Stats – Page 80 – Syndication Server

Deonte Harris sentenced to 1-year probation; Saints WR facing 3-game suspension

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So this could be a problem. Deonte Harris was sentenced to a year of probation following an offseason arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol, per Amie Just of the Times-Picayune | Advocate. Now that his case has been closed, the NFL will be able to issue him a potential suspension.

The new collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and its players introduced in 2020 extended first-time suspensions for DUI arrests to three games rather than two, which was the previous standard. The league typically waits until a case is closed to hand down a suspension which explains why no suspension has been announced for Harris yet. We’re going to have to wait and see.

It couldn’t come at a worse time for the Saints, who have seen Harris climb the depth chart to become their most dynamic receiver. He leads the team with 46.1 receiving yards per game while also ranking first in the NFL with 27.6 yards per kickoff return (and second in punt return yards at 15.6 a pop, though opposing teams have only given him 7 returnable tries).

This follows news that Michael Thomas will not play in 2021 after a setback from ankle surgery, and a loss to the Atlanta Falcons in which the Saints’ receiving corps dropped between 3 and 7 passes, depending on which stats service you prefer. They need Harris in the worst way, but his decision to drink and drive this offseason, putting himself and others at risk — and the subsequent arrest — are hurting them.

At this point we don’t know when Harris will be suspended. Here’s how the rest of the Saints’ schedule shakes out:

Week 10 at Tennessee Titans
Week 11 at Philadelphia Eagles
Week 12 vs. Buffalo Bills
Week 13 vs. Dallas cowboys
Week 14 at New York Jets
Week 15 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Week 16 vs. Miami Dolphins
Week 17 vs. Carolina Panthers
Week 18 at Atlanta Falcons

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Jets to release former Saints punter Thomas Morstead

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The #Jets are releasing veteran punter Thomas Morstead, per source.

Because it’s after the trade deadline, Morstead is subject to waivers. One to watch with some teams in need of an upgrade.

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) November 8, 2021

This is a bummer, even if it was expected. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Monday that former New Orleans Saints punter Thomas Morstead will be released by the New York Jets and test the waiver wire, where he has a chance at landing with a new team.

Still, it was expected. Morstead only signed with New York in the first place as a temporary replacement for injured punter Braden Mann. Now that Mann is close to returning from an early-season knee injury, Morstead is again looking for a new team.

And he shouldn’t be a free agent for long. Morstead punted 23 times across seven games, averaging 48.2 yards per try and 43.0 net yards per punt. He dropped seven punts inside the opposing 20-yard line without yielding a touchback. He’s been effective. Hopefully he lands on his feet somewhere while his protégé Blake Gillikin, who earned recognition as NFC Special Teams Player of the Month for October, continues to impress in New Orleans.

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Saints’ margin for error is so thin that every game carries high stakes

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I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve written that the New Orleans Saints defense is strong enough to win games by itself this season. So what happens when they have a bad day?

It turns out that they fall short to the lowly Atlanta Falcons. They’re one bad snap from Bradley Roby in coverage away from disaster, rallying back from an 18-point deficit only to see Cordarrelle Patterson go streaking down the sideline and set up a game-winning field goal try.

Their margin for error is so, so thin. They can’t trust their offense to score 27 or 30 points a game. In Sunday’s loss to the Falcons, the Saints went 3-of-10 on third downs and failed to convert their only fourth down attempt (though Taysom Hill was able to bark the defense offsides on another one).

Every play matters. Every missed scoring opportunity, every penalty that bumps the offense back 5 or 10 yards, and every dropped pass on a critical down. If everything goes as planned and Sean Payton’s offense perfectly executes every blocking assignment and runs each route on time, things go well. But it’s such a complicated balancing act that it only takes one mistake at the wrong time to sink the whole ship.

And that comes back to the defense, where the Saints must be elite in every phase in order to skate by. They can’t give up a big play because the offense lacks enough firepower to score a big play of their own. They can’t give ground in the run game because the offense isn’t built to play from behind and throw 40 or 50 times in an afternoon. There’s no room for error or a chance at redemption.

It’s really, really tough to win a lot of football games when that’s your formula. But when your team doesn’t have one single, elite quality to hang their hats on — whether it’s a far-reaching passing game, a dominant rushing attack, a consistent and productive pass rush, whatever — every single unit has to be on top of their game and play mistake-free football.

This late in the season, it’s unlikely the Saints will find a way to reinforce the house of cards they’ve built. They can only push on and keep their fingers crossed in hope that it doesn’t collapse.

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Saints can’t stay in denial about their wide receivers for much longer

Sean Payton is finally beginning to slip out of denial at the sorry state of his receiving corps, but it may be too late:

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Trevor Siemian isn’t the reason the New Orleans Saints fell flat against the Atlanta Falcons. Well, he shouldn’t be seen as one of the top reasons. The journeyman quarterback threw with enough accuracy and anticipation to give his receivers opportunities to catch the ball and make a play — and his efforts were wiped out by drops throughout the game.

“I thought we dropped a few balls, more than our fair share,” Sean Payton observed after the game when asked about Siemian’s performance. He declined to single out any one position group, noting that drops were an issue all across the offense: “It wasn’t just receivers. I saw other guys dropping balls.”

This is a problem that’s been festering for weeks, or even months. No team has invested fewer draft picks and salary cap resources in their receiving corps in recent years than the Saints. And on Sunday that problem finally became too big for Payton to ignore, as hard he’s tried.

“I like the guys we have in that room,” Payton has said before, offering zingers like, “I don’t care about your PFF grades,” or “We like them better than you guys in the media do.”

The receiving corps struggled before Siemian took over from Jameis Winston, and they’ll struggle with Taysom Hill, too. It’s a talent-poor group that Payton has to micromanage and scheme open but that’s the kind of offense he’s preferred to run. He wants automatons that he can handpick and put into position. The issue is that even if he draws up the perfect play to get someone open, he can’t then catch the ball for them. At some point these guys need to meet the expectations that come with playing in the NFL.

Sure, they went into the season expecting Michael Thomas to return and lead the group as he has before. But the Saints chose to not build any sort of a safety net for themselves and now they’re in freefall. It’s costing them games and potential playoff seeding and their odds of competing for another division title. They’ve got no one to blame but themselves.

Maybe Odell Beckham Jr. can help cure what ails them, if they have the opportunity to go sign him. But this is a problem too big for just one player to correct. It’s going to take a concerted effort in the offseason to overhaul the group. And that means more frustration for the Saints and their fans in the months ahead.

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New Orleans Saints game recap: Everything we know after 27-25 loss

Late-game heroics for the New Orleans Saints were too little too late to knock off their division-rival Atlanta Falcons. Despite posting 18 points in a furious fourth-quarter rally, all it took was a mistimed jump by rookie cornerback Paulson Adebo to allow a 64-yard catch-and-run by Cordarrelle Patterson to set up Younghoe Koo’s game-winning chip shot field goal.

It was dramatic. For most of the afternoon it was sloppy. It got the Falcons to .500 and cost the Saints an opportunity to take the top spot in the NFC South. Between a flurry of dropped passes by the Saints receivers throughout the game and 10 penalties against New Orleans, the black and gold did as much as they possibly could have to lose. Here’s everything you need to know from the game:

Film room: Analyzing Graham Mertz’s masterful performance vs. Rutgers

What did you think of Mertz’s performance?

The Wisconsin Badgers put together yet another complete performance Saturday, defeating Rutgers 52-3 thanks to suffocating defense and an explosive offensive performance.

I could write for days about how good Jim Leonhard’s defense played Saturday and has played all season. But that’s somehow become a given at this point, furthered every week by another fresh batch of turnovers.

The biggest story surrounding the team this season, and the thing that’s had a big impact on the outcome of each game, is the play of quarterback Graham Mertz. The emergence of Braelon Allen is a big one and the improvement of the offensive line is arguably the second-biggest.

But Wisconsin needs great play from Mertz to win the Big Ten. Against Rutgers that’s exactly what we saw, furthering the continued improvement he’s shown this season.

Here is why Badger fans should be excited about what Mertz can do the rest of this season, and the rest of his Badger career:

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Auburn falls 20-3 to Texas A&M

that was ROUGH

Stats from Auburn’s 20-3 loss to Texas A&M

Scoring

Texas A&M opened scoring with a field goal on their first drive. Auburn responded with a field goal of their own to make it 3-3 before the end of the first quarter.

Texas A&M took a 6-3 lead after a 68-yard drive. After Auburn went three-and-out, the Aggies added another field goal to take a 9-3 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Auburn’s ensuing drive ended in disaster when Bo Nix dropped the football and Michael Clemons scooped it up and returned it 24 yards for the touchdown. Texas A&M converted their 2-point conversion to take a 17-3 lead.

Texas A&M added another field goal to take a 20-3 lead late in the fourth quarter.

Team Stats

Total yards: AU 226, TAMU 409

Passing yards: AU 153, TAMU 192

Rushing yards: AU 73, TAMU 217

First downs: AU 17, TAMU 18

Third downs: AU 4-16, TAMU 3-13

Sacks: AU 0, TAMU 4

Tackles for loss: AU 4, TAMU 6

Penalties: AU 5-35, TAMU 4-30

Individual Stats

Bo Nix: 20 of 41 for 153 yards and an interception, 7 carries for -18 yards

Tank Bigsby: 15 carries for 69 yards, 4 receptions for 16 yards

Jarquez Hunter: 4 carries for 14 yards,

Shaun Shivers: 3 carries for 8 yards, 6 receptions for 40 yards

John Samuel Shenker: 4 receptions for 50 yards

Shedrick Jackson: 2 receptions for 8 yards

Luke Deal: 1 reception for 15 yards

Demetris Robertson: 1 reception for 10 yards

Kobe Hundson: 1 reception for 8 yards

Ze’Vian Capers: 1 reception for 6 yards

Stats from Auburn’s first half against Texas A&M

First half stats. It’s wild out there.

Stats from Auburn’s first half against Texas A&M

Scoring

Texas A&M opened scoring with a field goal on their first drive. Auburn responded with a field goal of their own to make it 3-3 before the end of the first quarter.

Team Stats

Total yards: AU 108, TAMU 162

Passing yards: AU 66, TAMU 76

Rushing yards: AU 42, TAMU 86

First downs: AU 9, TAMU 10

Third downs: AU 2-8, TAMU 0-6

Sacks: AU 0, TAMU 2

Tackles for loss: AU 1, TAMU 4

Penalties: AU 3-25, TAMU 1-10

Individual Stats

Bo Nix: 9 of 17 for 66 yards, 4 runs for -1 yards

Tank Bigsby: 7 carries for 25 yards, 1 catch for 4 yards

Jarquez Hunter: 3 carries for 10 yards

Shaun Shivers: 3 carries for 8 yards, 3 catches for 19 yards

John Samuel Shenker: 2 catches for 25 yards

Shedrick Jackson: 2 catches for 8 yards

Demetris Robertson: 1 catch for 10 yards

5 biggest EPA, WPA plays of Cowboys Week 8 win required skill, perserverance, luck

The Cowboys won nail-biter against the Vikings in a game that defied the odds as they picked up victory No. 6. A look at the EPA gains and WPA shifts of the biggest plays in the comeback. | From @ProfessorO_NFL

The Dallas Cowboys travelled to the land of 10,000 lakes to face the Minnesota Vikings on Halloween. With the contest competing head to head with Game 5 of the World Series, the NFL matchup drew a larger audience with 12.82 million viewers. Prior to the start of the game, the then 5-1 Cowboys reported quarterback Dak Prescott would be inactive leading the way for backup QB Cooper Rush to get his first NFL start.

Rush was ready for his big moment and overcame an up and down first half to throw for over 300 yards and lead a scoring drive with less than a minute left in the game to hand the then 3-3 Vikings their fourth loss of the season.

In a game with a backup quarterback making his first NFL start, the Cowboys lost the turnover battle for the first time this season, were called for over 10 penalties and trailed the majority of the game. As the saying goes, “good football teams find ways to win” and the Cowboys did just that.

Here are the five biggest plays of the game using Expected Points Added (EPA) and Win Probability models from rbsdm.com. EPA is a formula that takes historical data and applies it to every play to determine if it increases or decreases a team’s expected points given the outcome of that play. Every down and distance has a level of expected points; the likelihood a team will score on that particular drive based on that situation. Therefore EPA measures the shift in expected points as a result of a specific play.

Saints are in prime position to ascend NFC South with Week 9 win vs. Falcons

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There’s going to be a lot at stake when the New Orleans Saints host the Atlanta Falcons this weekend. The Saints are riding a three-game win streak and are in a great position to claim the top spot in the NFC South after knocking out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday. It’s just going to be difficult without Jameis Winston starting at quarterback.

But the good news is that the Saints know their next opponent. Maybe too well. The Falcons might be 3-4 but they’re the oldest rival New Orleans has had in the NFL. They’ve had a lot of success against Atlanta with just two losses to the dirty birds since 2017, but the Falcons own the all-time series 53-51. A season sweep could tie it up and set the Saints up to earn tremendous bragging rights in 2022.

Let’s focus on the NFC South right now, though. The 6-2 Buccaneers are resting up during their bye week. The 5-2 Saints are hosting the 3-4 Falcons, while the 4-4 Carolina Panthers are trying to figure out what went wrong after their hot start to the season. A Saints win on Sunday ties Tampa Bay’s division lead, and the saints currently own a tiebreaker from their head-to-head victory. For a time, at least, New Orleans would again stand on top of the division.

Every streak ends eventually, but the Saints have a real shot at extending their unprecedented four-year run in the NFC South. Putting the Falcons in their place at the bottom of the divisional standings would go a long way towards accomplishing that.

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