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The blueprint on beating the Saints offense is well known by ChrisNO (not verified) :: Tue, 10/20/2009 - 3:38pm and pretty easy to grasp. It's just harder to pull off. It really began in 2006 when the Ravens dominated them physically, and it's been repeated mostly by Tampa-2 teams since then, like Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Tennessee. The pass protection philosophy of the Saints stresses small line splits among the interior 3 and pushing the pass rush out wide to the edges. It's easy to play tackle for the New Orleans Saints as long as you don't give up on the play. Just don't get beat inside. Everything is geared to pushing defensive players wide, clearing the middle for Drew Brees to step up into (which he excels) and clearing his passing lanes for throws and simple vision (necessary because of his height). Combined with his excellent pocket awareness and short drop backs, the typical NFL defensive philosophy on pressuring the edges generally plays right into the Saints hands. The way to beat it has been with usually with defensive tackles winning individual matchups inside, defensive line stunts, and well timed blitzs up the middle. Anything that collapses the pocket from the inside, forcing Brees deeper, not allowing him to maximize his arm by stepping up, and clouding his passing lanes. The Saints and Sean Payton have various ways to try and neutralize that, but by and large its the most successful means of limiting what is one of the best NFL offenses over the past 3 years. This, however, requires you win those individual matchups along the line of scrimmage. More overlooked then Bushrod is the play of what is turning out to be one of the elite guard combination in the NFL, Carl Nicks and Jahri Evans. The interior of the Saints offensive line is arguably even more critical to the success of the Saints then their tackles, which is why the LT position is looking decidedly "replaceable" for the Saints, going from Brown, to Bushrod, to Strief (vs the Jets), back to Bushrod. The Giants lack an Albert Haynesworth on the interior Defensive Line, came into the game with a weakened DT rotation (with Alford out for the season and Canty out for the game), and seemed to me to limit the number of defensive line stunts I would have expected, leaving Osi and Justin Tuck on the edges precisely where the Saints wanted them. Looking at the Saints remaining schedule, teams that can slow the offense down will be teams with excellent defensive lines that can generate an interior pass rush. There aren't many left, especially as all 6 of their NFC South games are against teams struggling with their interior defensive line (Atlanta's only pass rusher being the exact sort of edge rusher the Saints aim to neutralize, John Abraham). |
The commenter put into words what I was thinking the whole game, I wasn't able to connect all the dots and put it into a coherent thought. I kept watching Osi and Tuck get shoved up field all game while watching a giant pile of bodies scrunched together in the middle and couldn't quite figure out what was going on. I couldn't figure out, for the life of me, why the defensive ends were on an island all game.
It sounds like, if there were a rematch in 3 weeks, you would stunt the defensive ends often, attempting to leave the tackles alone on their island. and sow some confusion on their interior blockers as to who their responsibility is. That would be one possible scheme adjustment, I guess.
That's all for naught without vastly improved play from the interior defensive linemen (whether its the actual DTs or Tuck lined up inside).
None of this is to absolve the players of their responsibility, as its quite clear that if there's no push up the middle against a blocking scheme worried most about that, you're screwed.
To be fair Good OL don't fall for it but someone is left free.
Assuming this understanding of the Saints OL is correct, you're left with the Saints content to turn games into a 9 on 9 of sorts (simplified to hell here), whereby the two edge rushers are taken out of the picture by scheme and they leave the rest of the blocking up to execution. Scheme out the edge rush and rely on your inside guys to man up and win the battles. We lost on both counts.
An interior push, in this instance, jumps from merely assisting the edge rush to being the key to the outside rush.
While not earth-shattering, its certainly eye-opening.
I think the Giants were playing vanilla so as not to tip their hand when we play them again, and SMASH them. In the playoffs.
Robbins was facing double-teams most of the time and one of his strengths (timing the snap) was neutralized by Brees' mixup of the count.
Hopefully he'll get a second shot at the Aints down the road.
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