With three days having passed, many still try to calm their nerves from Sunday. We look forward to the next game, but first, there are some observations to be made. As well as the Saints played, there’s always room for improvement. There are some fans who choose to follow optimism and believe nothing but, “a win is a win”. There are also always some that are more pessimistic and ignore the fact that the Saints won, while they dwell on what they could have done better. We’ll try and stick right in the middle and help point out those who showed up to play last Sunday, along with the few that have room for improvement. Let’s jump right in.
Offense
Passing: B+
As he always does, Drew Brees played a big role in Sunday’s victory against Atlanta. Aside from one interception, he played nearly a flawless game on paper. Looking at his stat line, he finished 26/35 for 357 yards with 2 TDs and 1 INT. After a down year, he brought his completion percentage all the way back up to 74% in Week 1. What you don’t see on the stat sheet is the 4 or 5 passes that he flat out missed. Two to Jimmy Graham instantly come to mind, with one of them forcing a punt. Even a couple of his completions were thrown in bad spots. You can easily chalk that up to not being in mid-season form, but thankfully none the misses caused the Saints the game. As for the receivers, they played very well. Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, and Darren Sproles were Brees’ main targets throughout the day and they came through. There are no obvious drops that come to mind, meaning the pass catchers weren’t rusty at all.
Rushing: D
The only reason that this grade isn’t an F, is because of the commitment they had to the running game. It’s certainly refreshing to see them put in the concerted effort to get the ground game going, after watching how unbalanced the offense was last season. The Saints ran the ball 29 times, compared to their 35 passes. The downside? On those running plays, the offensive line made no holes. It seemed as if one of the Falcon defensive lineman were in the backfield by the time the running-back took every carry. Hopefully that changes fast, because the last thing the offense (and especially the defense) needs is to lose time of possession.
Saints
Marques Colston
Colston stepped up as he has done so many times since 2006. After missing nearly all of the preseason, he stepped right in and looked completely healthy. His touchdown reception was fantastic and as usual, he was big on 3rd downs.
Darren Sproles
Sproles instantly reverted to being more of the dynamic threat that we saw in 2011. I expected that he, along with Ingram, would benefit the most from Payton’s return and that’s the way it looked. His highlight play of the day was a 3rd down reception down the sideline, with both of the defender’s arms in his face on an under thrown ball by Drew Brees.
Sinners
Jahri Evans
The Pro-Bowl guard struggled all day. He was beat multiple times, resulting in either penetration to the backfield or one of his back to back holding penalties. Those penalties gave the Saints a 2nd and goal from the 27 yard line, after being inside of the 10. They had to settle for a field goal, rather than a touchdown that would given them a 17-10 halftime lead.
Defense
Passing: C+
This grade combines both aspects of the pass defense. The coverage was below average, but the pass rush was above average. The coverage in the secondary still showed some holes. Even with limited time, Matt Ryan was still able to find open receivers fairly consistently. On their first touchdown to Tony Gonzales, two defenders who were in coverage abandoned their zones as soon as Matt Ryan started to roll out, leaving Gonzales open for an easy touchdown. They need to know that Ryan isn’t a threat to run the ball, so especially on third down, stay back and and let him try and squeeze a pass in. On their second touchdown to Julio Jones, there was obvious miscommunication between Corey White and Kenny Vaccaro, leading to way too easy of a throw from Ryan to Jones. As for the pass rush, they played great. Cam Jordan, Junior Galette, and Akiem Hicks were just a few of those who provided pressure on Matt Ryan throughout the day. It was their pressure on Atlanta’s final offensive play that forced Ryan to throw the ball up, giving Vaccaro time to get over to Gonzales and get his fingertips on the ball.
Rushing: B+
There have been a lot of sportscasters and analysts who have made comments along the lines of, “Steven Jackson had 11 carries for 77 yards, he looked great!” Well, for anyone who watched the full game, no he didn’t. He ripped off one 50 yard run that he did look great on, but as for his other 10 carries, he only gained a measly 2.7 yards per carry. Obviously this is bothersome for Saints fans, because it takes away much deserved credit from the rush defense. Aside from the 50 yard run, they shut down an aspect of Atlanta’s game that will most likely do well this season.
Saints
The entire defensive front 7
Whether it was pressure on Matt Ryan or bottling up Steven Jackson, the defensive line and linebackers played exceptionally well. With the Saints secondary looking like their weak spot after the first game, the pass rush and run defense will need to hold up. If you can be successful in two of those three aspect, you’ll win a lot of football games.
Kenny Vaccaro
Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Vaccaro made a dumb play by spearing Matt Ryan after he had clearly given himself up by sliding on a scramble. Most of the time, it would look completely dumb, but I don’t believe that at least somewhere deep down inside, every Saint coach, player, and fan, wasn’t a little happy about that play. Yes, it’s a dumb play and costed the defense 15 yards, but it was obvious that it got to Matt Ryan. Not only did it hurt him physically, but he will remember that shot any time he even starts to think about running, whether it be against the Saints or someone else. Now, on to the good. Vaccaro was all over the field, as expected. He was one of only four defensive players that played every snap on Sunday. Lofton, Jordan, and Jenkins were the others. He finished 2nd in the team in tackles and made the biggest play of the day. Vaccaro was in coverage on Julio Jones, but once he saw Ryan float the ball for Gonzales, he made his way over and got just enough of his fingertips on the ball. We all know the end result, but that was an incredibly athletic and instinctive play by the rookie.
Sinners
The Secondary
First off, the secondary was not terrible. We just talked about Vaccaro and on a few plays to Julio Jones and Tony Gonzales, they were actually in good position. There were too many open guys, though. For as little time as Matt Ryan had on some plays, I’d like to see the secondary help produce more incompletions. Whether it was good reads by Ryan or not, it can’t be that easy for the quarterback to find a wide open receiver when he seeing that much heat.
That’ll do it for Week 1, folks. See you soon for Tampa Bay!
Who Dat?!
