Untitled

 Two plays from Sunday's win perfectly illustrate the growth of the defense.

Early in the season, the defense had issues with its fundamentals. Eyes in the wrong places. Assignments busted. Players trying to do too much. Any of those three things will cause issues on their own. When they're all prevalent, which was the case for the Saints earlier this year, it can cause people to question the group's ability to perform as expected.

New Orleans' biggest issue early this season was wandering eyes. You'd see it in coverage and against running plays, where players would get caught watching the backfield or some motion or shift. Once the smoke cleared, the mirror's reflection was often of a player running free with the ball in his hands.

Despite being without several key players, San Francisco offered a great test because of all the ways they go about scheming things open. The 49ers used motion on 30 plays on Sunday. So, if the Saints weren't on point, it wouldn't have mattered who they were playing. They would have found a way to beat themselves.

New Orleans was on point.

***premium*** The first moment when you knew the Saints were going to be on point came late in the first quarter after Kyle Shanahan used his scripted plays to march down the field and score an early touchdown. The 49ers put a ton of dressing on top of a play, of which the first two layers could have easily displaced Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.

Before the snap, a tight end motioned to his side of the field. The ball gets snapped, and all of the action is selling a run to the left side of the field. Gardner-Johnson doesn't pursue it. He dodges a tight end coming to his side of the field to lay down a block and then goes in pursuit of the wide receiver looping behind the quarterback for a sweep. The safety hits the wide receiver, slowing him down enough for his teammates to come in pursuit and clean it up for a loss of 8 yards.

[videopress ulpii3mN]

These are the type of plays the Saints struggled with earlier in the year. Plays in coverage are slightly different, but Gardner-Johnson got caught watching a run fake against the Raiders that allowed Darren Waller to score a touchdown. Having your eyes in the right place and being disciplined will show up positively in all aspects of the game.

The other evidence came in the second quarter. The Saints have been poor at covering bootlegs all season until recently. The results have gotten better, but it has still been a solid short-yardage play for New Orleans' opponents.

The 49ers did a heat check in the second quarter on third-and-1. They dressed it up with some misdirection and motion, but Malcolm Jenkins saw it the whole way, sticking with a San Francisco running back into the flat. With his first read taken away, quarterback Nick Mullens had to throw across his body between two defenders to another receiver. The pass was incomplete.

[videopress XlV5Pd03]

Detractors will say they had one good game against Tampa Bay and beat up on a depleted San Francisco offense. There is some truth to that, but only if you believe this is a talent deficient defense that lacks the necessary players to perform well. The feeling here is that New Orleans has talented players on defense, and the issue was getting the pieces to fit together.

One of the biggest differences from early in the season until now is that Gardner-Johnson and Jenkins are playing well.

When going downhill, Gardner-Johnson is a missile. His blitzing popped out all over Sunday's film, but his run defense was even more impressive. He had another stop in the backfield, and his ability to turn his speed into power cleared out blockers and allowed Marshon Lattimore and Marcus Williams to get run stuffs. At one point, Gardner-Johnson hit an offensive lineman so hard he fell to the turf, allowing Marcus Williams to make a tackle.

As for Jenkins, his ability in coverage and as a blitzer continues to shine through. His man-to-man ability against tight ends has stood out in recent weeks, and then he also made an interception while playing a shallow zone. These are the traits that caused New Orleans to target Jenkins when he became available, and they are now paying off.

One of the beliefs this offseason was that the secondary could be the strength of the team. That is starting to take hold. Williams also played well in this game, and Marshon Lattimore and Janoris Jenkins provided strong coverage on the outside for the second week in a row.

The defensive line is also starting to come into its own. David Onyemata had four pressures during this game, furthering his claim as one of the more consistent performers on defense. But Trey Hendrickson (two pressures), Marcus Davenport (one pressure) and Cam Jordan (two pressures) were all active. The blitz is where things happened in this game, though, with Demario Davis (five pressures) and Gardner-Johnson (four pressures) making a significant impact.

Positive signs are showing up every week now. The start was rough, but there are reasons to believe the defense can continue to round into shape. With Drew Brees expected to miss some time, there is really no choice. This group is going to have to step up to keep the team afloat.

Linebacker review

Kwon Alexander appeared as you would have expected him to appear on film.

He showed off great range and was dynamic at times. He flowed in the running game, had some big hits, and showed range in the passing game. But he also overpursued some runs, hit the wrong gap a couple of times, and missed two tackles.

The positives were very positive. The negatives weren’t as negative, but they did exist, and those are the things that you can expect to see in Alexander’s game to some degree. Overall, he was a net positive to the defense and should continue to get better as he further settles into the defense.

Alexander stood out most against the run. His range on an outside run by Jerick McKinnon stood out as he and Davis flowed to the outside together to shut it down. Alexander’s click-and-go ability also showed up when he helped stuff a run near the goal line.

He had some good moments and some bad moments in coverage, but he should develop more consistency – especially in zone – over time.

As for Davis, this might have been his best game of the season. He appeared dynamic and was all over the field. One of the areas he stood out was as a blitzer, as he generated three total pressures (including one sack) on nine attempts.

While it felt like Davis was more active in this area, New Orleans has used him pretty consistently in the pass rush. He has blitzed at least nine times in six games this season, with the games against the Bucs (Week 9), Chicago and the Panthers the only ones under that mark.

Perhaps having good coverage is providing a little bit more time for the pass rushers to get home. Facing an inexperienced quarterback also helps.

Coverage approach

Interesting that the Saints played more single-high safety looks this week, using Cover 1 and Cover 3 on 26 of 42 passing attempts. Mullens didn’t have much success against anything.

This comes after New Orleans only used single-high looks on eight snaps last week against the Buccaneers.

This is an important point because one of the talking points surrounding the defense is that things were too complex and the defense was too multiple, which led to busts in coverage. That isn’t the case since the team is successfully executing its coverages out of various schemes.

Protection issues

The circumstances surrounding Cesar Ruiz’s entrance to the NFL are not advantageous. The offseason was cut short; he suffered an injury and is now playing a new position. All of those things need to be kept in mind, but it is also true that any mistakes he makes while learning on the fly could lead to a quarterback hit.

A big one came on Sunday when Kentavius Street beat Ruiz one-on-one to sack Brees and eventually knock him out of action. But there were other issues in the game. Ruiz allowed three other pressures and looked like he was holding on by a thread other times. Despite playing only 496 snaps and not being used every week, Ruiz has allowed a team-high 20 pressures.

There are moments when he looks great. He stood out on inside runs against Detroit earlier this season and was down the field on a long Kamara screen this week. The hope has to be that he will eventually figure it out, and perhaps playing center is his best position, but being left one-on-one at guard has exposed him in various moments.

Ruiz wasn’t the only player who had a bad game on the inside. Andrus Peat gave up a pair of pressures, and Erik McCoy whiffed badly on a Jameis Winston sack in the fourth quarter (we blamed Ruiz immediately after the game for that one). Nick Easton only played a couple of snaps and gave up a sack.

This group needs to perform better as a whole. Winston looked like a different player after he took a couple of hits. If his ability to perform is reliant is having a clean pocket, the interior will need to make sure he is afforded that atmosphere – especially since Winston might hold the ball a little longer than Brees.

Tackles Terron Armstead and Ryan Ramcyzk might have played their best game of the season as a duo. Neither player appeared to give anything up to the defense.

Taysom review

The biggest issue facing Taysom Hill is ball protection, not just this season, but as his career progresses. He has 45 touches this season and has already fumbled four times.

That’s a problem, however, it’s an odd one considering that he didn’t struggle with fumbles until this year. He only had one in 2018 and none last season. Something is off. One of them earlier this year looked like it hit the foot of a player in motion, which gives a little bit of an excuse, but that also means the quarterback mistimed the snap and called for it while the player was passing in motion.

The ones on Sunday were both Hill’s fault. He pulled a ball away from Kamara on a read-option and couldn’t tuck it in, and then allowed a second one to get knocked away. That has to get cleaned up.

If Hill is going to be a quarterback – one who runs the ball often – he needs to do a better job of protecting the ball. This is something he did well until this year, so perhaps he’s just hit a rough patch, but he needs to find a way out of it quickly.

Other notes

Marquez Callaway has some special ability on special teams. On his first fumble recovery, he beat Ken Webster down the field by using what looked like a double-move a wide receiver would run. Webster’s hips got turned the wrong direction, allowing Callaway to keep running clear until the ball bounced off of Webster. On the second one, Callaway just beat Dontae Johnson up the sideline. Will be interesting to see if teams better scheme for the rookie moving forward. … Marcus Davenport had a bullrush where he just absolutely destroyed Mike McGlinchey. That move has become his go-to and needs to be respected. … Brees and Thomas missed on a slant. Thomas was 30-for-34 when targeted on slants last year. He’s 2-for-3 this year. … Interesting to see Marshon Lattimore help get guys lined up now and then. He helped Gardner-Johnson a few times. … Kamara has emerged in a leadership role both on and off the field. The way he went on the field to help Gardner-Johnson off was notable. … Jimmie Ward’s hit that knocked Tre’Quan Smith out of the game was an absolute cheap shot.