After falling to 3-6, the New Orleans Saints may still be well-positioned within an abysmal NFC South but questions continue to mount around the team’s overall performance. The Saints offense did not look like itself against a tough Baltimore Ravens defense, struggling to convert third downs and stay on the field. Because of that, the New Orleans defense faded throughout the game despite a strong start.
Normally, the Saints have the fallback of being able to make it tough for opposing teams by pushing their starting field position back, but not even that went well for the Saints. All the while, coaching will continuously be a target of criticism. Here are our grades on every phase of the Saints’ game during their home loss to the Ravens.
Offense: D
Quarterback Andy Dalton and the Saints offense essentially went nowhere for 60 minutes. That in until tight end Juwan Johnson decided to ply through the whistle on a catch and run touchdown that made the game look much closer than it was. New Orleans converted on only 27% of their third down conversion attempts and came up empty in the red zone when it comes to touchdown opportunities. Yet again, dynamic weapon Taysom Hill was far more absent from the early gameplay than expected and star running back Alvin Kamara was passed on in the red zone.
Some will point to play calling, but the Saints offense had trouble executing without a shadow of a doubt. The team was outmatched by the Baltimore Ravens’ defense. The offense’s performance has was so underwhelming that the Saints lost time of possession by more than an entire quarter (15 minutes) and many were left asking whether another quarterback change was imminent. The pieces saving an F grade for the offense were Johnson’s catch and run, Kamara’s couple of nice runs and several big catches by rookie wideout Chris Olave
Defense: C
The defense fared well against its biggest run game test of the season until thing started to break down late. Jackson broke loose multiple times in the fourth quarter, but until then had matched up well. Safety Tyrann Mathieu looked to be trusted as the spy in Cover 1 situations, which worked well early. But eventually the run game was too much to handled for a fatigued unit.
Despite early success in defending the quarterback run, safeties struggled in the passing game. Safety Marcus Maye was drawn in by what looked like a design run, losing track of tight end Isaiah Likely for a score. Matthieu even mentioned after the game that there were times where defenders didn’t know where to line up. Those types of mistakes are atypical for Saints football.
Special Teams: C
Punter Blake Gillikin continued a down season with a few punts he’d surely love to have back. Return specialist Rashid Shaheed had his first struggles since coming in and lighting things up immediately in his first three games. His contributions on offense were also limited being that he played only a handful of snaps. The young wideout will bounce back, but there were a couple of trips and stumbles that caused him some return yards. Those will start to take shape as things get into rhythm. Will Lutz hit both of his field goal attempts and coverage units looked good. All balanced out into an average day.
So far this season, New Orleans has not forced an opposing team to start a drive within their own five yard line. This was a staple for the Saints in the past. Flipping the field was never a question for this team, but now they struggle to do so.
Coaching: D
You’ve seen some of the coaching evaluation throughout this piece already. Hill was massively underused in this game. No quarterback powers and not a single touch on four different third and short (3 or fewer yards to go) attempts. Players not knowing where to lineup on defense could be something related to the individual player making that mistake, but it’s on the coaching staff to make sure every player knows what their exceptions are. The team’s most dynamic playmakers weren’t on the field as often as they should be and some, like Hill, didn’t feel like a part of the game’s approach at all. It was a tough day in every phase of the game. Yes, it’s easy to put that on the players who need to execute on the field. But what about when those players simply are not involved or even do not know what to do. Coaching has been commonly questioned throughout the season so far, and the record of the team helps to tell the story.