Pierre Thomas had success in the Saints’ last match-up against the Bills.
Well it’s about time. As great as the 27 straight weeks of football are in the NFL, that one week where your team is on their bye-week just isn’t the same. Sure, games like fantasy football have helped, but no weekend is complete without the black and gold. The playoffs could also fall in to that category, but with a 5-1 record heading in to their bye, Saints fans have good reason to believe that won’t be an issue this season. New Orleans leads the overall series with a 5-4 record, with their last meeting coming back in 2009. The Saints beat the Bills 27-7 in a game in which Pierre Thomas ran wild in a big second half surge to ensure the victory.
The bye-week felt even longer for all of New Orleans with what happened in New England two weeks ago. A last second touchdown, in a game in which the Saints seemed to have wrapped up, crushed the hearts of fans and made the two week wait till the next game that much harder. Well, ladies and gentleman, the wait is over. The Saints return home this Sunday to welcome the Buffalo Bills in their 3rd AFC East match-up in their last four games. At 5-1 and after a Thursday night victory from the Panthers, the Saints hold a game and a half lead heading in to Sunday. After the first four weeks of the season, the Saints held a huge three game lead in the division, but that has been cut in half due to the Panthers’ recent hot streak. With a much inferior opponent heading to the Dome tomorrow, New Orleans must take care of their business to keep a nice cushion, because the schedule gets really tough after the next two weeks. The Saints’ 397.7 yards per game has them ranked 6th in the NFL in total offense and they’ve looked better and better each week. The running game finally showed up against New England, until about two and a half minutes were left on the clock, that is. We’ll get to that a little later, but hopefully it was a sign of things to come.
Buffalo comes to New Orleans with a 3-4 record, fresh off of a comeback victory against the Miami Dolphins last week. The Bills traveled to South Beach and came away with an impressive victory as big underdogs. Young quarterback Thad Lewis has played well in the absence of rookie E.J. Manuel, leading his team to a 1-1 record, with the loss coming in overtime to Cincinnati. Their defense ranks 24th in the NFL, allowing 380.4 yards per game, but they have some very good players. Buffalo has certainly been up and down this year, so it remains to be seen which team will show up. One thing is for sure, they’re in for a tough challenge when they step on to the field Sunday afternoon against an angry Saints team coming fresh off of their bye with a hostile environment at their back to welcome them to the Superdome.
Passing Offense
Despite two straight games of under 300 yards passing for Drew Brees, the Saints still rank 2nd in the NFL in passing offense with 311 yards per game. After seemingly improving from a slow start, Brees had his worst game against the Patriots two weeks ago. New England did a great job game-planning by taking away Brees’ favorite target, Jimmy Graham. The tight-end was held without a catch while being blanketed by Aqib Talib for a good bit of the game until Talib left the game with an injury. Unfortunately, Graham was also injured, sustaining a problem with his foot. He came back in to the game for a bit, but was clearly hobbled. Brees was just 17/36 for 236 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. The 47% completion percentage was by far his lowest of the season. Again, New England drew up a great game-plan and really kept Brees off of his game, though only sacking him one time.
Buffalo’s defense has under-performed a bit as unit this year. They rank 21st in the NFL, allowing 256.9 yards per game through the air. They held Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill under 200 yards passing last week and intercepted him twice, but gave up three passing touchdowns. The Bills are very good at getting to the quarterback, registering 23 sacks, which is tied for 4th in the NFL with the Seahawks. They’ve been even better at taking the ball away through the air, as they lead the NFL with 12 interceptions so far. Surprisingly, it’s middle linebacker Kiko Alonso who leads the team with 4 interceptions of his own. Safeties Aaron Williams and Jim Leonhard are right behind him with 3 each. Saints fans may remember Leonhard, who spent his preseason with the Saints, but was picked up by the Bills after being released in New Orleans. Mario Williams’ name has cooled down very much since his days in Houston, but he has returned to his All-Pro form and has 10 sacks already this season. Between himself and defensive tackles Marcel Dareus and former LSU Tiger Kyle Williams, they account for 16.5 of Buffalo’s 23 sacks. Their defensive line is by far their best aspect of their defense and will certainly like their chances facing an offensive line in New Orleans that struggled before their bye week.
The passing offense will largely hinge on whether or not Jimmy Graham is able to play tomorrow. As of now, he is questionable and likely to be a game-time decision. Friday’s practice is usually a very telling day when trying to anticipate whether or not an injured player will play or not, with it being their final full practice before game day. The news today was somewhat encouraging, as Graham did practice on a limited basis after not participating all week. My guess would be that it will all come down to pre-game warm-ups tomorrow morning. The Saints coaches and trainers will keep a close eye on Graham to see how he looks and will probably hold him out if their is any question that he’s not fully there. This is a game that the Saints should have no problem winning without him, although it would still be a huge lift to have him out there. As I mentioned earlier, though, the schedule gets really tough very soon, so if they must sacrifice being without Graham for one game to ensure he’s there from that point on, they will. We all know what to expect if he does play, but let’s look at the options if he doesn’t. The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time for Lance Moore, who looks to be returning from his wrist injury sustained in Week 3. The coaches likely did a lot of evaluating to figure out just why Marques Colston hasn’t been able to get more involved, so I’d bet that Coach Sean Payton will find a way to get him the ball even if Graham plays, but especially if not. Darren Sproles and Pierre Thomas will continue to see a ton of targets out of the backfield with how successful Brees’ check-downs and screen passes have been. This passing attack is dangerous with just one week of preparation, so it should be fun watching what they cooked up with the extra time.
Rush Offense
Finally, a sign of life. After five games of next to zero production from the running game, Khiry Robinson and Pierre Thomas helped get the ball moving on the ground. Robinson looked fantastic, gaining 53 yards on just 7 carries for a 7.6 yards per carry average, while scoring his first NFL touchdown. Thomas was very good himself taking his 11 carries for 51 yards. As a team, the Saints rushed for 131 yards and boasted an impressive 5.0 yards per carry average. They still rank in the bottom half of the league at 22nd with 86.7 rushing yards per game, but hopefully, just hopefully, it was a sign of things to come.
Before the Saints’ Week 6 game, as bad as their rushing offense had been, the Bills’ run defense has been equally terrible. They are 28th in the NFL, allowing 123.6 yards per game on the ground. Kiko Alonso also leads the team in tackles with 70 so far, while anchoring the middle of their defense. Their numbers are a bit surprising, given the talent on their defensive line, but it appears that they are simply better pass rushers than run defenders.
This is a bit of a “well someone has to do better” type of situation with the under-performing Saints running game squaring off with the generous Bills rushing defense. Thankfully for the Saints, they are coming off of their best performance and just had an extra week to try and get whatever mistakes they had been making patched up. Hopefully, right? I look for the Saints to try and build upon what they started in New England two weeks ago. They know that they’ll need the ground game to hold leads against good teams, especially after what happened to them in the closing seconds against the Patriots. They had two chances within the final two and a half minutes to run out the clock, but they didn’t even come close to picking up a first down. They know that they can’t let that happen again as they are in a foot race with Seattle for the #1 seed, with the assumption that it will be very, very hard for anyone to go in to either of those two teams’ home stadium and beat them in the playoffs. Back to the point, the Saints should also have a nice lead by the beginning of the 4th quarter, so they should be able to find out if they worked out the kinks in the rushing attack over the bye-week.
Players to Watch
Pierre Thomas and Khiry Robinson
My thoughts on these two are pretty much all in the paragraph right above this. Coach Payton is a smart man and he’s going to try and build upon what they saw in New England. The bye-week and a less than stellar rush defense are the perfect combination for an opportunity to continue to improve their other aspect of their offense, as they slowly approach the stretch run for the playoffs.
Marques Colston
Much like the running game, this guy was by far too invisible through the Saints’ first six games. He had a nice Week 1 and caught a beautiful touchdown, but he has been as quiet on the field as he is off the field. I’m still a little nervous about whether Jimmy Graham plays or not and while I hope I’m wrong, I have a feeling he doesn’t. If I’m right, I think this is the week you will see Colston return to form. Brees loves the middle of the field, so if Graham is out, the Saints will likely run more plays with Colston in the slot to try and get more mismatches and allow him to slip in to the middle of the Bills’ defense.
Lance Moore
Along with Colston, Moore has done next to nothing so far this year. Of course, he hasn’t played since Week 3, but he looks to be returning tomorrow. Moore has been Brees’ security blanket for years and with the possible absence of Graham, I’m looking for him to help Colston give the receiving core a big boost in both production and leadership. Kenny Stills and Nick Toon have made some plays, but I believe they are still not 100% there with the offense. Drew needs his main guys to get this offense pumping on all cylinders and Moore is one of them.
Prediction
The Bills haven’t been too bad so far this year and are coming off of an impressive road win in Miami, but they are over-matched here. Plain and simple, they have no business giving the Saints problems with New Orleans coming off of a heart breaking loss, followed by their bye week. I believe the Saints could score more than this, but with my anticipation of their attempt to re-commit to the running game, it may be a slow second half as New Orleans pounds away, especially in the fourth quarter. Still, I don’t see Thad Lewis and his offense doing much in the Dome, therefore I don’t believe this one will be very close.
Saints – 31
Bills – 13
Who Dat?!
