The Defensive Stat that has to Change Going Forward (1 Viewer)

[SigFreudianSlip]

Only that first year. '10 and '11 we had a total of 1 interception by a safety. We nearly broke the record for forced fumbles and didn't recover but two or three. Gregg Williams defenses after '09 were awful, especially in the secondary.

Darren Sharper.

 

[los226]

Sean Payton’s defenses are allergic to pass rush and turnovers. He’ll have one off year every now and then, and unfortunately had that off year last season.

 

[Will Survive]

Only that first year. '10 and '11 we had a total of 1 interception by a safety. We nearly broke the record for forced fumbles and didn't recover but two or three. Gregg Williams defenses after '09 were awful, especially in the secondary.

Was DA the secondary coach in '10 & '11?

 

[NewOrleansFan]

Only that first year. '10 and '11 we had a total of 1 interception by a safety. We nearly broke the record for forced fumbles and didn't recover but two or three. Gregg Williams defenses after '09 were awful, especially in the secondary.

Was DA the secondary coach in '10 & '11?

2008-2010. He learned under Gibbs and Williams. Gibbs was awful and Williams defense is never consistent throughout his career.

 

[StudioSaint]

Only that first year. '10 and '11 we had a total of 1 interception by a safety. We nearly broke the record for forced fumbles and didn't recover but two or three. Gregg Williams defenses after '09 were awful, especially in the secondary.

Which it's why I think it's a bad idea for a defense to rely on turnovers. There are too many variables to turnovers that you can't control. If you have to rely on turnovers to have a good defensive scheme, then you don't have a good defensive scheme.

 

[bearze34]

Which it's why I think it's a bad idea for a defense to rely on turnovers. There are too many variables to turnovers that you can't control. If you have to rely on turnovers to have a good defensive scheme, then you don't have a good defensive scheme.

Rely on turnovers? Every good defense relies on turnovers. You cannot play better than mediocre over time without them. At it's core football is a game of blocking and tackling. Turnovers and pass rush are vital parts of that.

 

[msl]

does the special teams blocked punt count as a turnover? It is alarming but so far our defense has been getting beaten badly at the back end. I havent looked at any replays but I feel we arent seeing the MWilliams that was touted to be all pro this year though i may be wrong

 

[SaintsIn2009]

Rely on turnovers? Every good defense relies on turnovers. You cannot play better than mediocre over time without them. At it's core football is a game of blocking and tackling. Turnovers and pass rush are vital parts of that.

No they don’t. They rely on getting stops and forcing punts without points on the board. A good defense gets off the field so the offense can have a chance to score be it with a turnover or not. A solid defense does not rely on turnovers.

 

[texasjefe]

Lack of turnovers as well as the ~ balls deep ~ are a result of players being out of position.

We have young starters who have to re-learn good decision-making and technique, with the lesson that they can't just flip a switch and be what they were last year. In other words, there's a maturity issue, and all the mental mistakes team-wide are further evidence of this.

As for the defensive coaches, I think they too came into the season over-confident, based on last year's performance. But I think they have the arrow pointed in the right direction in terms of settling things down scheme-wise.

As others have said, we need Mark Ingram back, chew up the clock some, and hopefully start decreasing the other team's possessions some.

 

[bradman1965]

Some of it's luck but some of it's gotta be bad technique. Too often, our guys try to bend down and pick up the ball to advance it instead of just diving on it. Then some OLman comes flying in and recovers.

There's no evidence that technique applies to fumble recoveries, they are statistically random.

Analytics: Fumble Recoveries are Random

 

[ChaChingBaby]

Turnovers aren't going to save this defense. It would greatly help, but we have to play basic fundamentals on defense, like not giving up a hail mary or big plays.

 

[ChaChingBaby]

Only that first year. '10 and '11 we had a total of 1 interception by a safety. We nearly broke the record for forced fumbles and didn't recover but two or three. Gregg Williams defenses after '09 were awful, especially in the secondary.

They weren't even that good in 2009. We had the 25th ranked overall defense in 2009. The turnovers masked all their serious problems. Just because they won, everyone forgets all the serious concerns over that defense during the year. People act like Gregg Williams reinvented the Dome Patrol.

It's always bewildered me how Saints fans on here mythologize Gregg Williams like how Bears fans treat Buddy Ryan over that one ring. If you take away all the turnovers from 2009, we had a bad defense. 2011 basically was the same defense without all the turnovers and we saw how that ended. We needed every last one of those 5 turnovers vs Minnesota to barely get past them in the 2009 NFC title game. Payton trusted that defense so much that he went with the onside kick in the SB and refused to give Manning the field after half time.

The 2009 defense would not win a SB this year. New England had a bad defense in 2010 but led the league in interceptions and turnover ratio and they lost in the playoffs. Green Bay in 2011 had the statistical worst defense in the league, but led in turnovers by a huge margin and also lost in the playoffs. We were lucky to win it all with an opportunistic defense, cause the odds don't always go in that type of defense's favor.

 

[Boot 2Da Head]

They weren't even that good in 2009. We had the 25th ranked overall defense in 2009. The turnovers masked all their serious problems. Just because they won, everyone forgets all the serious concerns over that defense during the year. People act like Gregg Williams reinvented the Dome Patrol.

It's always bewildered me how Saints fans on here mythologize Gregg Williams like how Bears fans treat Buddy Ryan over that one ring. If you take away all the turnovers from 2009, we had a bad defense. 2011 basically was the same defense without all the turnovers and we saw how that ended. We needed every last one of those 5 turnovers vs Minnesota to barely get past them in the 2009 NFC title game. Payton trusted that defense so much that he went with the onside kick in the SB and refused to give Manning the field after half time.

The 2009 defense would not win a SB this year. New England had a bad defense in 2010 but led the league in interceptions and turnover ratio and they lost in the playoffs. Green Bay in 2011 had the statistical worst defense in the league, but led in turnovers by a huge margin and also lost in the playoffs. We were lucky to win it all with an opportunistic defense, cause the odds don't always go in that type of defense's favor.

All that said, we won a Super Bowl. So there's that....

 

[ChaChingBaby]

All that said, we won a Super Bowl. So there's that....

And didn't make it back to one with Gregg Williams, so there's that too. He is to Saints fans, what Buddy Ryan's mythology is to Bears fans over that one ring.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

I agree. But as long as we don't have a decent #2CB we aren't going to force many. The reason being is that our playmakers in the secondary like Latt and Williams aren't getting opportunities for takeaways because teams are just throwing to whoever is on the opposite side Lat (outside of TB game which I'm hopefully chalking up to a slap in the face for him). Also our dline will not force as many sacks/fumbles because again QBs are just getting rid of the ball so quick to whoever Lat isn't defending. I was very happily surprised at how many sacks we had vs Ryan. I think once we get better play from whoever the #2CB will be then the turnovers will start.

Also as a side note, one stat thing that IS encouraging however is our 3rd down defense. I want to just chalk that whole TB game up to us not being prepared and we won't play like that again, but you never know. That game sucked - Bucs were 8-13 on 3rd down. However over the next 2 weeks we held the Browns and Falcons to 34.7%. That number would be good for around 10th in the league. And I know people will say oh well it's the Brownssssss and they had Tyrod of course we should have done better vs them, well Falcons have a pretty dang good offense and we were just as good against them on 3rd downs holding them to 4-11.

So in short, let's keep up our 3rd down defense play, and solidify the #2 corner and I think the TOs for the defense start coming in abundantly.