The New Orleans Saints ended 3 of 4 red zone trips with touchdowns in Week 5. They must continue that turnaround against the Houston Texans in Week 6:
The New Orleans Saints face the Houston Texans looking to build off of their Week 5 performance. One of the biggest improvements in that game was their ability to score in the red zone. In possessions that reached the New England Patriots’ 20-yard line, the Saints finished with three touchdowns and one field goal. Continuing that trend is key to the Saints victory this week.
Red zone efficiency hasn’t been strong for either team. The Saints have scored touchdowns on 44% of their trips inside the 20, a number that increased 19% due to last week’s performance. The Texans have been even worse. They have scored touchdowns on only 35% of their red zone opportunities.
These numbers become extremely important because each team’s defense is stingy. New Orleans has the fifth-best scoring defense and the Texans have the 11th-ranked scoring defense. This is why scoring touchdowns when given the chance is important. Texans safety Jalen Pitre intercepted a pass against the Atlanta Falcons in the red zone last week to take points off the board. The team that wins the red zone battle will have a big advantage. Pete Carmichael must put Derek Carr and Alvin Kamara in the best position to put points on the board.
2022 was a year of learning for Dillon Gabriel in his first year in Norman but one he’s excited to build off of.
2022 was a learning year for Dillon Gabriel in his first season in Norman.
There were some highs but definitely, some lows as he got acclimated to a new university and level of competition.
At Big 12 Media Days, he spoke about some of the things he’s excited about going into the 2023 season. One of those is the eagerness of the new additions to learn the offense.
“With the amount of experience I do have, you know, it helps having a bunch of guys who are sponges and try to learn as well,” Gabriel said.
But he also mentions how even though he’s a veteran, he’s learning from them as well.
“Sometimes it helps on my end too, learning from them and taking their opinion or, you know, their perspective,” Gabriel said. “And I think it helps having a great room that we were able to bounce off one another.”
The game Gabriel is most excited about playing this year is one he missed last season, the Red River Rivalry.
“That’s a game I’ve been able to get to and obviously didn’t play in but you know, excited to play in that,” Gabriel said. “Just walking into the atmosphere is something that you dream of. And the type of games you want to play in. So, excited for that one as well, and that’s what college football is all about.”
One thing Gabriel and the team mentioned at media days is being more efficient and successful during critical times of the game.
“I think we learned from this last season, is that the difference between winning and losing is very small,” Gabriel said. “And it can come down to a couple of plays, you know, just the ways, you know, we ended up losing. But I think the situational football piece of it, you know, getting better on that end, to be able to take steps to convert on third down or have confidence in going for it on fourth down and in two minutes. Getting points and then fourth quarters finishing. So, just being super locked into those details, trying to get better every day. With those, which I think we’ve done a great job of, you know, in spring ball, and then a huge emphasis during summer training.”
Now it’s one thing to say all of the right things, it’s another thing to do it. We’ll see if Oklahoma can put their money where their mouth is, fix the mistakes that held them back last season, and come out on top one last time in the Big 12.
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NFL Network’s James Palmer says Patrick Mahomes is dialed in, focusing on efficiency this offseason.
NFL Network’s James Palmer has the poop on what Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is up to this offseason and it’s not just changing the diapers of his newborn daughter.
According to Palmer, Mahomes is focused on improving his efficiency as a passer this offseason. Obviously, he’s still wearing a walking boot, so the work he can do on the field and in the training room is rather limited. We do have some confirmation that Mahomes is doing at least some physical training, but Palmer says that he’s working predominately on the mental side of the game.
Mahomes wants to figure out the types of ways that he can become more efficient as a passer and adjust his game accordingly. The hopes are that they can achieve some better balance on offense between the explosive downfield plays and the ones that can sustain drives.
There is one word that has been a focus for #chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes this offseason. Here’s what he’s concentrating on. My report on NFL Network on NFL NOW pic.twitter.com/6ub3qDx23Z
“Well there’s a lot of mental work going on,” Palmer said. “You mentioned the boot and that’s where most of his focus is right now. My understanding is that the word is efficiency, for this whole offseason. He wants to be more efficient as a quarterback, become more complete as a quarterback. He knows that he has a tendency to be very aggressive. He loves to go downfield with the football, loves to try to push it vertically. But at the same time, he’s studying different ways to move the football downfield. There were a lot of coverages this past offseason, a lot of teams playing them very deep. When he goes back and watches the film, there are underneath throws that are there. There are ways to stay on the field, keep moving the football and be more efficient.”
Even ahead of the 2020 NFL season, Mahomes spoke about working on efficiency. He wanted to work on his footwork and find different ways to connect with his receivers rather than simply throwing it deep. Some of that won’t just be on Mahomes either, the team will need to adjust their playcalling. They’ll also need to make sure that the other personnel, like the offensive line and receiving corp are on the same page.
“The other part of that is evolving this offense,” Palmer continued. “This offense, this past year was very different than it was two seasons ago and everybody is coming back, including the coaching staff to where they’re going to continue to evolve, once again. Because we know that Todd Bowles went out there and he showed everybody a game plan against this offense. Now they’re going to continue to evolve with the offensive line, a lot of that is a part of it, but adjusting what they do offensively, a big part of this offseason.”
I’m not sure how much of the Buccaneers’ victory in Super Bowl LV was game plan. You’re rarely going to face a team down their top offensive linemen at four separate positions. At the same time, the Chiefs didn’t do a great job of adjusting their plan given those injuries to the offensive line. Mahomes kept trying to push the ball down the field despite having near-instantaneous pressure. It makes plenty of sense within that context why Mahomes would be working on finding ways to become more efficient.
Boston’s wing trio of Gordon Hayward, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have been shockingly efficient over the team’s last three games, all wins.
The Boston Celtics wing trio of shooting guard Jaylen Brown, forward Gordon Hayward and swingman Jayson Tatum couldn’t miss against the Chicago Bulls on Saturday.
The trio combined for 71 points, shooting 66.7 % and going 7-of-13 from deep against Chicago in a road game win, their third in a row.
Lingering pain in the foot of the leg fractured at the start of Hayward’s Celtics tenure has led to some trepidation regarding whether the discomfort might affect his overall game, but seems to have dissipated with a seeming return to the highly-efficient form he had to start the season recently.
Gordon Hayward has been excellent over the team’s current three-game win streak, averaging 21 points and 7 rebounds over the last three games while shooting 43.8 % from three and 56.5 % overall.
All-Star hopeful Jayson Tatum has been the “least” efficient of the trio over that stretch with a rough shooting night against the Atlanta Hawks and more generally this season.
Hitting just 2-of-16 in that contest, but his 12-of-15 night against the Bulls has the Missouri native averaging 21.7 points and 7.7 rebounds on 46.2 % shooting from beyond the arc and 49 % overall.
NBA Player of the Week Brown has been the most efficient of the three recently, though in fairness, a sinus infection earlier this week “robbed” him of one of the games in the team’s winning streak to impact that average (the Georgia native missing the New Year’s Eve win over the Charlotte Hornets).
The Cal-Berkeley product has shot 40.8 % from three and 52.1 % overall, with the highest effective field goal percentage of the three at .594.
Brown has averaged 21.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game over the three-game stretch, shooting a ridiculous 57.1 % from three and 57.7 % overall.
While it’s much too small a sample size to draw any strong conclusions from, it does demonstrate a few important things behind Boston’s recent success.
Most importantly, when teams have to guard this trio together, it becomes a near-impossible proposition defensively, creating open looks any time a defender tries to help.
It also demonstrates why dealing for a big man isn’t a priority, and could even become a problem if they demand touches on offense.
It also shows a diminished need for bigs to soak up rebounds on either end of the court with the wing starters pulling down 23.2 boards per game combined since Dec. 31.
We don't talk enough about how much better Jaylen Brown is this season. He scored 31 points last night in a Celtics win over the Heat and is averaging a career-high 19.9 points on good scoring efficiency. I made this video to show Brown’s improvement as a scorer off the dribble. pic.twitter.com/2AHDrrTKRd
With both Brown and Hayward having high offensive efficiency for long stretches this season, it’s not a knock on Tatum that he has been less accurate overall this season, as he tends to attempt shots with a greater degree of difficulty.
This is expected of him, and not a case of him playing outside of his role.
Without the experience of Hayward or the cover he and the Butler product provide Brown, he’s going to have up-and-down nights like he had against the Hawks until he becomes more confident on a night-to-night basis.
Add in that All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker — who has missed the last two games due to illness — has been averaging 22.5 points himself this season while shooting 39.8 % from deep, and you get one of the league’s most potent offenses.
