Week 11 Preview: Saints Offense vs. 49ers Defense

The New Orleans Saints (7-2) welcome an old rival back to the Mercedes Benz Superdome this Sunday, when the San Francisco 49ers (6-3) visit New Orleans. The current players of each team may not know each other that well, but the owners, front office, writers, and fans are very familiar with the opposing side. The Saints and 49ers were division rivals in the NFC West from the Saints’ innagural season in 1967 through 2001, until the NFL realigned the divisions with the expansion of the Houston Texans. San Francisco has dominated the series, thanks to their large success in the 1990s. They lead the series over the Saints with a record of 46-24-2. The Saints have been more in control of their recent contest, though, winning six of the last seven match-ups between the two. They had won six straight games with the 49ers, until San Francisco came in to New Orleans almost exactly a year ago and defeated the Saints 31-21 in Week 12 of the 2012 season. The two squads are both in a dog fight for their respective divisions at the moment, with tomorrow’s match-up being crucial to each team for many reasons.

New Orleans comes in to this week hot off of a dominating victory over the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday night. The Saints trounced the Cowboys by the score of 49-17. Their 625 total yards was not only a franchise record, but it bumped them from the 7th ranked offense in the NFL to the 2nd best, averaging 422.7 yards per game. New Orleans also ranks 2nd in the NFL with an average of 29.4 points per game. Taking in to account the amount of injuries that Dallas had on defense, you have to take what the Saints did with a grain of salt, but still, a game like that is not very common, even against a beat up defense. It was a fantastic all around effort and as the entire unit looks to be hitting full stride on the backside of the schedule, it’ll be interesting to see how high they can keep their level of play against a good defense.

Though they have taken a step down in their level of play from a dominant 2012 season, the San Francisco 49ers still field a very good defense. They rank 6th in the NFL in total yardage, allowing 316.8 per contest. The 49ers find themselves 5th in the NFL in defensive scoring, giving up 17.2 yards per game. For comparison, both of those ranks for their defense are one spot higher than the Saints defense. Of course, we’ll look more in to that in the next preview, but it goes to show how well New Orleans is playing on the defensive side of the ball. Not to take anything away from San Francisco, but it appears that they have taken advantage of their weaker opponents so far. They’ve played a fairly easy schedule and when playing the better teams, they’ve allowed a lot more points. In the four games they’ve played against teams currently with a winning record, they are 1-3 and allowed 23.5 yards per game. In their other five contests against teams currently with losing records, they are 5-0 and allowed 12.2 yards per game. 

Pass Offense

The Saints passing offense finds themselves trailing only one team in passing yardage per game. It’s the same team that sits in front of New Orleans in total offense and scoring as well. That team is by no surprise, the Denver Broncos. The Saints are averaging 324.9 yards per game through the air. Quarterback Drew Brees’ 3,064 yards passing and 25 touchdowns are second best in the NFL, while his 68% completion percentage is third. Jimmy Graham was on pace to shatter a few tight-end receiving records, but he has been slowed down by his foot injury. Still, 805 yards receiving are 5th best in the NFL and leads all tight-ends. He does lead the league in touchdown receptions with 10. Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles have been great out of the backfield for Brees, coming in to this week 3rd and 4th in the NFL in terms of receptions from running-backs with 46 and 44, respectively. Sproles got back in to his groove last week, reeling in 7 receptions for 76 yards and a touchdown, along with a rushing touchdown. Marques Colston had his best day of the season, breaking the 100 yard mark for the first time in 2013 and finding his way in to the end zone for the first time since Week 1 against Atlanta.

The 49ers pass defense comes in to Week 11 with the 8th ranked unit, allowing 211.8 yards per game through the air. Again, not to take anything away from them, but the only pretty good quarterbacks they’ve faced are Aaron Rodgers in Week 1 and Andrew Luck in Week 3. Rodgers had success throwing a 300+ yard and 3 touchdown performance, while Luck’s Colts never had to rely on the the pass, running up 184 yards rushing against the 49ers. Needless to say, Drew Brees’ passing ability is not something they’ve seen anytime recently. Surprisingly, San Francisco has struggled to get to the quarterback this season, finding themselves tied for 24th in the league with 20 sacks so far. That could be in large part to Aldon Smith missing five games this year after checking himself in to rehab for substance abuse following the team’s Week 3 game. He returned last week, but played a limited amount of snaps. Smith had gotten off to a hot start, recording 4.5 sacks in their first three games. Ahmad Brooks leads the team in sacks with 5.5. Former LSU standout Eric Reid has played very well for the 49ers in his rookie season, recording the team’s second best three interceptions, behind Tramaine Brock’s four. Reid is questionable to play tomorrow after exiting their Week 10 contest against Carolina with a concussion.

As long as the Saints can continue to protect Drew Brees like they did against Dallas last week, he should not have much of a problem finding receivers and moving the ball down the field. If Eric Reid is to miss the game, things could get tough for San Francisco. Safety Craig Dahl saw increased playing time in Reid’s absence and was underwhelming. It’ll be interesting to see how the 49ers choose to cover Jimmy Graham. They probably the best inside linebacker in the NFL in Patrick Willis, while fellow inside linebacker Navorro Bowman is one of the best as well. Look for Brees to spread the ball around and attack San Francisco’s defense in multiple areas in an attempt to keep the talented unit off balance and unable to key in on any one man.

Rush Offense

Well, what do you know, the Saints showed they are actually capable of putting a rushing attack together. Again, take last week’s results with a grain of salt, considering Dallas lost their most talented run defender, Sean Lee, early in the game, amongst their many other injuries. Still, it was quite refreshing to see the offensive line open up hole after hole. Mark Ingram may have temporarily shaken some of the hatred he has come to receive from the Saints fan base with a career best 145 yard and one touchdown performance that boasted a 10.4 yards per carry average. He definitely looked 100% healthy as he hit holes without hesitation, juked his way between defenders, and broke tackles. He wasn’t the only running-back who found room to run, as Pierre Thomas joined the action with a 17 carry 87 yard performance that also included a touchdown. Factoring out Luke McCown’s -2 yards rushing from kneeling on the ball at the end of the game, New Orleans ran for a whopping 244 yards in the game. It was quite the performance and hopefully, just hopefully a sign that they may have turned the corner.

Taking even more of a step down in production from last season, San Francisco’s rush defense sits at 12th in the NFL, allowing 105.1 yards per game. That’s certainly not bad by any means, but it’s not what you’ve come to expect in recent years. As I mentioned earlier, they were torched by Indianapolis in one of their losses earlier in the season, but they’ve seen much better running-backs than they have quarter-backs. They’ve faced and done very well against players such as Arian Foster, Chris Johnson, and Maurice Jones-Drew. It certainly helped that they had built good leads in those games, with those opposing offenses being very one-dimensional.

Don’t expect the Saints to be naive to think that they can come right out of the gate and pound the ball away at this 49ers defense. If anyone realizes that last week was about the best match-up they’ll see all year, Coach Sean Payton does. The best chance that the Saints have to see marginal success on the ground against San Francisco , is to build an early lead and keep them on their heels with the passing attack. They’ll certainly mix in a decent amount of runs early on to try and keep up the confidence built by the offensive line last week, but I can almost promise you that the running game will not be their plan of attack. If the Saints are able to get ahead, look for the rushing attempts to increase as the lead does.

Players to Watch

Drew Brees

Hopefully y’all don’t get tired of seeing this guy’s name here, because I don’t get tired of writing it. Brees has been on fire this season and especially at home. I cannot stress how important it is for the Saints to punch the 49ers in the mouth early on. They are coming off of an ugly loss to the Carolina Panthers last week and the last thing that New Orleans wants to do is allow them to rebuild their confidence. Drew knows that, so look for him to try and give his team a nice head start.

Mark Ingram

First off, let me be the first to say that I do not expect a repeat performance of his game last week. While I think the hate has gone way too far for the young running-back, I’m not silly enough to believe that it will come that easy every week. Of course, it all starts with the offensive line and their ability or inability to open up running lanes, but I’m anxious to see how Ingram builds off of a much need confidence boost in Week 11.

Kenny Stills

Stills has been consistently inconsistent. I’m not really sure if that even makes sense or if I’m saying it in the way I should actually be describing it, but let me just go ahead and tell you what I mean. Stills only has one game this season with over 3 receptions. He is not a volume receiver, by any means. He’s very much a “boom or bust” type of receiver. It has seemed like in each of his big games this year, he goes quiet for large amounts of time, then all of a sudden, BOOM. Such was the case last week, when he had only 2 catches for 23 yards early in the 4th quarter. With a large lead and no need to throw the ball deep, he did exactly what he does best and got behind the defense. Seconds later, he reeled in a 52 yard touchdown reception. My point is that he can lull a defense to sleep by staying quiet for a large chunk of the game, then when they slack off, he’ll jet past the corner-back and behind the safety with ease and that’s when Drew Brees finds him. If Eric Reid does indeed miss this game, the 49ers will have even less over the top protection and I would bet that Stills finds his way behind their secondary.

Prediction

The 49ers are a very good team and will almost certainly find their way in to the playoffs. With that being said, they’re on their heels right now and they’re coming to New Orleans at the worst possible time. Regardless of the state that Dallas was in, the Saints needed a game like last Sunday night to shake off losing two out of their last three games. “Swagger” is a word that gets tossed around a lot nowadays and Drew Brees has used it to describe how their team plays. Well, folks, I think they got their swagger back last week.

Saints – 30

49ers – 20

Who Dat?!