The New Orleans Saints will host the Denver Broncos on Thursday Night Football this week, and it will mark the first time Sean Payton has coached against his former team since he “retired.”
Let’s just call it as it is; the Saints have some major problems right now. After their 2-0 start, they’ve rattled off four straight losses, and it’s because they’ve been playing some undisciplined football lately.
Offensively, things are not great. With Eric McCoy and Taysom Hill out (Hill could return this week), this offense has gone to crap. The offensive line is struggling to block in both the run and pass game, and that is affecting everything Klint Kubiak likes to do. He can’t use the run to set up the play action pass, so it’s forcing the Saints to be a bit one dimensional.
I will say this, there was a point last week where the offense looked great against Tampa. In the second quarter, the Saints scored 27 points thanks to some turnovers which gave them some good field position. Spencer Rattler looked really good over those few drives but started to look like a fifth-round rookie in the later stages of the game. Overall, he showed a lot of flashes, and his mobility certainly helped him when the pass rush got through the offensive line, but there were times where I think he thought he was still in college and held onto the ball for too long.
This week, the Saints have to face a really stingy Broncos defense that has quietly been really good. Through six weeks, the Broncos are allowing just 16 points per game, which ranks fourth in the NFL. The Saints are still technically a top 5 scoring offense (27.8), but that number drops to 19 over their last four.
Where the Broncos defense really excels is stopping the pass. They give up just 170 passing yards per game, which is fifth in the league. However, they could be without their top CB in Patrick Surtain, who didn’t practice with a concussion. It’ll be hard to clear concussion protocol by Thursday, so we’ll have to see what happens.
If Surtain can’t go, Riley Moss, Ja’Quan McMillan and Levi Wallace will in all likelihood be their starters. That trio has combined to play 503 coverage snaps this season and allow 54 of their 82 targets (65.8%) to be caught for 497 yards (205 YAC) and only one touchdown while breaking up six passes and picking off one more. Moss and McMillan were limited participants in practice on Monday, so we’ll see if the Saints get lucky and one of them also misses the game, but I wouldn’t count on it.
On the other side, the Saints are likely going to be without Chris Olave and potentially Rashid Shaheed this week. Both players were injured in last weekend’s loss, and without them, the Saints could be in some deep trouble. Bub Means is their third-leading WR in terms of yards, and he’s played just one game (last week) and has 45 yards. He, Mason Tipton and Cedric Wilson will likely be Rattler’s top three targets at WR, and that’s quite worrisome.
Compared to the pass, the Broncos are definitely worse at stopping the run, but they’re still not horrible in that department; they rank 14th in the NFL, allowing 114 rushing yards per game. As for the Saints, after two really strong weeks running the football, they’re averaging just 86 yards per game over their last three games, which would rank 30th in the league over the full season. Alvin Kamara was listed as a limited participant on Monday’s projections, but he played through his injury last week, so he should be fine. On the o-line, Cesar Ruiz and Lucas Patrick both were listed as DNP’s Monday.
Unfortunately for Rattler, the Broncos are really good at getting after the quarterback. They average 3.7 sacks per game, which ranks third in the league, and against this Saints o-line, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rattler is sacked another five times this week.
Overall, the Broncos defense certainly has the advantage over the Saints offense. It’s going to be a mismatch pretty much every week until the Saints can do something to address the offensive line, which they likely can’t do until the offseason.
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