Tag: Pete Carmichael

10 takeaways from Saints’ 20-13 loss to the Texans

10 takeaways from the New Orleans Saints’ 20-13 loss to the Houston Texans

The New Orleans Saints (3-3) hit the road to face the Houston Texans on Sunday with a chance to build off of a huge amount of momentum after recording a 34-0 win over the New England Patriots in their fifth game of the season.

That was not the case, though, as some of the issues of previous weeks reared their heads again and the offense once again failed to capitalize on the chances it did have.

In what could have been the fourth win of the season for the Saints at many different points in time, here’s a look into 10 things we took away from the 20-13 loss to the Texans:

Saints’ red zone efficiency will be a key to victory vs. Texans

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.

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Podcast: Flowers for Pete Carmichael, Alvin Kamara TD record, Saints-Texans preview

Podcast: Flowers for Pete Carmichael, Alvin Kamara TD record, Saints-Texans preview

The Saints Wire podcast is live with managing editor John Sigler (@john_siglerr) and our host Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG). You can subscribe for new episodes released each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your podcast service of choice.

Pete Carmichael gave the people what they wanted in Week 5’s offensive eruption, leading to Alvin Kamara breaking the franchise touchdowns record — earning praise from Marques Coslton, the previous record-holder. Then we’re shifting gears and previewing Week 6’s matchup with the Houston Texans, where the Saints must maintain their uptick in production on offense. Tap in.

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Pete Carmichael gave the people what they wanted in Saints’ offensive eruption

Play action, pre-snap motion, and red zone creativity. Pete Carmichael gave the people what they wanted in the Saints’ offensive eruption:

Play action, pre-snap motion, and red zone creativity. Pete Carmichael gave the people what they wanted in the New Orleans Saints’ Week 5 offensive eruption, putting the New England Patriots away handily 34-0. Fans and analysts covering the team saw everything they had asked for from Carmichael’s offense on the afternoon.

The Saints ramped up the use of pre-snap motion in Week 5, going from ranking last to a rate that would place well inside the league’s upper half. That added hesitation as the defense was forced to account for a player in motion paid off in a big way to give the offense an advantage they desperately needed.

And play action picked up in the passing game, too; Derek Carr was able to use his forever-underrated athleticism to throw on the move and link up with Michael Thomas on a couple of big gains. Carr has the wheels to make plays as a runner and force defenses to respect him as more of a run threat. Getting him out of the pocket and in space has been an inefficiency for this offense that they’re now course-correcting.

We’d be remiss to not mention Carmichael’s gutsiest play call of the day: a shovel pass to tight end Foster Moreau on second down from the New England 6-yard line that asked him to follow his blockers into the end zone. That’s exactly the sort of innovation and creative use of personnel that’s been missing through the first four weeks of the season.

And the players took notice. Alvin Kamara praised Carmichael after the game, saying that “Pete was good today. It was good to see Pete out there having fun. It was like he took a deep breath and just exhaled.”

Will Carmichael keep it up in the months ahead? Let’s hope so. This was easily the most entertaining game of the Saints’ season so far, and results like this would go a long way towards quieting the discontent about his position on staff. He can’t keep running Sean Payton’s playbook for Drew Brees without Payton or Brees. Whether it’s done by choice or kicking and screaming, the Saints offense must be dragged into the modern era. They have too many talented personnel to settle for less. Sunday’s performance was a big step in the right direction.

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Analyzing what went right and what went wrong in Saints’ win over Patriots

Instant analysis from Saints’ much-needed Week 5 win vs. the Patriots: What went right, what went wrong, and what’s the bottom line?

The New Orleans Saints are back in the win column as they go on the road to shut out the New England Patriots. The offense finally looked alive as the defense puts together an incredible game.

So we’ve got some important questions to answer while analyzing the 34-0 win: What went right? What went wrong? And what’s the bottom line?

Alvin Kamara was taking notes during the Saints’ big Week 5 win

Alvin Kamara was taking notes during the Saints’ big Week 5 win, remembering every dropped pass and almost-sack. He’s got high standards:

Drew Brees and Sean Payton always talked about Alvin Kamara as one of the most intelligent football players they had been around, and it’s easy to see why when the New Orleans Saints star running back breaks down a game like this. Kamara took the initiative to hold himself and his teammates accountable after their 34-0 walloping of the New England Patriots on Sunday.

Kamara was taking notes during the game, keeping track of every dropped pass and almost-sack. He’s determined to maintain high standards that made the Saints one of the NFL’s winningest teams to start his career.

“I just want to address, because I was thinking about it, Tyrann Mathieu owes me a pick,” Kamara recalled. “I think Cam (Jordan) owes me like a sack or two. Mike (Thomas) owes me a catch so I’m putting Mike and Derek (Carr) in the same bracket. I don’t know what it was, the throw or the catch, but Mike owes me a catch. Chris (Olave) owes me a catch because I’ve seen him make those catches before on the sideline. What else? I’m just going to blame someone else just because, D.A., just because.”

But it wasn’t just the negatives he was keeping track of. Kamara shared how he was speaking with Carr, offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, passing game coordinator Ronald Curry and running backs coach Joel Thomas during the game, adding his input to different situations and pointing out play calls that worked well to his teammates’ strengths. The results speak for themselves with 34 unanswered points on the afternoon.

Kamara added that having coaches receptive to that kind of feedback from players helps everyone by fostering a collaborative approach. It develops a comfort level that helps everyone feel like they’re involved in the offense, and he says this win was a good example of what that cohesiveness can accomplish.

It wasn’t all perfect. Kamara is aware of the penalties, too, and he’s not going to let his teammates with dirty hands get off scot-free: “We still had some penalties. Foster (Moreau) owes me one. (Cesar Ruiz) owes me one, (Rashid) Shaheed owes me one. I’m just recalling everything that hindered us, kept the score from going any higher.”

But we’re focusing on the positives, and Kamara saw a lot to like from the team in this game. They played a style of complimentary football that we haven’t seen often enough in recent years with an opportunistic defense, a tight special teams unit, and an offense that picked up first downs and ended drives with touchdowns. Having leaders like Kamara taking charge like this can help them go far.

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Report: Pete Carmichael could be on the hot seat if Saints continue to struggle on offense

The Saints aren’t in any hurry to move on from Pete Carmichael. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that their struggling OC isn’t on the hot seat just yet:

The New Orleans Saints haven’t seen enough out of Pete Carmichael’s 21-game run as offensive coordinator to warrant a change. Despite ranking 22nd in scoring last season and 25th through four games this year with their handpicked quarterback under center in Derek Carr, the Saints are determined to take their time in making a move at play caller.

Pittsburgh Steelers fans are experiencing the same frustration with Matt Canada at the helm of a futile offensive effort. Both teams are in a similarly tough spot, and they’re facing similar stakes in the weeks ahead. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports of Carmichael and Canada that “if production doesn’t ramp up, their respective seats will be hot, based on conversations with sources close to the situation.”

But how many more weeks of poor performance do the Saints need to see before they’re ready to give someone else a shot? Two more weeks? Three? Four? The Saints are 2-2 because Carmichael can’t manage the offense effectively and put points on the board. They’re lucky to be 2-2 seeing as their margin of victory in those two wins was just four points altogether; a couple of kicks go differently and this is an 0-4 team.

Carmichael’s tendencies and shortcomings have been well documented. As observed by NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill, his offense ranks last in the NFL in using pre-snap motion and play action on passes, teeing up the opposing defense for easy reads to react to. Take out Rashid Shaheed’s punt return score and the Saints are tied with this week’s opponent, the also-lambasted New England Patriots, for the third-fewest points scored (55) across the league. Only the often-mocked New York Giants (46) and banged-up Cincinnati Bengals (49) have scored fewer.

But maybe Carmichael just needs more time to add more variety to the offense and get better production out of his personnel. Surely an offense with a Pro Bowl quarterback, the league’s best receiving running back in Alvin Kamara, a number of talented tight ends (plus do-it-all weapon Taysom Hill), a wide receiver trio that fans spent all summer hyping up, and an offensive line that’s improved each week will be this bad for much longer? Right?

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Saints must finish drives with touchdowns against Patriots

9 of the Saints’ 13 scoring drives have ended in field goals. In a battle of struggling offenses, New Orleans must score touchdowns to win on Sunday:

The focus for the New Orleans Saints this week against the New England Patriots should be finishing drives with touchdowns. The Saints ended last week with all of their points coming via field goals. That issue isn’t isolated to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. 

When New Orleans does move the football, they struggle to put the ball in the end zone. The Saints offense has led 13 scoring drives this season, nine of them ended in field goals. The offense has yet to finish a game with more drives ending in touchdowns than field goals. In Green Bay, one of the touchdowns was a Rashid Shaheed punt return touchdown.

The offensive struggles were mitigated by the defense the first two weeks of the season. The defense is strong but shouldn’t be expected to never waver. That was evident against the Packers. This shouldn’t be the game the defense gets lit up, but the Saints should still stress putting up points on the board.

This is an issue that needs to be fixed beyond just this game, but it could be what takes the Saints over the top this week. The Saints and Patriots are two teams who have struggled to score points. New Orleans is the fifth worst scoring offense and New England is the third worst scoring offense in the league. If a team scores two touchdowns, that could be enough in a battle of low scoring offenses.

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Chris Olave owns up to on-field frustrations during Week 4 loss vs. Bucs

Chris Olave owned up to his on-field frustrations during Week 4’s loss to the Bucs, but it’s easy to understand why a young star would feel dissatisfied with the state of the Saints offense

Chris Olave played his worst game as a pro against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and to his credit he’s owning up to it. The New Orleans Saints’ leading receiver finished the contest with a career-low total of one reception for a gain of four yards — off of six targets. That’s his lowest total in the NFL and in college since his freshman year, when he was targeted just once during Ohio State’s win over Nebraska on Nov. 3, 2018 (the pass fell incomplete).

Fans on social media noted Olave’s sagging effort in the matchup, where he struggled to compete for some contested catches and sustain blocks to help his teammates. At times, he expressed a bit of attitude leaving the field for the sidelines.

“That’s not the way to go,” Olave told NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill on Thursday, adding that some of his close friends on the team made a point to cool him down and emphasize that he can express his concerns in other ways without hurting the team. He added to the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate’s Rod Walker that “Everybody’s got to look themselves in the mirror” after a 26-9 blowout loss.

It’s easy to understand why he’s frustrated. The Saints’ play calling has fallen off a cliff since Week 1, when Olave lined up all over the formation, including the backfield. He ran three routes out of the backfield in the season opener and caught two passes from that alignment for 30 yards. But he hasn’t moved to the backfield in three games since.

That’s just one example, but it goes to show how limited Olave’s assignments have become in the offense as the season continues on. He isn’t being given many opportunities to catch a ball in space and make a play after the catch. When he’s being thrown to further downfield it’s all along the sideline where the degree of difficulty ratchets up as the field condenses down and the defensive back can use those physical limitations to their advantage. When Olave has been targeted down the middle (as was the case against the Buccaneers on Sunday) the ball was thrown behind him, forcing him to cut his feet and leap backwards, trying to fight off two defenders for a shot at it. No dice.

Olave is a young superstar in the making. But he won’t reach the heights in front of him without more help from his play caller and quarterback. At the same time, he can’t let those dissatisfactions impact his performance. Letting off-target passes from Derek Carr and doomed play calls from Pete Carmichael get into his head just leads to more negative plays. As his veteran teammates know all too well, the best thing he can do is focus his energy on doing his job to the best of his ability.

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Podcast: Who’s holding the Saints’ offense back more, Derek Carr or Pete Carmichael?

Podcast: Who’s holding the Saints’ offense back more, Derek Carr or Pete Carmichael?

The Saints Wire podcast is live with managing editor John Sigler (@john_siglerr) and our host Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG). You can subscribe for new episodes released each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your podcast service of choice.

There’s a lot of blame to go around following the Saints’ 2-2 start, with most of the frustration focusing on the offense. But who is to blame? Offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, whose play calling is just as suspect this season as it was last year, or quarterback Derek Carr, who was brought in with the explicit goal of fixing this offense? We’re grilling both parties before taking a look at Week 5’s matchup with the New England Patriots.

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