It's the offense, stupid. (1 Viewer)

There's a lot of talk about the defense being to blame, or just a horrible series of luck and flukes, etc. I wanted to dig in a little bit further, because blaming the defense didn't really match what I thought I saw in the playoffs over the last three years.

Here's what I found:

- In our last four playoff games, the Saints have scored below their season average. And in the three home games, they've massively underperformed. By an average of more than a touchdown. In home games, we average 10 points less in the playoffs than the regular season.

home/roadSeason scoring average home or roadActual ScoredDifference
2019Min28.420-8.4
2018LAR34.123-11.1
2018Phi34.123-11.1
2017@Min25.824-1.8
Average Difference-8.1
Checking to make sure scoring isn't down across the board in the playoffs, and we find that this is not the case for the successful playoff teams. Of the four teams who played on championship weekend, all but one averaged more points in the playoffs than they did in the regular season, and the Titans were just barely below (a single point).

Season Avg.Playoff Avg.Diff
2019 Chiefs28.24314.8
2019 49ers29.9322.1
2019 Titans25.124-1.1
2019 Packers23.5240.5

In that same span, our defense has averaged giving up 22 points in the regular season, and in the playoffs, they gave up, on average... wait for it... 22 points (shocked Pikachu face). Even in our losses, the defense has played right to its expectation (which is a slightly above average defense).

It's not the defense letting the team down in the playoffs. The defense is putting out the exact same type of performance in the playoffs as they did in the regular seasons. It's the offense that's massively under-performing in the playoffs - to the tune of 10 points per game less.


Bottom line: If the Saints offense had simply performed to its regular season performance in the playoffs, they would have made the Super Bowl last year, and at the very least played Green Bay in the second round this year.


this is my rant, week 14, 58 sec left in the game 4th and 2 on their side of the field, the D couldn't stop em. Eventually led to WC game
 
1 year at a time. If the goal is to win a SB I'm focused on this year and extending the window for one more go and I'll worry about next year...next year.
I just can't buy that with a 41 year old qb. At certain point you have to evaluate the big picture 3-5 years, and that doesn't include him. It's not knock, just the reality.
 
LC factored in home vs road averages, which I think is important here.

Curious why you didn’t do the same?

Based on the actuarial tables, my existing life is shorter than his. And I didn't think it was statistically all that relevant -- if anything, the home numbers for the defense are probably better than for the overall average, which would make this look worse and not better. And if our road numbers are better than our home numbers, that's probably a different issue/problem all to itself.

As I said, I had no quibble at all with LC's analysis or approach, and the offense clearly underperformed and should get its share of the blame. But in my view they weren't alone, and the defense was particularly lame in some key big-game areas, and I don't think you can discount the complete failures to hold a lead or tie in last-minute situations -- that's a real problem that just tweaking the defense won't fix.
 
1 year at a time. If the goal is to win a SB I'm focused on this year and extending the window for one more go and I'll worry about next year...next year.

I see what you are saying, but how confident are you (scale of 1-10) that Drew Brees will be better than Teddy Bridgewater next season. Brees will be 41 years old. It's not inconceivable (heck, I'd say it's statistically probable) that Brees won't be as good in 2020 compared to his 2019 play. With Bridgewater, you know the floor and its a floor that can get you into the playoffs. I don't believe we know Brees's floor for 2020. I'm pretty sure that we know his ceiling, and it still wasn't good enough to get us out of the wild card game in 2019.
 
But we're talking about the Saints here, not about every team in the playoffs...the Saints offense scores less in the playoffs compared to the regular season, that is the issue.....question is why?

blaming the offense is only part of the problem. The Saints offense scores less against good teams in the playoff compared against bad teams in the regular season. And this is no surprise The better teams are in postseason, not the bottom dweller teams, so scoring less against good teams is normal.

The D on the other hand had all kind of problems in the regular season against most of the teams....be that good or bad teams...their 3rd down efficiency was terrible! And that was in the regular season, and we knew that That's why we demanded 150% from Drew Brees every game! he had to preform at 150% b/c we knew the D is hot garbage on the most important down for the opponents....the bread and butter down in every series....the 3rd down! So when Drew Brees performed well in that range we knew the Saints will win the game.....but if his performance declined just a little bit.....the disparaging talks begun at one....like for example...he's washed up, he can't throw deep ect ect....lots of times it was just embarrassing reading all the garbage coming from fans...

I really don't blame the Saints offense as many others do. The Saints D is even more to blame than the Saints O .....like for example....if Drew Brees turned the ball over....that resulted in points scored against the Saints D.....and it matterd very little if it was 3rd & 3 or 3rd & 13....the result was the same....why couldn't the D make stops on 3rd downs especially towards the end of the game?....I guess we'll never know!

I don’t think we demanded 150% of drew, I expected him to give 100% and not lose the game for us. Heck, teddy came in for 5 starts and gave us 100% and he was just managing the game. Then again the game plan changed and we ran more and didn’t gas the defense.

The notion that it’s not Drew’s fault for the Vikings score after his fumble doesn’t hold up. If you give your opponent extra opportunities to score, eventually they will (Except for the saints offense). The saints offense not being able to convert or score in the 1st half gassed the defense. When your offense runs 4 plays, 1-run up the gut, 2-screen for negative yards, 3-pass for 6 yards incompletion when you need 12, 4-punt. The time of possession on under 2 min for the drive. That kills the defense.
 
Exactly, why do we have to be on pins and needles every game coming down to the wire. This has been in the regular season games as well.

I don’t think it’s as simply as add another WR either even tho I do think we need someone opposite MT to rely on in critical situations and prolong MT’s health and career. I think more over tho, Payton’s schemes need to be upgraded. Those screen pass plays are getting tiresome and people have caught on. He needs to revise some of his coaching and game plans.

We do need receiver, but we also need more offensive lineman. I get frustrated watching opposing quarterback have forever and and a day to find a open crossing receiver when Drew is under pressure after 3 seconds. How many times have we set up a screen only have 1 defender run through 3 lineman and tackle Kamara behind the line of scrimiage? isn't that whole point of the screen to block for the running back? None of the receives get separation, none of them are out running anyone down field. I can only remember 1 the whole season long and that was our third string QB to our KR.

Our formations tend to give away our plays too, and the better teams have figured that out. Its no coincidence that the Rams, Vikings and Falcons seem to always have our number and shut our offense down. We need to do what the 49ers have done this season, where they run and pass out if different formations to keep the defense off balance. the Saints are two predicable, all you have to do is cover Thomas, spy Kamara, and pass rush Brees. We can learn a lot from Kyle Shannahan's offense.
 
Also, @SaintJ - imagine that you spent a significant amount more on tutoring for the A student than you did the B- student. Does that change your expectations? Because the Saints spent $90 million on the offense and $55 million on the defense last year.

When you spend almost double on the offense vs. the defense, shouldn't you be able to not have to make excuses for the offense in losses, when the defense did about what you expect them to?

First, let me jump in with one data point: while technically not a "playoff game", our game against the 49ers essentially was one: a home game in December where the winner was going to be the no. 1 seed in the NFC, and the loser would be scrambling. That one game ended up determining our season almost as much as the playoff loss. The defense gave up 48 points, including blowing a 20-7 lead and having us trail 28-27 at the half, and then allowing the 49ers to walk over them for scores on their last three drives of the game:

14 plays, 55 yards, 6:57, TD
11 plays, 52 yards, 3:43, FG
and the killer....7 plays, 63 yards,FG in the last 0:53 of the game to lose by two

That's not underperforming, that's as bad as it gets, and a far worse performance in what was effectively a playoff game, and if you don't agree, certainly the biggest and "best" game of the 2019 NFL season, than anything the offense did in its playoff losses.

And last year, in addition to the 49ers game, in the opener, also usually a big game that we lose that puts us behind the 8-ball early, against Houston they blew a 27-21 lead with a minute to go in just two plays, and Brees and Lutz bailed them out.

* * * * *

Now, back to your post.

The only reason for the giant gap in spending is the relative youth of the defense compared to the offense, as many of our defenders are still on their first contracts, while guys like Brees, Armstead and Thomas are not. That's going to start changing very soon as the defenders start to need their second contracts.

We've put a lot more emphasis on building the defense since 2016 :

-- Rankins with the 12th overall pick in the draft, Lattimore with the 11th overall pick in the draft and used two No. 1's to take Davenport -- that's a lot of first-round draft capital all on the defense. In the second and third rounds, we've taken more defensive players (Rankins, Bell, Lattimore, Williams, Anzalone, Hendrickson, Davenport (whom I count as 2x)) in the ordinary course than offensive (McCoy, Smith, Ramczyk, Kamara, Thomas). Also, I think you can properly characterize three or four of the offensive picks were guys who dropped and were just too freaking good to pass up in lieu of a defender: Thomas, Kamara and Ramczyk, and you could even argue McCoy, and I submit that their amazing success in excess of expectations based on draft placement bears that out. I don't really see any similar situations for any drafted defensive players, where somebody said "my god how did that guy drop that far??" and we were able to grab them.

-- Most of the free agent signings/trades in the last three years were for the defense: Davis, Brown, P-Rob, Apple, Jenkins, Klein, Te'o, Edwards, Alonso, almost all of whom we signed to start. On offense, it was Ginn, Warford, Bridgewater, Easton and Cook (as I consider Murray just a swap for Ingram, since they both got about the same contract), and maybe that's 2-1/2 starters if you count Ginn, but honestly I don't think we've ever considered him (even at signing) a true #2 WR. I guess we can argue, but it sure looks to me like there's been substantially more FA emphasis on the defense: corner, slot corner and MLB are considerably more critical positions than OG and TE, even though we love the Cook signing because of the desperate need on offense for playmakers.

As I said, I agree that the offense has over the course of the recent playoff games underperformed more than the defense relative to its regular season performance. But I also that frame of reference is too narrow, and one can't ignore that the offense has usually gotten its **** together enough to score at least 20 points and win a game, and the defense has either choked down the stretch or almost choked, because the two games we won, Carolina and Philly, each opponent was driving in our territory in a one-score game in the last two minutes; it's hardly like they got us a nice four-and-out on the other side of the 50 so we could take a knee. When you roll in the chokes, and the failures and near-failures in the big non-playoff games, I just have trouble putting all that blame weight on the offense.
 
We do need receiver, but we also need more offensive lineman. I get frustrated watching opposing quarterback have forever and and a day to find a open crossing receiver when Drew is under pressure after 3 seconds. How many times have we set up a screen only have 1 defender run through 3 lineman and tackle Kamara behind the line of scrimiage? isn't that whole point of the screen to block for the running back? None of the receives get separation, none of them are out running anyone down field. I can only remember 1 the whole season long and that was our third string QB to our KR.

Our formations tend to give away our plays too, and the better teams have figured that out. Its no coincidence that the Rams, Vikings and Falcons seem to always have our number and shut our offense down. We need to do what the 49ers have done this season, where they run and pass out if different formations to keep the defense off balance. the Saints are two predicable, all you have to do is cover Thomas, spy Kamara, and pass rush Brees. We can learn a lot from Kyle Shannahan's offense.

Yep. But we hear and read on here that we have a good O line and a good D line. We don’t.
 
I see what you are saying, but how confident are you (scale of 1-10) that Drew Brees will be better than Teddy Bridgewater next season. Brees will be 41 years old. It's not inconceivable (heck, I'd say it's statistically probable) that Brees won't be as good in 2020 compared to his 2019 play. With Bridgewater, you know the floor and its a floor that can get you into the playoffs. I don't believe we know Brees's floor for 2020. I'm pretty sure that we know his ceiling, and it still wasn't good enough to get us out of the wild card game in 2019.

I think the simple answer to this is you can do both. The GM worries about the future the coach worries about this year. If I'm Payton I'm focused on retooling for Drew this year but not only for Drew but for my system so that any QB can step in if necessary...i think that much was obvious when Teddy came in that the team is already built to win post Drew.

Focusing on upgrading the offensive talent for this year doesn't stop that in any capacity, Truthfully I'm more excited about Taysom than Teddy because Teddy is too close to Drew and would give Sean a reason to be stagnant. Taysom is refreshing in that the offensive design would HAVE to change.
 
Thank you for your analysis.
Regardless of whom to blame or to highlight the weakness, we need to improve and upgrade the team regardless if it is offense, defense, special team, coaches, game planning, execution, team roster management.. etc
We need to think as a team. Bottom line we need things to improve and come together to reach our goal of winning the Super Bowl.
 
Dennis Allen made Kirk Cousins into a hero.

For just 1 time in his entire career.

And most likely the last time.
 
We gave up 20 points in regulation. 7 as a direct result of a momentum-swinging, unnecessary INT by Brees at the end of the first half.

The defense wasn’t perfect. But it wasn’t the problem.

Yep, and the defense opened the game with a huge turnover in Vikings territory and the offense went 3 and out and killed all of that momentum.
 

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