, you come back and all the cook
is gone.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That's a heck of a reference, man, not my cookies.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Real quick talking about Groupie is I just look at
because I was curious after you said that. Groupie is
currently thirty one out of thirty three kickers this year
in terms of field goal percentage, He's at the bottom.
And if any kicker who's kicked more than three kicks,
he's second to last. Only Matt Gay in Washington is
doing worse. In fact, Young way Ku, who got released
(33:03):
had a ten percent higher field goal make percentage this
year than Blake Groupie. And obviously we recognized Ku having
really hurt the Saints in the past. But I think
group is the only one I'm looking at right now
on special teams and really going, hey, it might be time.
I mean, three straight games. You only get seventeen in
the season, so you can't waste opportunities.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I concur I said, I look at this team and
I September is a is a data point month. They
health didn't come out the way you wanted it to
come out, especially on the offensive line.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
And defensive line with Chase Young.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
And defensive line, you know, some of the things you
wanted to do on working the way you wanted to work.
So there's tons of data that they have as a
coaching staff to say, Okay, this isn't working, how can
we improve on it? Just like the scramble drill. I
thought it was important that Kellen Moore pointed out that, hey,
(34:01):
they do not do well on the scrammer drill, and
yet that's one of ratless better traits. Why haven't you
been practicing that right that you would think that those
are like the details that can lead to a difference
being made during the game, and so them having those
things constantly come out that things that aren't working, what
(34:23):
can they adjust. It's important for them to take those
data points and make the necessary adjustments because it's very
important to be playing your best football as a season progresses.
I can forgive them for what we've seen in September.
In fact, it was probably the hardest stretch. I just
need to see them improve and clean up the obvious
(34:46):
things that need to be cleaned up, and then I
would expect to start seeing some progress going into October.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I agree with that, man. So we'll have more
on our episode on Thursday. Hope y'all enjoyed this one.
Who that God bless any final words for us Elias.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Now check out Saints Football talk dot com. I did
the Monday Evening Quarterback skip the good, bad, and Ugly
article because it was all ugly. Didn't even feel the
energy right, So I skipped that article. But I will
probably drop another article the Monday Evening Quarterback just some
(35:26):
some of the similar things that I felt the bottle
in here probably just expanded a little bit more. But
you'll check out the website and then we will catch
you all on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Who that God bless you, Then face
Who that God bless. Welcome to everybody to the hood
that professional podcast. We're going to go over some of
the notes, some of the analytics, some of the stats,
some of the film of the week three loss of Seattle,
as well as what we've seen that's good, what we
see that need work, and just our thoughts in general.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Are we going to confirm what we thought.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
After that game, because I know Elliots kind of went
off of the second half there. It was good to
see him being himself. That's what you saw. You saw
the man right there, not the commentator saw the man.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
How you doing, my friend, I'm pretty good, man. I
just finished eating three boiled eggs, trying to get my
protein and a nice big salad. No no carbs, no anything.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No tuna ma, no tune of mac. Get together off
them carbs, even.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Though I could go for some some vegan mac and cheese.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Right now, Well, I mean, let's start with it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You want to start offensive defensive side of this ball,
because I mean, obviously there's there's stuff to talk about
in all three facets.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
But yeah, yeah, I mean that's let's kick off with offense,
because the listen, you have an offense sive orientated head coach,
and uh, I think we felt if there was any
chance with this offense improving, you know, throughout the season,
at any point this season, it's gonna have to come
from the play calling, yeah, and the expertise from from
(01:38):
the offensive coordinator who won the Super Bowl last year
and turned it into a head coaching job.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And keellingmore so, it's this is a weird one for
me because when you look at the film and we
actually talked about this a little bit on X you
and I talked about it with Coach Blair and everything
in our little private chap. A lot of the play calls,
when you like put them in a vacuum, makes sense
in terms of you see cover three, We're gonna call
four verts, right. The drawback comes in where Spencer Rattler
(02:09):
has struggled with these. So, for example, the Saints have
called the seventh most passes at twenty yards or more,
but Ratler's only connected on three or thirteen of those.
Just to give everybody other stats which I do have
on the screen currently. With that said, the Saints offensive
receiving room between the receivers and the tight ends had
the seventh best separation in the entire NFL, so their
(02:30):
top ten and being able to separate create space. But
those passes are being completed, so you have more calling
things that in a vacuum makes sense. You see cover three,
let's run four verts, hold the safety, attack the scene.
Rattler's not completing that. But also in the defense of Rattler,
that wasn't his game anyway. Now, I'm not saying he
(02:52):
can't continue to grow. You want Ratler to grow. I mean,
I've said it for two years now. We want to
see growth and progress the same time. If you're not
seeing in those game situations, where are the things that
Rattler does do very well that work? For example, more
play action when he's in play action he has a
seven point higher QB rating no interceptions when playing play
action versus not play action. Where are the boots to
(03:15):
get him into space where he's operating well?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
More half field designs. That's one thing that's curious for me.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Like the play calling again in a vacuum makes sense,
but with what this offense is trying to do, as
you said, is very disjointed all the way the coaching level.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's really unfortunate only because and the coach is supposed
to maximize what his player does well and minimize what
he doesn't. Yeah, and there's some visual evidence there that
some of the things that Moore is asking Rattler to do,
(03:54):
he doesn't excel it. Meanwhile, the things that he does
excel it not seeing him use it a lot. And
I know the conversation is going to be had about
moving to shuck. I mean, eventually people are gonna start calling.
But I always look at coaching to squeeze the juice
out of the fruit. You have to be able to
(04:14):
squeeze the most amount of juice out of the fruit
that you have available. And there are things that don't
feel like more is doing well. Now, you pointed out
the number of deep shots and the low percentage, and
yet if the timing isn't right. You had an old
adage for Taysom Hill pull the trigger Taysum and it
(04:35):
was a lot of times because Taysoum was a little
bit late, so a lot of his balls would die
on him. In Rattler's instance, he's just not seeing it right.
There's routes that are coming open and he's not even
getting to the progression to even see the receiver. I
think you pointed out, he's going to his first or
(04:55):
his second read most of the time, and he's not
catching anything that may be on the back and wide open.
So at some point you tend to wonder, like, hey,
you maybe draw up a max protection shot play that
specifically designed to go deep, where it's like, hey, I'm
(05:17):
going to run two routes here. One is gonna go deep,
one is gonna go in immediate chunk it. Okay, Now,
something you brought up earlier, which was Ratler's percentage on
those deep balls. I saw it with Shuck during the preseason.
I saw it. Rattler ball location is very important. A
(05:41):
lot of great quarterbacks have elite ball location. Ratless ball
location isn't elite. It's not going to be. It hasn't
been to this point, and it wasn't in college. That's
who he is. As I've consistently said, if you're going
to attack downfield with Rattler, you have to have more length,
(06:04):
more catch radius, bigger targets, stronger hands. If you have MVS,
I think in this situation and he's your primary downfield target,
Ratler probably hits on more of those. And I saw
it with Shuck in the preseason game where there was
a miss ball in the end zone and it's like, okay,
(06:26):
number one, it's a lovey that's the primary target there.
But then you look at it and it's like, if that
guy is three inches taller, about two more inches of
arm length and maybe one more inch of hand size,
that's probably he at least gets his hands on the ball.
And so I think hitting smaller targets downfield, you know,
(06:48):
it's just it's possible, yes, but it's for the elite
of the elite, and neither one of the quarterbacks have
shown that they're at that level, though Shuck does show
that he has better ball okay in Ratler. So I
think to get rather effectively a Rattler effectively downfield, they
have to get some bigger targets. Unfortunately, that's not gonna
(07:09):
change this year.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, it's not. And that comes back to my point.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Like I said, Ratler has his issues while he's developing
and U and for anybody watching or listening, uh, three
weeks in, regardless of how you feel about Ratler, is
way too soon soon to even consider Shuck For multiple reasons. One,
you knew Shuck wasn't gonna be ready to year one. Anyway,
it's only three games. I always say you need a
minimum of two hundred snaps, especially for quarterback. You can
probably up that to three hundred if you really want
(07:33):
to evaluate where they're at this season. I think Rattler
deserves more chances. But my main bone is with how
more And I think this is a growth thing that
Moore has to learn more. Can't just come in and
run his system that he's designed, that he's been waiting.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Hey, I'm gonna be a head coach. Is what I'm
gonna run. Is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay, But you get given a quarterback who's not able
to do that, you get given a wide receiver room
that's not able to do all the things you want
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
You have to adapt to that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And one thing I'd like to see for More is
to adapt because we've in spots Rattler. Look at the
forty nine ers game where he can do some things
very well and that you can move the ball with that,
you still want to see him lead more scoring drives,
more touchdown drives. Again, none to take you know, skin
out of the game for Rattler, but at the same
time more it all rolls downhill and everything comes back
(08:18):
to him. Especially as the play caller. You've got to
put your guys in a position for success. In the
same way that we're talking about how silly it is
to just be running Alva Kamara up the a gap
and man blocking just to get his numbers up. I mean,
you're just gonna get the man hit stuff for no
reason when he's been an outside zoned guy for a decade.
You're not just running him a gap runs and then
going oh wow, why are we not.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Moving the football? I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
More wants to do a certain thing, but you've got
to design what you have right now, and right now,
I do not feel this offensive unit is being used
to his most effectiveness, even though, like I said, in
a vacuum, some of the plays make sense. But if
the players you have are not conducive to that, then
you've got to do something that is so his his.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Do you have like a little bomb? Uh, it's called
a little bomb? Sound? Do do do do? Do doo doo. Listen,
As we discussed something just doesn't seem right now. I
mentioned the preseason there were times when you see Shuck
come into the game and it seemed like the offense
just moved a little bit better. It seemed to be
(09:17):
a little bit more explosive. Don't know the reason for it,
but what if the decision to go with Rattler was
a collective decision rather than something that Moore would have
just decided on his own. And I think it's worth
it to have that discussion. Even though I never agreed
(09:40):
with Shuck being Moore's guy, he also was very instrumental
in scouting him on the back end, so he is
his pick for the guy that he would like to
work with. That may also explain why the competition went
(10:00):
on as long as it did, because he was waiting
for Shuck to completely to do something that said, hey,
the job is mine, and he gave them He gave
him up to the last minute to do that. Unfortunately
he was unable. But something about the way the offense runs,
because I mean even when even when Shuck came in
(10:21):
the game, one of the two passes he threw was
a deep pass. If I'm not mistaken, he took a
shot right out of the gate, and that may be
something about him that more saw where he can potentially
run the offense he wants to run. Now we agree
that a coach should do his best with what he
has and try to alter the offense or alter the
(10:45):
scheme to fit the talent that he has. But it
does make you wonder if his preference at quarterback is
playing number two now, not because he wanted it, but
because it was a collective decision between him and the
entire unit, which Mickey Loomis has said that is definitely
something that they wanted to provide for him, that extra
(11:07):
those extra voices, so he didn't feel like he was
doing it on his own, considering he's so young and
it's his first time as a head coach at any level.
So it's just something to make you wonder about.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I think it's worth because I think that's probably the
pro and.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Con of having all these former head coaches on the staff,
because I don't think Mickey Loomis really gives.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
A heck who is throwing the ball.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
To be honest with you, I don't think Loomis his
entire career has really not cared about roster management in
terms of individual pieces.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
He's always left to the coach.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But when you have some of the influences around more,
even if he selected them, I do wonder how much
that came to that decision. But then I also fall
back to kind of like some of the things I've
been talking about, like, for example, the New Orleans Saints
have a run play action the twenty third most in
the NFL, so towards the bottom of the league. It
doesn't matter if you have Shuck or Rattler, you have
a young quarterback who needs to have help. One of
(11:58):
the things that is a primary help is play action
for all quarterbacks. Every quarterback throws better a play action.
It's effective regardless of how effective your running game is.
You can average two yards of carry and play action
still pulls linebackers in safeties down.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It still helps you out. To an example, Bo Knicks.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, I'm bringing up Sean Payton on a Saints podcast
in twenty twenty five, but bow Knicks has the six
most play action attempts, Right, Bo Nicks, a young quarterback
who needs help, who is not an elite talent, even
though drafted far higher than a rattler, has the sixth most.
You look at Jordan Love the third most. You look
at Daniel Jones, who is having an incredible start to
(12:35):
the season, the most illegue forty one percent forty Almost
half of every snap they do is a play action.
And when you and I talked about this, the league
is changing. This is not the Drew Brees era of
the Peyton Manning area. Everything's gonna be shot gun pistol
formation passing. The league has adapted defense at least, and
now offenses are readapting. We're getting more of those bigger
offensive linemen, those hog Molly's bigger you know, full backs
(12:57):
are making return traditional split end tight ends instead of
those X tight ends that you see with a Taysom
Hill style right. Play action becoming even more important in
today's NFL for young quarterbacks who help them out based
on how the defenses have changed. And yet more, whoever
is going to be there has got to help his guys.
And before the people who listen to the show are
gonna be like, well, Rev, the offensive line is so terrible. Again,
(13:19):
what were the numbers I just gave you. Rattler's the
eighteenth most pressured. It's not like he's in the top five,
top ten, or even the top fifteen. Now, I'm not
saying Ruiz hasn't been a problem.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
He is.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I'm not saying Simpkins had a great game filling in
a left guard.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
He didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But the point I'm making is there are elements of
this offensive coaching system has to do better if this
team's gonna win games and more importantly, put up points,
because even if they're not winning, they still got to
show that they have a future with the people they
have at their young guys, and right now you're not
seeing that.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I'm gonna throw something out to you that I think,
even though you mentioned the offensive line hasn't been because
it's not been great, but it's not been bad in
certain areas, and certain areas has been complete bad, but
it's just from a precious standpoint. I think the protection
schemes that they use in having Eric McCoy probably lends
itself to helping in that area. But there's one simple
(14:10):
fact that we do no In Moore's opening press conference,
he said that the offensive line was the heartbeat of
the offense, of the team in general, not even just
the offense, but of the team. They set the tone.
This offensive line hasn't played a single competitive snap together
(14:32):
as a unit. For me, I feel like this team's
because of the importance of that offensive line. Until they
get everyone healthy. I feel like the floor and ceiling
of this team is incredibly limited. They didn't play a
single competitive snap together. They played, you know, during training
(14:52):
camp in practices, but the first game McCoy didn't play right,
Benning got hurt, I believe the second game. So as
a unit, they have not played together. And if that's
what is supposed to be the engine of your team,
well the engine got gunking it right now. There's a
(15:14):
reason the Bilica ain't moving because your engine ain't. It
ain't firing in all cylinders. So I really do feel
like until they get the entire offensive line healthy and
playing together, they're not going to be nearly as good
as they could be.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I think that again, there's there's layers to the levels
of issues. And just to point out what you're saying,
come about the offensive line struggling. They have allowed one
of the higher rates of stuff percentages. So what that
means is defensive linemen, linebackers, etc. That get to the
backfield to hit the running back before they hit the
line of scrimmage. The New Orleans Saints have actually even
up the tenth most stuff attempts that's nineteen percent.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So there have been areas.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I actually argue they're failing more in the run game
than they are in the pass blocking game.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
And what is that doing well?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
It certainly makes me behind schedule are difficult. Yeah, agreed, right, yeah,
completely agreed. And and even in terms of like a
stacked box, you're not seeing the Saints be very respected.
You know, even with Alvin Kamara, the Saints only see
ten percent stacked box. That's eight or more people in
the box. That's the second lowest in the NFL. Only
(16:22):
the Miami Dolphins see less stacked boxes. So, if there's
an offensive line area that needs to improve, including how
it would by extension improve the passing game, it's definitely
run blocking. And a lot of that is playing together
with one unit, healthy, playing together.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
So and light boxes should be where should excel with that.
Alvin is thriving that. I mean that when you look
back at Alvin's rookie year, when you I mean when
he was as explosive as he was, it was because
he Ingram was dealing with the majority of the stacked boxes.
When Alvin came in, he was dealing with the light boxes.
You should be in theory getting production from that and
(16:58):
you're not and you and I I still see Kevin
Banks getting man handled in the run game at times.
I see in certain plays he can sustain a block.
I see another plays where his man is the person
that ends up blowing up the play. You don't have
Penning there, and left guard, you didn't have Fuaga there.
The receivers are tiny, so they're missing blocks right, the
(17:23):
tight ends and missing blocks. It's a collective issue, but
I the fact that Kelen added in more man gap,
more duo blocking. He wants to be a people mover
in the center of that offensive line. They want to
bully people to get the run game started, and they're
(17:45):
just not doing that right now. And I think that
is a is another collective issue that they've got to
figure out a way to deal with. That is gonna that,
along with the penalties, is going to be the primary
issue with why the offense can't score points. They're moving
the ball right, they're moving the ball, but then they're
going backwards a lot, and in that limits what you
(18:08):
can call on the play sheet. It screws up the rhythm,
it messes up the timing of everything. It's demoralizing. There's
a lot of factors that go into that that can
cause an offense to stall. So it is very much
coaching oriented and yet got to get that offensive line healthy.
(18:29):
I love seeing them sit Fuada this week. I'm like, listen,
I get that he wants to play. Sit the dude,
tell his knee is better. It was. It was terrible
watching him be the last offensive lineman to defend his
quarterback to actually get there. Ratler out of bounds, like
everybody on the team, or at least that was on
(18:50):
the field, made it to the sideline, and you see
Fuaga limping or walking gingerly, and he's the last guy
to get there. That said a lot. You can't expect
the guy to hold up when the bullets are come in,
and expecting to hold up when he can't even get
over to the sideline to protect this quarterback or have
a say soul and a scrum. So I thought it
(19:12):
was important that they sent him to be good to
get pinning back. At some point, you get all five
offensive linemens started. At some point, the offense will adjust,
the scheme will adjust, and I think you could see
them start to get some traction going into October.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
This flips me to the other side defensive line. Because
I've said this for years, I'm full believe in this.
You win games in the trenches. Defensive line playing worse
than the offensive line. Specifically, in pass defense, New Orleans
Saints are the thirty second team in the NFL in
pressure rate. The New Orleans Saints have the slowest average
time to reach the quarterback. They're allowing a three point
(19:50):
almost three point two second window to throw the ball
on average, see worse in the NFL. They are twenty
sixth if I'm remembering right in getoff terms of like
how quickly they pop off the line, get and penetrate
twenty six So when it comes to that, that is
probably my biggest issue right now with the entire team.
(20:12):
I've had to pick one thing. Hey, what is causing
this team to lose games?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Right now?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
The pass defense has absolutely no pressure. And while I'm
not saying that the secondary should be absolved of all sin,
I am saying that when you're giving a the worst,
if you're giving over three seconds for a quarterback, any
quarterback in this league, to throw the football, it doesn't
matter if you've got prime Jabari Greer in Keenan lewis right,
you're going to have some secondary issues, and that isn't
(20:37):
accounting for a second year player and a essentially career
journeyman on the opposite side starting.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well. I mean, Chase Young is a big part of
that is a reason they paid him, sure that money. Right,
you look at the way Chase moves, the explosiveness he
moves with, the speed, the ferocity that he moves with.
There's nobody else on that defensive line that moved like
Chase Young. There's a reason he was a number one
(21:06):
overall pick. And so I think a lot of what
this team wants to do is very much dependent on
Chase Young. I think he unlocks things. However, as we discussed,
if you play, if you're gonna play as much zone
coverage as we do, you have to get a you
have to get a pass rush. If you don't have
the pass rush, it's harder to play zone coverage. So,
(21:28):
leaning back to coaching, at what point do you say, Okay,
in these critical downs, we should probably play man just
to make the coverage a little bit tighter, just to
make the throw a little bit harder. Because it works
in reverse. Right, to play zone, you need an elite
pass rush. But if you don't have an elite pass
(21:49):
rus playing a little bit more, man gives that pass
for us time to get there, and at the very
least the quarterback has to be better with his throws.
And so again, one of the things that I saw
when I looked, and that you know, was aggravating for me,
was seeing our linebackers drop and covering nothing like that.
(22:11):
There's something about the coverage scheme that isn't working quite well.
I'm seeing way too many instances of a linebacker dropping
into coverage. It's almost it's almost like the concepts of
the opposing offense aren't being matched very well schematically. So
you're seeing a linebacker dropping the coverage, but there's no
(22:33):
routes or no action going on around him, so he's
covering grass.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and a lot of times, guy is the Carl Granerson.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
By the way, He's only got fifty nine pass rushes
through three games compared to Camen Jordan's seventy four and
Brazi's seventy eight, and he's he leads you in pressure.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I'm talking mostly about between Warner and Davis. I
can understand dropping Grannison because Grannison has proven pretty solid
in space, I think again, because you don't have anybody
else that says good as him and dropping he's the
one that So you can't drop Cam that much. We
talked about it.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Cam has far fewer drops, so he's gonna be your.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Pro man coverage right stop with these short zone drops,
bring pressure and then rely on man.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And if you get burned, you get burned, You get burned.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Correct, And that is on that's critical downs. I'm not
saying change the whole scheme around. I'm saying on those
gotta have it downs, those critical downs, just man up. Hey,
if we get beat, we get beat, fine, but I'd
rather get beat with a guy close by and he
just got beat one on one. Then watch one of
my players not helping at all in past coverage or
(23:43):
in the rush or anything. He's just god in grass
while the other players are getting beat. There was one
play where he threw it into It was about three defenders,
but because they were playings on coverage, everybody was at
least a yard away from the catch at least, so
the quarterbacks had to throw the ball to a spot.
So again on coaching, you have to ask what am
(24:03):
I asking these guys to do, are they able to
do it? And if they're not doing it well, before
we start to swap out the components, maybe I need
to adjust what I'm doing. I would like to see
them get out of the excessive zone coverage because it's
not playing to their strengths. Right now, they're not getting
(24:24):
enough pass rush pressure to be able to do what
they want to do.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, and this is that wonderful tale of what do
you need more? If you need more coverage, you need
more pass rush, you need both. Like right now, Brian
Berz actually leads the team in pressures and is the
only defensive lineman whose average time to pressure is two
point five seconds or less. Right, So, to your point,
and when I'm bringing up the Chase Young thing, I
think really matters here. I mean because right now Cameron
Jordan's getting all those snaps. Cameron Jordan is a five
(24:52):
percent pressure rate, as in, five percent of his pass
rush snaps have resulted in a pressure. And again this
isn't like say we don't appreciate Cam, but it's clear
that this style of defense that they're one to row
with day relies on pressure that just isn't there. Like
I said, you're giving an average of three point two seconds. Right, So,
just like the offensive play call, it needs to be
(25:13):
better style to the players that are available. The defense
has that same thing right now for me, where I
get what you want to do, but you don't have
available what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You need to adjust to what you have.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
And I bring up Brian Bersee because I like Braze,
but he's flashy, he's not consistent, and if he's the
one leading you in pressures and your time to get
that means we probably need to make adjustments to better
set what this defense has available. That's not going to
work long term and you can't. I just don't think
it's a good idea. Is we're gonna wait for Chase Young.
I mean, I still believe you go out winning every game.
(25:47):
Like I would be upset if the Saints are doing
like we are just chalking up the Bills game as
an l I'd be very pissed if that was the case.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Now, US fans, we can do that. Analysts, you can
do that.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
They need to go in and believe they can win,
and you do that by putting the team on the field.
So That's where I'm at with that. I think both
play calling, sides need to adjust. I have more hope
and more adjusting and growing because he's new at it
than I do.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Stay.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
But you know, again, you can't have a guy who
isn't arguably even a three down DT right now being
your leader there and hope.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
To have consistent coverage success. You just can't.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I absolutely agree. I mean, and it's a it's a
Chicken or the egg scenario. Right, It's like, hey, I
don't blitz because I don't trust the coverage, right, and so,
I mean, you had Jabar Grig, you had portas. So
Greg Williams was very blitz happy, and he could be
blitz happy because he trusted the secondary. However, I'd rather
(26:45):
get beat losing man to man than get beat because
there's wide open area. So it's like, if I'm gonna
get beat, I might as well control how I'm getting beat.
If I'm if I'm gonna get beat Sending seven, if
I'm gonna get beat Sending eight, at least it's I know,
because I didn't have enough coverage, enough players in coverage.
(27:05):
All my guys got beat one on one. But if
I'm going to be a coverage based defense that wants
to do all of this rotating and all of this
disguise and all of this keeping guys eyes on the ball. Well,
we haven't seen a single turnover outside of the funel,
but we haven't seen a single you know, interception where
it's there on the ball. Like it's not helping them
(27:29):
having their eyes on the ball. Actually it's not helping anything. Again,
And I'm looking at the inside linebacker specifically because I
don't think they have a feel for coverage. It's almost
like they don't understand that there's potential. It's like they're
not being coached what to expect that may be developing
behind you. They're just being told to drop fifteen or
(27:50):
twenty yards and play in this area of the field.
And like I said, you're seeing spots where they're being
asked to do that, but they're not guarding any routes.
They're not covering any routes. Routes are going behind them,
over the top of them, somewhere in front of them,
way to the left, and all you see is a
linebacker just standing there with twenty yards of grass between
him and the next player and nothing is going on.
(28:14):
That's coaching to me. I'd rather just say Hey, the Mario,
you take the you take the running back here, Pete,
maybe you drop middle zone a line til you take
the slot. Right, we'll we'll send a blitz and everybody
knows who that man is. You get beat, you get beat,
make the goddamn tackle. But that's a that's a to me,
that's easier than saying, hey, we're gonna drop these people
(28:36):
in coverage and and still still get beat here. So
I definitely want to see Staley continue to adjust. I
saw less sugaring. Yeah, I saw I saw less sugaring.
I saw more five man pressures. They didn't get there often,
and yet to me, that still feels better than had
(28:56):
it been for a man and not getting there.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
It's it's a little you're trying, like you're trying.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, it's more excusable for me. So how about this?
Do you do you feel like the special teams issue
was like operation like the cause. The special teams thing
was the only it was the only thing that wasn't
prevalent the first two weeks.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Want to hear one stat on d line just to
give them one bit of positive because I was material
shout out to the defense.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Getting better against the run.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
They're currently the sixth best team against the run in
the NFL right now in terms of yards per attempt.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
They have gotten better at that.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We've writ that the past couple of years under DA
that's been a problem with most of the same roster.
This team's doing much better against the run, and that
at least deserves a little bit of praise. But as
far as special teams goes, I'm definitely not ready to
turn on coach Phil again. This is coach Phil Galiano's
first chance being the full time special team guy. He's
been an assistant with multiple spots for a long time,
(29:57):
first time running it, and I do look at like
you're saying like this is a we didn't see that
the first two games. Obviously it killed them here in
the third. But you gotta you you're really talking for
the most part, a lot of these coaches. Yeah, you've
got experience, but then you're equally mixed with the guys
who ultimately have the decision making. They're new, right, so
you give a little bit of leeway, a little bit
(30:17):
of growth there. The only point I would add to that, though,
I think he can clean up the coverage. He's certainly
had a great mentor in Rizzy. But the Groupie thing,
three straight games, three straight miss field goals, with a
lot of them being chip shots. At some point it
stops being hey, what are you doing wrong? Don't do
that again, and it becomes we got to find somebody else. Yo,
(30:38):
that's a pattern.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
I concur that. Did you know that Groupie ranks like
fifth or sixth a day, even maybe fourth in miss
field goals since his Rooki year.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I'd have to look it up. I didn't know that.
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
You didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, it's uh. Listen, you
have a you have a roster exemption for a kicker
that's on the rock now. To me, when I look
at the way that Groupie handled the off season and
training camp is damn near perfect, right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And coach Phil has said the same thing. You're talking
about him being great in camp in preseason.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
But what I'm seeing is he's melting under the bright lights.
Whereas Charlie Smith made a couple of big kicks during
preseason that were like important for us winning the game.
Now you've got three weeks, three misses. Small scale, They
(31:39):
probably don't individually change either game. Whether he hits the
kicks or not grand scheme. Your primary issue on offenses
is you aren't scoring enough points and you left nine
on the field because of your kicker. Yeah, so grand
scheme is like if we're going into against September and
(32:01):
seeing what isn't working, and it continues into October with
you know, player issues, you absolutely turn to Charlie Smith.
I don't care if he got a CDFG on his chest.
You probably turn to Charlie Smith and see what he
can do in the games. Because Groupie has had a
consistent chance to be consistent, and yet just when you
(32:25):
felt like he was getting to a point where you
can trust him, you find out you leave a house
for a bit, you come back and all the cook
is gone.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That's a heck of a reference, man, not my cookies.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Real quick talking about Groupie is I just look at
because I was curious after you said that. Groupie is
currently thirty one out of thirty three kickers this year
in terms of field goal percentage, He's at the bottom.
And if any kicker who's kicked more than three kicks,
he's second to last. Only Matt Gay in Washington is
doing worse. In fact, Young way Ku, who got released
(33:03):
had a ten percent higher field goal make percentage this
year than Blake Groupie. And obviously we recognized Ku having
really hurt the Saints in the past. But I think
group is the only one I'm looking at right now
on special teams and really going, hey, it might be time.
I mean, three straight games. You only get seventeen in
the season, so you can't waste opportunities.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I concur I said, I look at this team and
I September is a is a data point month. They
health didn't come out the way you wanted it to
come out, especially on the offensive line.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
And defensive line with Chase Young.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
And defensive line, you know, some of the things you
wanted to do on working the way you wanted to work.
So there's tons of data that they have as a
coaching staff to say, Okay, this isn't working, how can
we improve on it? Just like the scramble drill. I
thought it was important that Kellen Moore pointed out that, hey,
(34:01):
they do not do well on the scrammer drill, and
yet that's one of ratless better traits. Why haven't you
been practicing that right that you would think that those
are like the details that can lead to a difference
being made during the game, and so them having those
things constantly come out that things that aren't working, what
(34:23):
can they adjust. It's important for them to take those
data points and make the necessary adjustments because it's very
important to be playing your best football as a season progresses.
I can forgive them for what we've seen in September.
In fact, it was probably the hardest stretch. I just
need to see them improve and clean up the obvious
(34:46):
things that need to be cleaned up, and then I
would expect to start seeing some progress going into October.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I agree with that, man. So we'll have more
on our episode on Thursday. Hope y'all enjoyed this one.
Who that God bless any final words for us Elias.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Now check out Saints Football talk dot com. I did
the Monday Evening Quarterback skip the good, bad, and Ugly
article because it was all ugly. Didn't even feel the
energy right, So I skipped that article. But I will
probably drop another article the Monday Evening Quarterback just some
(35:26):
some of the similar things that I felt the bottle
in here probably just expanded a little bit more. But
you'll check out the website and then we will catch
you all on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Who that God bless you, Then face
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