We have a good Defense (1 Viewer)

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Quite often, I hear a lot of people complaining about our defense. Well, here is a question for you. Just how good do you expect for our defense to play when the offense is constantly turning the ball over. Case in point, during the first 6 games, we were all raving how surprised you were about how well the defense has been playing. Do you think that all of a sudden, we suck? The secondary is crap? You can even have the 85 bears defense playing for the current saints and you can best beleive that if they were on the field as much as our defense have been there will be all kind of breakdowns in coverage and every where else. I apologize about the rant, but just think about how often all of those guys are on the field, especially after a quick interception or fumble.
Oh yeah,
GEAUX SAINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I don't think our defense is bad, but I'm not ready to put them in the 'good' status yet. Sure the offense is definitely making them look worse than what they are with the turnovers, but I doubt that has anything to do with Josh Bullocks taking poor angles and biting on play-action and pump fakes.
 
They're the best Saints defense since the 2000 defense. That's all the credit that I'm willing to give right now.
 
Quite often, I hear a lot of people complaining about our defense. Well, here is a question for you. Just how good do you expect for our defense to play when the offense is constantly turning the ball over. Case in point, during the first 6 games, we were all raving how surprised you were about how well the defense has been playing. Do you think that all of a sudden, we suck? The secondary is crap? You can even have the 85 bears defense playing for the current saints and you can best beleive that if they were on the field as much as our defense have been there will be all kind of breakdowns in coverage and every where else. I apologize about the rant, but just think about how often all of those guys are on the field, especially after a quick interception or fumble.
Oh yeah,
GEAUX SAINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, the Saints defense hasn't been on the field as much as people think.
They only have 595 defensive plays as of 11/23/06, which is tied for 5th in the league. The offense actually leads the NFL in plays at 672.
To answer your question about the secondary, yes, they have been bad all year. The first play of the year was a 76 yard TD pass to Braylon Edwards. It was called back for holding, but the blown coverage was definately there. I think there may be three games without a 45+ yard pass this year.

There's more to it, though. Above, I stated that the Saints defense is the 5th best in the league having only 595 plays. That's fantastic, but it puts a light on how bad the secondary has been against the big play.
The Saints defense is dead last in the league (tie w/Redskins) in passing TDs, and there are only 4 teams in the league with fewer defensive snaps.

That said, there's no doubt the offense must stop the turnovers and it does hurt the defense. I agree the defense is on the field, not just too much, but at bad times. Just imagine where they would be if the secondary didn't give up so many points! The problem is with the pass coverages the Saints can use and still contain the run, and the Saints really want the opposing offense to abandon the run. This is why the offense has come out passing the ball more- to try to get a quick lead; to try and force the opposing offense to be 1 dimensional. If that happens, the defense could pull the SS out of the box and put him into pass first coverage. On offense, there would be far more running plays to eat the clock.
There might be more running in this game, because keeping Atlanta "one dimensional" is a paradox. The challenge here is getting three and out from them, without always being able to drop an extra safety in deep coverage. I expect to see a lot more three safety sets (Scott deep, Stoutmire in the box) to hopefully contain things.
 
I'd say our defense is average. They can mostly come with stops when it counts, and give our offense a chance to win the games. But they aren't the type of defense than can win games for you. They don't force many turnovers or shut down the opposition like say the Bears can. I didn't think they played all that bad in the Cincinatti game. Given the opponent I'd say it was an average outing. If our offense had actually put points on the board they wouldn't had to play as aggressive and they wouldn't have given up those two quick scores.
 
Case in point, during the first 6 games, we were all raving how surprised you were about how well the defense has been playing. Do you think that all of a sudden, we suck? The secondary is crap?

The Saints got beat because they were playing against better teams. (Plus giving the football away) If anyone here thinks that the Saints are better than Pitt, Balt, & Cincy then they need to take off the Black-n-Gold glasses. I love my Saints but I am somewhat realistic about things.
 
The Saints got beat because they were playing against better teams. (Plus giving the football away) If anyone here thinks that the Saints are better than Pitt, Balt, & Cincy then they need to take off the Black-n-Gold glasses. I love my Saints but I am somewhat realistic about things.

Well I have the glasses on then. We are a better team then Pitt and Cincy. Anyone who couldn't see that in those games is just sunk in negativety. Yes the Ravens licked us and were better but Pitt and the Bengals had the game handed to them on a silver platter, with ketchup on the side to make it go down easier.

Theres a line between being a realist and being overly negative.
 
Quite often, I hear a lot of people complaining about our defense. Well, here is a question for you. Just how good do you expect for our defense to play when the offense is constantly turning the ball over. Case in point, during the first 6 games, we were all raving how surprised you were about how well the defense has been playing. Do you think that all of a sudden, we suck? The secondary is crap? You can even have the 85 bears defense playing for the current saints and you can best beleive that if they were on the field as much as our defense have been there will be all kind of breakdowns in coverage and every where else. I apologize about the rant, but just think about how often all of those guys are on the field, especially after a quick interception or fumble.
Oh yeah,
GEAUX SAINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any defensive performance is measured on their ability to stop the opposition in scoring!.......so the question should be....is the Saints D able to stop the opposition on a regular basis?......Can they STOP THE RUN??......OR THE PASS?

All the "other" stats ARE IRRELEVANT to a great degree, if the D can't STOP THEIR OPPONENTS! The Saints D can't stop anybody, save the 2 games in which their D WAS THE DIFFERENCE!!.....we won 6 games on the back of our OFFENSE, which OUTSCORED their opposition!....We outscored the Packs, the Eagles, and Bucs (twice), and we only beat the Browns and Falcons WHEN WE STOPPED THEM WITH OUR DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE!.....in every other game the opposition lead us at some point, and it was our offensive performance the difference in our wins!

That points to a BELOW AVERAGE D, and if we are looking at our losses, our D was the problem in 3 of our losses!....we lost the Panthers game in the 4th qt, when our D FAILED to stop their running game.......we lost both the Steelers, and Bengals games, when our D FAILED TO DEFEND THEIR RUNNING (Steelers), AND PASSING (Bengals) GAME........either way, our defensive performance, (or lack of it) was the MAIN REASON we lost!

Of course on top of all that, was the turnover DISASTER, which put even GREATER PRESSURE ON THIS BELOW AVERAGE D.....that didn't help either!......but we can't dismiss our D's inability to create turnovers, and STOP the opponents!
 
We also cannot forget the points our offense allowed the opposing defense to score in some of those games.
 
The Saints do not have a good defense. Being tied for 30th in the league in turnovers created is just one of many statistics that proves it.
 
Our defense is not great but better than anyone could have thought they'd be. IMO the best thing for our defense is a better run game, and its not just the time of possesion, although thats a big part. A team just responds to a punch you in the mouth, win the battle in the trenches, control the clock, pound the ball style of play. To all the guys that say we win the time of possesion, your right we usually do, but its not the same. We have to potect the ball, but we also have to protect the defense and that means playing them in high intensity, high energy limited spurts. Get em on, get em off, keep em off.
 
We need to first start holding teams to field goals. I few weeks ago there was a stat that when a team getts in the redzone, they had scored like 11 or 12 straight td's. That has got to stop.
 

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