Week 10 Preview: Saints Offense vs. Cowboys Defense

For the second time in the last two weeks, the New Orleans Saints return to the comfy confines of the Mercedes Benz Superdome following a road loss. Both losses have come against AFC East opponents, with the latest coming to the New York Jets. The Saints find themselves at 6-2 and a game ahead of the Carolina Panthers in the NFC South, while trailing the Seattle Seahawks by a game and a half in the race for the #1 seed in the NFC. Not that anything about losing games is good, but if we’re looking for a silver lining in the Saints’ two losses, it’s that they were both to the AFC. New Orleans remains 4-0 in their own conference and stills controls their own destiny to the top seed. Many were looking at this week as the start of a very tough run, but it seems that the Jets may have been overlooked to some degree. Regardless, the Saints can take matters in to their own hands and put the losses behind them and it all starts on Sunday night when the Dallas Cowboys come to town.

The Cowboys just escaped a significant upset themselves, squeaking out a last minute 27-23 victory against the Minnesota Vikings at AT&T Stadium. It took a Tony Romo touchdown pass with :35 left on the clock to avoid the loss. Dallas comes to New Orleans with a 5-4 record and they are in 1st place in the NFC East. They are 1-3 on the road, but have proved before that they can come in to the Superdome and pull off the upset. They did just that to ruin the Saints’ undefeated season in Week 15 of the 2009 season.

This week’s match-up is much more favorable for the Saints offense, compared to last week’s nightmare against the Jets. New Orleans sits with the 7th ranked offense in the NFL, gaining 397.4 yards per game. On the flip side of the rankings, Dallas’ defense is ranked 31st in the league, giving up 419.2 yards per contest. They’ve struggled stopping offenses, which was apparent when they allowed nearly 400 yards to the Vikings offense last week. This will likely be the softest defense the Saints will see for the rest of the year, so they must take advantage of it. The teams last played in Week 16 of last season when the Saints went to Dallas and beat the Cowboys in a thrilling overtime contest by the score of 34-31. Dallas leads New Orleans in the overall series 15-10. 

Pass Offense

Another high yardage performance from Drew Brees and the passing offense last week keeps the Saints ranked very high in the NFL. They come in to the game with the 3rd ranked passing attack, averaging 333.1 yards per game. Stat sheets can be very tough to read sometimes, because although Brees threw for 382 yards, it was apparent that he and the Saints offense struggled to get much going through most of the game against the Jets. Another deceiving number from the stat sheet is Brees being sacked only two times. He was pressured and/or hit around 15 times, aside from the two sacks, which forced him to miss open receivers on numerous throws. Brees commented after the game about how much pressure he was getting in his face while trying to throw, causing his arm to get hit much more than he’d like. After the shoulder injury that nearly ended his career, one would certainly understand how he could be so thrown off.

The Cowboys pass defense is the main reason for the amount of yards they allow per game. They rank 31st in yards allowed through the air, giving up 305.2 per game. Their secondary continues to struggle, giving even more evidence that Rob Ryan, their former Defensive Coordinator, was made out to be the scapegoat last year, eventually leading to his dismissal. Thanks for that, right? Dallas does allow a lot of yardage, but they aren’t too bad at getting their hands on the ball. They’re actually tied for 3rd in the NFL with 12 interceptions on the year. They also have the ability to get to the quarterback, which is always concerning for the Saints offensive line. The Cowboys are tied for 13th in the NFL with 23 sacks on the year. Defensive tackle Jason Hatcher leads the team with 7 sacks, while their usual sack man, DeMarcus Ware has 4. Ware missed the Cowboys’ last three games after sustaining a thigh injury in the team’s Week 6 win over the Washington Redskins. He is on track to suit up on Sunday night, which is great news for Dallas.

As I mentioned before, the Saints need to take advantage of this match-up. With games against the 49ers, Seahawks, and Panthers looming, the Cowboys defense is as easy as it’ll get in the near future. Dallas’ talented secondary continues to under-perform, making them very susceptible to a Drew Brees aerial show. The big question will be if the offensive line can do a better job of protecting their quarterback. Ware will always create problems and he’s now feeling healthy. Hatcher’s ability to get pressure up the middle is very concerning, given what the Jets did to the middle of the Saints line last week. As long as they can keep Brees upright, he should have no problem getting the ball to his receivers.

Rush Offense

Before last week’s game, we talked about how bad the match-up for the running game was going against New York’s front seven. Well, it appears that the Saints themselves felt as nervous about it, attempting only ten running plays with their running backs, despite a 4.4 yards per carry average between Pierre Thomas and Mark Ingram. I’m sure the match-up was a big part of that game plan, but the Jets also led the game by two scores for much of the second half. The Saints head in to Week 10 with the 26th ranked rushing offense, averaging 79.8 yards per game.

Although the Cowboys are better at stopping the run than the pass, they still do give up a decent amount of yards on the ground. They are ranked 17th in the NFL, allowing 114 yards per contest. By comparison, the Saints defense allows seven more yard per game than Dallas does, which isn’t that much. Middle linebacker Sean Lee has been the heart and soul of the Cowboys defense and has 90 tackles on the year, tied for most in the NFL. He tied for 2nd with 63 solo tackles and also has 4 interceptions to go along with them.

I’d expect to see Lee around the ball on the majority of running plays that the Saints run. The middle of their line has been terrible with blocking in general, but they’ve been especially bad when run blocking. With most of their focus being on stopping the middle of the Cowboys defensive line, Lee should have lots of open gaps to shoot through and make plays. With that being said, I don’t really expect the Saints to run the ball a whole lot, unless they build a good lead late in the game. They know they can beat Dallas through the air and I’m looking for Coach Sean Payton and Drew Brees to exploit that.

Players to Watch

Drew Brees

This is one of the best match-ups that Brees will face all year, but that’s not why I’m labeling him as a player to keep an eye on. I’m interested to see how he responds from the beating he took last week. He’s been hit and sacked a good bit between the past two seasons, but his arm got hit a few times while trying to throw last week and that’s concerning. I imagine he was very sore in the beginning of this week, so I’m anxious to see if and how that will affect his approach in a game against someone like DeMarcus Ware.

Darren Sproles

Sproles is another player that I’m interested to see how be bounces back after a tough week. He wasn’t as fortunate as Brees was to avoid injury, being knocked out of the game on the first possession with a concussion. He passed all of his tests and returned to practice on Wednesday, so he’s ahead of schedule returning from a head injury. His dynamic play making and match-up creating abilities were much needed last week, so I look for the Saints to try and get him involved to take the load off of Pierre Thomas and Jimmy Graham.

Lance Moore

Guessing which receiver will step up for the Saints this season has been about as hard as predicting where a hurricane will go. Just when it seems like all signs point to one particular guy to have a good game, another player comes out of no where. We’ll still take a shot in the dark and go with Moore, mostly because the game is at home. Moore tends to thrive under the lights of the Superdome and with two weeks of getting back in to the groove, he could be favorite target of Brees

Prediction

As if the Saints needed another wake up call after the way they blew the Patriots game, I think they got just that last week in New York. The Jets proved that the combination of a good running game and a good defense could beat the Saints. Although this particular match-up doesn’t fit that bill, Coach Payton and his team knows they can’t mess around if they want to stay ahead of Carolina, much less keep up with Seattle for the top spot in the NFC. Coming back home in prime-time against a very beatable defense is about the best situation the Saints could ask for following last week’s loss and I expect them to fully take advantage of it.

Saints – 34

Cowboys – 23

Who Dat?!