Saints, Bucs Week 1: Observations from the cheap seats

Observations, part three

Because we don’t coach, we are often left wondering what a specific call was, and what was the intent. The Saints had clawed back to a TD and 2-point conversion from tying Tampa Bay and had challenged them during their final drive.

The Saints had a chance to get a stop and get the ball back around the 2-minute mark. Dennis Allen seemed yesterday to be overmatched or trying to get too cute with his stable of talented players. On the last “real” play, David Onyemata and Davenport ran a twist, where the defensive end comes inside and the defensive tackle goes outside to confuse the offensive line, making their blocks more difficult.

As they twist, whomever becomes the outside man has contain on the QB – he MUST make that QB stay in the pocket. Either that was a poor defensive call, or the players made an error in judgement if they called it themselves, or they were simply not quick enough to get it right. The result was Fitzpatrick got outside the pocket and scrambled for the game clinching first down.

Didja notice – Fitzpatrick had more rushing yards than Alvin Kamara? The Saints went back to the old Saints where they completely abandon the run. Part of that was the fact that they had one running back who hadn’t been in camp – and he fumbled his way out of the lineup. Another issue was the on again/off again affair with Jonathan Williams, who was released, then signed to the practice squad, then placed on the active roster for the game. Either way, the Saints only attempted 13 rushes. That’s not a recipe for victory.

Overall

The Saints looked poor. It’s an old story – they’ve lost quite a few season openers. But this is against a division rival, and a game they should have been more competitive in. If there is any silver lining to this, we lost our first two games last season and looked VERY poor in doing so. Maybe we’re trying to do that again. Let’s hope not, because the schedule doesn’t’ look to get easier…