When is it time to start worrying about the New Orleans Saints pass rush? They’ve produced just one sack through two games, and they benched last year’s first-round draft pick, defensive end Payton Turner, after he struggled to make an impact in the season-opener. It’s been a pretty miserable situation to watch each week.
Now, with that said, there’s some important context to consider here. Tom Brady and Marcus Mariota have presented very different challenges to the Saints defense, so it’s understandable to see little pressure on them early on. Brady is the best quarterback in the game at reading the defense pre-snap and reacting quickly to get the ball to his receivers. Mariota is one of the better athletes you’ll see at the position around the league, and his coaches maximize that by designing a lot of throws on the run and from different launch points. As hard as Brady makes it to pressure him in the pocket, Mariota is an elusive target in the backfield.
So those are two different quarterbacks with very different play styles, and they both found success against the Saints. New Orleans doesn’t value speed off the edge; it’s why Zack Baun, an undersized sack artist in college, has been limited to a special teams role in the NFL. They want their defensive ends to be tall and long-armed to make for naturally-stout run defenders who overwhelm opponents with technique and power.
That’s a problem when you’re matched up with Brady and he’s getting the ball out in 2.32 seconds, as was the case on Sunday. The strongest ends in the NFL (and Cameron Jordan and Marcus Davenport are among them) won’t be able to beat their blocker and cover ground that fast. Brady knows that his processing speed is his strength, and he used it against them even to his detriment. His receivers dropped a couple of passes and saw many more fall incomplete because he was hurrying to get the ball out, often before they were ready for it. It’s why the Buccaneers offense gained fewer than 20 yards on all but four of their possessions, not including two kneel-downs. The Saints defense got the better of them for most of the afternoon, even if they weren’t’ sacking Brady.
What about the week before? Mariota was markedly slower to throw than Brady. He averaged 2.91 seconds before throwing, which is a lifetime in NFL terms; for context, his overall time of 3.09 seconds to throw ranks fourth-slowest among all quarterbacks to throw in both weeks this year, while Brady’s 2.26 is the fastest. And as we laid out earlier, chasing Mariota down is a unique challenge in itself. Between all of the pre-snap motion Atlanta dials up in the backfield, the designed rollouts and bootlegs, and Mariota’s real threat to take off and run, it’s another tough matchup for the Saints’ prototype at defensive end. You’re asking guys who weigh, at minimum, about 280 pounds and tower over others at 6-foot-6 to cut and turn on a dime. That’s not going to happen, or at least not happen often.
So what’s to be done? When asked about the lack of pressure, Dennis Allen expressed his satisfaction with the defensive line and preached patience, saying “The sacks will come.” Allen is known for getting blitz-happy when the situation calls for it, but he’s dialed up extra pressure on just 7 dropbacks through two weeks (out of 68 combined dropbacks for Brady and Mariota). And blitzing either of them doesn’t make sense: Brady is a master at reading those designed pressures and adjusting to the open patches of field left behind, while Mariota is the ideal athlete to tuck it and run when faced with a free running lane. Blitzing them isn’t the answer, but it could be the best path forward against other passers coming up next like Baker Mayfield, Kirk Cousins, and Geno Smith.
The Saints aren’t going to change the qualities they value in personnel and suddenly start fielding Baun or other speed rushers. They’re not going to keep playing unproductive players like Turner, either, just because he was drafted highly. Allen has a plan and a vision that has worked well (for the most part) for a few years now, and they’re going to stick to it, for better or worse.
Maybe things settle down and the back seven defenders step up to better contain these quarterbacks so that the big guys up front can get home. It’s a strategy that has worked before. We’ll have to wait it out and see. That’s still a frustrating proposition when you see an empty box score, a first rounder on the bench, and a game in the loss column.
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