New Orleans Saints’ season was dictated by penalties
The New Orleans Saints were a third-most penalized team in the entire NFL this season, that dictates how a season will go and end.
Ironically, the New Orleans Saints season ended in the Wild Card round of the playoffs with a missed offensive pass interference call by the referees. That has been the season in a nutshell for the New Orleans Saints in 2019.
The Saints finished the year as the third-most penalized team with 153 total flags against them. They finished only five flags behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars who tied with 158 total flags against them.
They also finished top five in penalties against and yards against, as well as, they finished in the bottom five in beneficiary penalties and finished dead last in beneficiary yards. That all brings them to the second-lowest team in net penalties and net yards in penalties.
They also had the second-most penalties at home in the entire NFL — only second to the Cleveland Browns. As you can see, penalties against really dictated the game and flow for the New Orleans Saints this year.
According to NFLScrapR, the New Orleans Saints are the least benefitted team on penalties on third down resulting in a first down since 2010. They are also the second-highest defense harmed by these penalties in the last decade behind only the Seahawks.
It is hard for an offense, or defense for that matter, to gain any traction when they are consistently being held up by penalties and letting teams have a completely new set of downs because of a penalty by the defense.
I am not saying that all the penalties shouldn’t have been called or that they were all bogus, but it does make me wonder how the Saints’ season would have gone if they weren’t among the top penalized teams in the entire NFL.
Unfortunately, I will have to continue to wonder and hope that, going into next season, Sean Payton does something to encourage a greater lack of penalties.
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That will help boost our offense and defense more than any players would.