The 2014 Saints

            In 2013, following the return of head coach Sean Payton and the arrival of new defensive coordinator, Rob Ryan, the New Orleans Saints posted a record of 11-5. In the playoffs, they beat the Philadelphia Eagles 26-24 before falling 23-15 to the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round. The Saints had Super Bowl aspirations entering 2014. Despite being tight against the salary cap, they resigned tight end Jimmy Graham to a four year deal and brought in safety Jarius Byrd from the Bills to bolster their defensive backfield. The moves indicated that the Saints wanted to win another Super Bowl before the end of quarterback Drew Brees’s career.

            Currently the Saints’s record is 2-4, second in the NFC South. Three of their losses have been by a combined six points. In games decided by six points or fewer the Saints are 1-3. Some of this poor record is simply bad luck—a play or two goes the other way in any of the Atlanta, Cleveland or Detroit games and suddenly the Saints are 5-1. But luck isn’t the sole reason for the Saints poor record through seven weeks. In order to understand where the Saints have faltered this year, we need to dig a little deeper. So let’s start with their average production on drives (courtesy of Football Outsiders).

Saints Drive Statistics

	Yards/Drive	Points/Drive	Plays/Drive	LOS/Drive
Offense	41.86 (1)	2.48 (7)	6.81 (1)	22.73 (31)
Defense	37.20 (29)	2.53 (30)	6.47 (29)	25.45 (9)

The Saints offense has managed the most yards and plays per drive in the NFL. Yet they are only seventh in points. Brees’s seven interceptions (more on turnovers later) have contributed to this lower than expected scoring output. They have also suffered from lousy field position, 31^st in the league. It’s great to have lots of plays and yards, but it’s hard to convert them into points if you have to traverse the field much farther than your opponents. And most importantly, for every long drive the offense manages to string together, the defense gives it right back. Saints opponents are nearly matching the offense in terms of production. Think of it this way, this year the Saints offense has played against itself on the other sideline. It’s hard to win a lot of games that way.

SAINTS ON OFFENSE

            While it would be easy to place the blame for the Saints poor start solely on the defense, there’s more to the story than that. So let’s go deeper on the Saints offense.

Saints Overall Offense 2013 vs. 2014

	Points/Game	Yards/Game	Adj. Sack Rate	Offensive DVOA	Pass DVOA	Run DVOA
2013	25.9 (10)	399.4 (4)	5.3% (4)	16.0% (5)	35.9% (3)	-5.3% (19)
2014	25.8 (10)	437 (2)	2.9% (2)	11.8% (7)	18.3% (15)	10.2% (2)

            At first glance, the Saints offense seems to be humming along as usual. They’re scoring at almost an identical rate as last season. They’re even averaging more yards per game. The offensive line has kept Brees off his back, allowing sacks on only 2.9% of his dropbacks. Even their overall offense according to DVOA (explained here) is similar to last season. Yet when we look closer at their passing and running games, a disturbing trend begins to emerge. The passing game that has terrorized opponents since Sean Payton and Drew Brees arrived in New Orleans has declined significantly from last season.

Saints Passing Offense

	Yards/Game	Plays of 20+ Yards	Average 20+ Yard Plays/Game	Yards per Reception
2013	307.4 (2)	67	4.1875	11.6 (14)
2014	314 (2)	18	3	10.8 (25)

           

            The Saints offense is producing similar yards per game, but the decline stems from the lack of big plays down the field. Over the Payton-Brees partnership the Saints have always relied on a balance of short passes to their running backs and wide receivers and deep throws down the field. The short passes function as an extension of their running game. They get the ball to their pass catchers in space and pick up chunks of yardage. Downfield passes prevent teams from stacking the line of scrimmage and smothering the short passing game. This season the Saints have largely lacked that deep threat. Their average number of plays 20+ yards downfield has fallen dramatically and consequently so has their average yards per reception. Without the threat of quick score on a long pass, the Saints cannot generate the big scoring plays that build leads and create extra possessions.

SAINTS ON DEFENSE

Saints Defense 2013 vs. 2014

	DVOA	Pass DVOA	Run DVOA	Points per Game	Run Yards per Game	Adj. Sack Rate	3rd Down Conversions
2013	-5.8% (10)	-9.2% (6)	-1.5% (20)	19.0 (4)	111.6 (19)	8.6% (4)	34.7% (9)
2014	17.7% (32)	39.3% (30)	-8.6% (16)	27.5 (28)	103.2 (11)	3.6% (29)	46.3% (26)

The Saints’ defensive decline has been staggering. A quick look at DVOA reveals where the Saints defense has gone wrong this year. The Saints front four has generated little pressure on the quarterback as evidenced by their atrocious adjusted sack rate. Pass rushers Cameron Jordan and Junior Gallette have failed to build on their breakout from last year. The inability to pressure the quarterback has exacerbated the problems in the defensive backfield. The Saints pass defense is similarly woeful. Last year the defense allowed 194.1 passing yards per game, second in the league. This year, they rank 28^th with 270.5 yards per game. The defensive backs have been especially burned by opponents’ number one receivers, allowing 108.2 yards per game compared to only 48.6 last year. Part of this problem has stemmed from poor play by the defensive backs. Opposing offenses have repeatedly picked on defensive backs Patrick Robinson and Corey White. Robinson and White both played extensively last season, but with the departure of Malcolm Jenkins, Jabari Greer, and Roman Harper have been called on to play a bigger role in the defense. So far they haven’t been up to the task. The season ending injury to Jarius Byrd has only worsened the problem. Byrd’s coverage skills were supposed to meld well with second year safety Kenny Vaccaro’s run defense. Bad defensive backs are especially deadly in Rob Ryan’s defensive system.

Rob Ryan Defenses by DVOA

	DVOA (rank)	Pass DVOA (rank)	Run DVOA (rank)
2004 OAK	11.5% (26)	29.2% (30)	-4.6% (15)
2005 OAK	1.9% (20)	13.1% (27)	-8.5% (14)
2006 OAK	-8.0% (8)	-16.1% (4)	-1.6% (17)
2007 OAK	5.7% (20)	-1.3% (13)	11.9% (32)
2008 OAK	3.7% (19)	-0.1% (13)	6.7% (28)
2009 CLE	16.4% (30)	27.1% (28)	5.4% (30)
2010 CLE	1.7% (18)	4.6% (18)	-1.1% (22)
2011 DAL	0.4% (16)	8.5% (20)	-10.9% (8)
2012 DAL	6.7% (23)	16.2% (25)	-4.1% (19)
2013 NO	-5.8% (10)	-9.2% (6)	-1.5% (20)

            Over his career as a defensive coordinator, Ryan has predicated his defenses against stopping the run. By focusing on stopping the run, Ryan likes to put his opponents in third and long situations, forcing them to pass. In those situations, Ryan can rely on his defensive creativity to confuse opposing quarterbacks and force them to make mistakes. As part of his defensive game planning, Ryan, like his brother, features what is called an “amoeba defense” (it’s also known as a “psycho front”). Here’s a picture of it below.

            This picture is from the first game of the 2013 season. The amoeba relies on confusing the opposing quarterback by keeping the defenders moving around, disguising who will rush the quarterback and who will drop into coverage. Only one Saints defender (defensive end Cameron Jordan) has his hand on the ground—the traditional stance for rushing the passer. Everyone else is standing and able to either rush or drop back depending on the play call. While the amoeba defense can be quite effective in confusing opposing quarterbacks (the Ryan brothers have had success against Brees, Brady, and Manning using it), it is high risk and high reward. The amoeba is particularly susceptible to run plays and screen passes. In the above situation, the Saints dare the Falcons to run the ball. They have few defenders in position to stop the run at the line of scrimmage. Screen passes are also effective because they get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly and away from the constantly moving defenders. The amoeba is also less successful when the other components of the defense: the pass rush, defensive backs are less successful. In order for the amoeba to be successful, the defense needs to force their opponents into disadvantageous situations.

TURNOVERS

	INT	Fumbles	Total
Offense	7	4	11
Defense	3	1	4
Turnover Differential			-7

The Saints have lost the turnover battle this season. Some of that is due to bad luck. The Saints defense has forced four fumbles, but only recovered one of them. Meanwhile opponents have forced five fumbles and recovered all of them. Additionally Brees has thrown more interceptions than usual. His TD/INT ratio this year is 1.57, well below his career average of 2.03. Even worse is that Saints opponents have turned six of those seven INTs into touchdowns. Some of this turnover luck should even out. The Saints should recover a few more fumbles and their opponents will recover a few less.

Overall, the Saints season has been a combination of poor play and bad luck. The luck should even out, but the poor play will determine if the Saints can make a run in the weak NFC South. 

Liam Neeson Movie Marathon

            Last weekend, my wife, Casey, and I decided to open a bottle of wine and watch some mindlessly entertaining movies. The bottle of wine, a Malbec called Layer Cake, had chocolate cake on the label—too bad the label was the best part of the wine. For mindless entertainment, we chose two Liam Neeson movies, Taken 2 and Nonstop. Taken 2 proved mostly a sluggish bore, while Nonstop was a ludicrous and entertaining thriller.    

            I am an unabashed fan of the first Taken. I first watched it at my parents’ house when my brother had ordered it from Netfix (remember when you used to get discs from Netflix?).  The first half hour was laborious, but necessary for establishing the plot. It portrayed Neeson’s Bryan Mills as a man with a special set of skills and tried to convince the audience that Maggie Grace (playing Neeson’s daughter Kim) could pass as a sixteen year old girl. Once Kim gets kidnapped the film kicks into high gear. It surges forward as Neeson’s Mills swiftly and ruthlessly does whatever is necessary to find his daughter. Along the way he destroys a trailer park brothel, shoots up a building full of Eastern European human traffickers, interrupts a high end party by shooting its host, and finally kills a boatful of men protecting the Arab sheik who bought his daughter. Note the not so subtle reveal of how the sexual exploitation of women transcends social class.  In the end, Mills saves his daughter and goes home happy. Taken is not an intellectually or morally complex movie, rather it’s an action movie that for the last hour remembers why we like action movies in the first place. Neeson propels the plot from each escalating set piece by unabashedly displaying his determination and desire to get his daughter back.

Taken 2 sputters around by focusing too much on Bryan Mills’s family life.  Maggie Grace is 32 and ten years ago played a teenage girl on Lost. Yet the film begins by insisting that Kim is now only old enough to be taking her driver’s test. There’s also Bryan still pining for his ex-wife, her crumbling marriage, and Kim’s new boyfriend. Eventually the film shifts to Istanbul where the patriarch of the Eastern European traffickers from the first film has sworn revenge. Unfortunately, the patriarch (I’m not sure he’s even given a name) spends much of the film driving around Istanbul, issuing orders, and mumbling about getting revenge for scumbag son. The action scenes drag as well. Rather than using the set pieces to build towards a climatic confrontation, the film divides its time between two finales. First Kim must help save Bryan from his kidnappers. She casually tosses grenades, deftly avoids her kidnappers, and demonstrated Formula One level driving skills as she navigates a stick-shift cab through Istanbul. The second half features Bryan hunt down the patriarch only to have him give up without a fight. What should have been an uncomplicated action sequel instead became burdened down by the useless baggage from the first film.

            Nonstop fulfilled all the hopes I had for Taken 2. Neeson plays a former NYPD officer turned air marshal who receives a death threat from a passenger. 150 million dollars in twenty minutes or a passenger dies. The plot then barrels forward as Neeson searches for the culprit. His paranoia builds along with the body count. Overqualified actors surround Neeson at every turn, lending an air of seriousness and sincerity to a ludicrous airplane thriller. The pilot is Batman’s dad! The stewardesses are Lady Mary from Downton Abbey and Patsey from 12 Years a Slave. Four time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore plays Neeson’s seatmate. Character actor Corey Stoll also portraying a cop, lends credence to the passengers who question and resist Neeson’s actions. As Neeson struggles with his own past—his daughter died and he was a terrible father—the plot propels ludicrously forward as friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and around and around it goes. The film’s ostensible point is about post 9/11 complacency about airline safety, but theme and logic don’t matter here. The filmmakers deliver a satisfying and physically impossible climax as Neeson shoots the bad guy while the plane crashes around him. The film’s fun comes from watching Neeson and the rest of the talented cast unravel the insanity around them.