SaintStephen1
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One of the real weaknesses (and I realize they’ve won a lot) of the Saints during the Payton regime is how poor the defense has played in the end half and end game situations. My question is why?
I think a lot of the problem is Coach Payton seems to ignore the clock in those situations and goes balls to the wall to score as quick as possible when Saints have the ball and seems to always leave enough time for the opponent to drive for a score. He even likes to use his timeouts when opponents stall which frequently backfired when they end up converting first downs and continue scoring drives. He’s always thinking as an offensive coach and frequently puts his defense in tough situations.
I’ll give the latest example from this past Sunday. After Taysom got Saints first down at Vikings 20 with a little over 4 minutes to play, Saints throw on first down. At that point on the field, Saints would seem to have at least a tying FG assured. Shouldn’t Payton’s goal at that point be to use some clock while scoring a TD. A couple of runs and a 3rd down conversion inside the ten would run 2:00 of the clock. Then if Saints tie or take lead, Vikings would have become pass happy with less time to drive.
Against the Rams last year when Drew goes to the sidelines with two minutes left in tie game with Saints at the Rams 13 yard line, he says to the coach, let’s be smart here. Rams had 2 timeouts. A first down wins the game so running the ball three times makes Rams use their TOs then runs the clock down to about a minute. Brees says let’s be smart and what does Payton tell Brees..,he wants a TD so they come out throwing. Payton had no concept that a first down was better than a TD! So they come out throwing, get incomplete , no TO by Rams and no time off the clock. Yes got screwed and should have won anyway but Payton was way off in his thinking.
Coach needs somebody in the organization to teach him the right strategies in those end half and end game situations.
I think a lot of the problem is Coach Payton seems to ignore the clock in those situations and goes balls to the wall to score as quick as possible when Saints have the ball and seems to always leave enough time for the opponent to drive for a score. He even likes to use his timeouts when opponents stall which frequently backfired when they end up converting first downs and continue scoring drives. He’s always thinking as an offensive coach and frequently puts his defense in tough situations.
I’ll give the latest example from this past Sunday. After Taysom got Saints first down at Vikings 20 with a little over 4 minutes to play, Saints throw on first down. At that point on the field, Saints would seem to have at least a tying FG assured. Shouldn’t Payton’s goal at that point be to use some clock while scoring a TD. A couple of runs and a 3rd down conversion inside the ten would run 2:00 of the clock. Then if Saints tie or take lead, Vikings would have become pass happy with less time to drive.
Against the Rams last year when Drew goes to the sidelines with two minutes left in tie game with Saints at the Rams 13 yard line, he says to the coach, let’s be smart here. Rams had 2 timeouts. A first down wins the game so running the ball three times makes Rams use their TOs then runs the clock down to about a minute. Brees says let’s be smart and what does Payton tell Brees..,he wants a TD so they come out throwing. Payton had no concept that a first down was better than a TD! So they come out throwing, get incomplete , no TO by Rams and no time off the clock. Yes got screwed and should have won anyway but Payton was way off in his thinking.
Coach needs somebody in the organization to teach him the right strategies in those end half and end game situations.