3 of the worst things we saw from the NOLA Saints 2021 season
The NOLA Saints went 9-8 in 2021 despite having a ton of injuries and a bad offense. They narrowly missed out on making the playoffs and fans weren’t too upset with the team missing out due to how bad the offense was.
It’s easy to say that the offense was the worst part of the Saints’ 2021 season but we’re going to break it down a bit more and dive into that.
The other day, I wrote an article about the best things we saw from New Orleans and it was all on the defensive side of the ball sans Alvin Kamara still being Alvin Kamara.
Saints finished the year with 3,186 net passing yards, just edging out the Giants for the worst in the league.
— Katherine Terrell (@Kat_Terrell) January 11, 2022
There won’t be any defensive talk in this post, as the worst we saw from NOLA in 2021 was easily on the offensive side of things. Let’s dive into the worst things from this past season.
Shaky O-Line
Now, this one might not be fair, as the team dealt with a ton of injuries on the o-line. At one point, only Cesar Ruiz was left as the original starter due to injuries or COVID-19 issues to the other four starters. Terron Armstead missed nine games, Andrus Peat missed 11 games, Erik McCoy missed five games, and Ryan Ramczyk missed seven games.
That right there shows why the unit was so inconsistent.
Going back to Ruiz, the guy was not good this year and it wouldn’t be crazy to see the team moving on from him as a starter as early as this offseason. While I doubt that happens due to cap issues and not being able to afford another option, Ruiz was that bad that the team could punt on him after two seasons and no one would be upset with the decision.
The offensive line gave up 37 sacks this year and that’s something fans aren’t used to seeing from this usually stout unit. It’s hard to deny that it was one of the worst parts of the 2021 season.