It only took five games, but the Saints finally have a “1” in the win column. It was a great team effort and they by far played their best game of the season. Due to the situation coming in to the season with all of the suspensions, it was going to take as close to a complete game as possible to get a win. Through the first four games, that wasn’t the case. Finally on Sunday night, things changed.
Pass Offense: A
Drew Brees had his second consecutive Brees-like performance, completing 29/45 passes for 370 yards with 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. He was accurate, crisp in decision making, and surgical. He did all of this in a record breaking effort, overtaking Johnny Unitas’ half-century old record of 47 straight games with a touchdown pass. This record has been mentioned a lot in recent articles and rightfully so.
Seven different receivers caught passes, with two in particular stepping up big. Marques Colston was fantastic, catching 9 passes for 131 yards and 3 touchdowns. Devery Henderson cashed in a good night as well, grabbing 8 balls for 123 yards and a score. A guy that quietly impressed was Greg Camarillo. While his stats (4 catches for 44 yards) seem mediocre, it was the timing of them that was big. Two or three of his catches came on 3rd down to move the chains.
The offensive line was so-so. Drew was sacked 3 times for a loss of 19 yards. That’s certainly not terrible, but ideally you’d like to give up zero sacks or one at the most. Other than the sacks, Drew wasn’t under the constant pressure that has been present most of the season.
Rush Offense: D
It was yet another frustrating night for the ground game. Luckily, due to Drew’s good night, San Diego’s defense was off-balance enough for the passing game to do all of the damage. The Saints only had 19 carries from their running backs, going for 55 yards. Hopefully during the bye week, the coaches will do some scheming to get the running game a kick start.
Pass Defense: B
The defense was both good and bad during the night. They were bad in the first half and very much improved in the second half. Rather than giving a grade of C for “average”, the pass rush helped the grade jump a full letter.
A pretty healthy chunk of Rivers’ passing yards came on San Diego’s second drive of the game, which led to the opening score of the game. Rivers provided 89 yards passing, helping the Chargers get in the end zone in 7 plays after starting at their own 9 yard line. Two of those plays went for 30+ on completions to Malcom Floyd. Robert Meachem found his way in to the end zone from 15 yards out and then burned the Saints a second time for a deep 44 yard score late in the second quarter. For the majority of the first half, Rivers found open holes in the defense. Just about all of the big plays came where they allowed receivers to get behind the secondary.
In the second half, the pass rush turned up the heat and got Rivers off-balance. They finished with 5 sacks on the night, which was only one less than their total season output. On the final driver where San Diego was attempting to drive down to tie the game, Martez Wilson got what’s referred to as “the trifecta”. He came blazing around the end to get the sack, forced fumble, and the fumble recovery to end the game.
The secondary also forced a crucial interception in the second half. Roman Harper came up with the pick, which was the first interception by a Saints safety since 2010.
Rush Defense: D
It sure is a good thing that the Saints led for the entire 4th quarter, because they were struggling to stop the run. San Diego had to bail on the running game, while attempting to regain the lead. As a team, the Chargers averaged 6.5 yards per carry and gained 117 yards. Ryan Mathews, alone, was even more impressive. The fire was lit underneath him after a couple fumbles in Weeks 3 and 4, to which he responded to. He took 12 carries for 80 yards and a touchdown for an impressive 6.7 yards per carry.
For the most part, the Saints gave up some good chunks of yardage outside the tackles. Mathews had his way finding a hole and making one cut to get up field. If the Saints are going to spend time playing from behind this year, they must sure up their run defense to prevent teams from grinding out the clock late in games.
Special Teams: C+
The special teams was yet again less than stellar. It was going to be interesting to see how Garrett Hartley would respond to two critical missed field goals over the last two weeks, but it was a quiet night for him. He had four extra-points and one short field goals of 26 yards.
Thomas Morstead’s average was much better on the night, averaging 51.8 yards per punt, but not all were great. There were two punts in which it seemed as if the ball came off the side of his foot a little, which is very rare for him. The coverage was good, though, as Eddie Royal only returned two of the four punts for a total of 16 yards.
Darren Sproles was not very electric in the return game yet again. He returned two kicks for 49 yards, both of which he was taken down pretty quickly and didn’t make anyone miss. On punt returns, he was even less threatening. He only had two punt returns, one of which went for a measly two yards and the other for no gain.
Coaching: A
This was easily the best called game by the Aaron Kromer and the rest of the coaching staff. On offense, the unit looked very much in sync and had a successfully consistent attack. The right calls were made at the right times, especially on 3rd downs. The Saints were 9/16 at extending drives on those 3rd down plays. Although only 19 designed runs were called, there was never a point where the lack of running game was hurting the offense.
On defense, the play looked completely different. Spagnuolo sent the most blitzes of any game so far and it paid off big time. There were a couple big plays, but none of which seemed to be the wrong play call. Either bad communication or a man just getting beat was the reason for the big plays, which is all on the players. It was great to see the constant pressure New Orleans put on Rivers and it gives hope for the rest of the season.
