It wasn't pretty for the New Orleans Saints, but is it ever?
It was a 14-11 win over the lowly Giants and Derek Carr left with what could be a significant hand injury. The game came down to a 35-yard field goal attempt that didn't go through the uprights and the Saints get to celebrate.
Young players stepped up, the Saints figured out how to stop a running back and the math is still mathing for the playoff chase.
With all that in mind, here are my stock up and stock down players after a nail-biting win over the Giants.
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THREE UP
BRYAN BRESEE (AND THE PASS RUSH)
This was an ugly game, but one of the reasons for that was Bryan Bresee wrecking it.
I’ll have to watch the film to really assess, but this felt like the Saints’ best pass rush game since … Week 15 against the Giants last year. The Saints were in the backfield harassing Drew Lock all game. They finished with only two sacks, but it could’ve been a lot more if not for some wild throwaways that stretched the boundaries of “receiver in the area.” It felt like the Saints were in the backfield all day -- and that goes for everybody. Chase Young and Carl Granderson each had three QB hits while Cam Jordan and Khalen Saunders had two.
But wait, this is a Bresee note, and he continued to build on his team-leading 7.5 sack total while adding another pair of QB hits and batting down a pair of passes. The kid has work to do on his run defense, but he’s already as elite of a pass-rushing DT as you’ll find in the NFL. Those are the money moments that get you paid.
What’s so intriguing for Bryan is the “flashes of brilliance” that head coach Darren Rizzi noted in his postgame. He truly is a dancing bear, evidenced nowhere better than his game-saving blocked field goal where he leapt over the A gap and got his giant paw in front of Graham Gano’s kick.
I’ve seen players do that before. One of the Giants’ two wins this season came on a player where super athlete Isaiah Simmons made the same leap/block against the Seahawks. The difference is Bresee is a defensive tackle. I didn’t even know that was possible for a guy that size.
"He's made a couple of huge plays a couple of weeks in a row," Rizzi said. "You're seeing a lot of the reasons we drafted the player."
The other element of Bresee’s game that tends to go unnoticed is his ability to bat down passes. In two seasons he’s already logged nine passes defensed. That’d be a solid number for a defensive back. The best part is he doesn't even really practice that part of his game, it just comes naturally -- though he thinks his basketball background might be a factor in how he's honed that ability.
The kid has work to do, but he’s got the skillset to be a stud. When you draft a guy in the first round you expect him to leave his fingerprints on games in some form of fashion pretty regularly. That was definitely the case today.
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THE RUN DEFENSE (NON QB RUNS)
We’re going to erase the fact that Drew Lock ran for a game-high 59 yards and the Giants OL was in shambles and just focus on some progress.
A week after getting blitzed by the Rams on the ground the Saints really held up well. Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary combined for 53 yards on 18 carries (2.9 YPC). That’s a good result no matter who you’re playing. This wasn’t a high-scoring game where the Giants abandoned the run, the Saints just took it away.
One player who deserves a lot of credit in that endeavor is Khalen Saunders, who has quietly been one of the Saints better defensive players this year. He’d tell you that stopping the run is 80% mentality and want-to. That’s what he’s got, just look at how fast he moved whenever he gets a chance to actually rush the passer.
I swear he has two sacks this year that only happened because the QB didn’t realize how quickly he could actualy get there. Have you ever watched an alligator run? Those things can chase down a dog as long as they’re going in a straight line. That’s basically how I feel about Khalen Saunders. QBs don’t realize he’s got that alligator speed until it’s too late and he’s rolling away in celebration.
Oh, but yea, stopping the run. That’s fun, too. I'd love to see more penetration and stops behind the line of scrimmage (zero TFLs today), but it was certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully Jayden Daniels doesn’t go off for 200 on the ground next week, because I’m not sure the Saints will have any answer. For now I’ll celebrate shutting down the Giants.
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KENDRE MILLER
Woof, woof, woof. I mean that in the most positive of ways.
Kendre said this week that he was happy to be out of the doghouse and it was time to bark a little bit. We definitely saw that on a handful of really impressive plays in this game, even if there were some frustrating moments baked in, too.
There’s been more than enough negativity thrown Kendre’s way, so we’ll just focus on the positive here. Miller now has two career TD runs that both came in very similar scenarios in the sense that, objectively, neither should’ve resulted in touchdowns. This time it was an old-school rugby scrum that walked it’s way over the goal line on a play that the Giants looked to have stood up at the 5 or 6 yard line.
On the day it wasn’t an eye-popping line of 32 yards and that aforementioned TD on 10 carries, but Kendre has the important ability to make something out of nothing. He’s a big, bruising back, but displays agility and balance that I’m sure is what drew the Saints to him in the first place. At least half the time he touches the ball he’s able to either finesse or plow his way to a handful of yards that didn’t look like they were there. He’s a great complement to Alvin Kamara, and you can see the vision.
The issue for Kendre is always going to be health. He got a good-sized workload in this game, and even some money downs like the 3rd and 1 carry after Derek Carr went out with an injury. He didn’t convert, but the confidence to put him in that scenario alone is all you really need to know.
Kendre has a lot of work left to do. I desperately want to see him get through the final month of the season without an injury and, particularly if the playoff pipe dream goes away, a much bigger workload over the final few games of the season to see exactly what we’re working with.
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HONORABLE MENTION
Demario Davis is ageless, but even he’ll admit his hands have been letting him down. Well, not in this game, with those hands he said he’d be ordering on Amazong coming through in the clutch for an interception that halped the Saints seal the result (or at least that’s what it looked like at the time). My only critique is that he seemed so elated to catch the ball that he forgot he could get up and run with it. There was no defender near him and he’d have had a long return if not a touchdown if he hadn’t waited too long. Maybe next time ... Things fell apart a bit late, but I thought this was another strong game for Alontae Taylor and Kool-Aid McKinstry on the outside. McKinstry had a handful of rookie moments, but the Giants really never got anything going in the passing game. There were some desperation prayers by Drew Lock that were answered, like a 2-point conversion that got tipped up into the air and fluttered into Malik Nabers’ hands, but otherwise I think that pairing is getting better week by week. ... The tight ends keep making their impacts, even if it flies under the radar. Foster Moreau and Juwan Johnson combined for 7 catches for 90 yards. Each guy had a chunk play of 30-plus yards. Foster had a slick one-handed grab, while Juwan had the easiest touchdown of his life after the Giants forgot to cover him. Blocking hasn't always been perfect, but these guys are impacting games.
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THREE DOWN
A HEALTHY OL
In Weeks 1 and 2 the Saints had their fully healthy offensive line, and the offense dominated. Then the injuries struck.
This week marked the first since Week 3 that the Saints rolled out their fully intact starting OL. It wasn’t a dominating performance, particularly in the run game. The Giants stopped the Saints behind the line of scrimmage, either a pass or run, 11 different times (excluding sacks). That's not ALL on the OL, but it's certainly on the blocking.
The Giants threw bodies at the problem, and it worked. They lined up in the same 5-down front that the Eagles used to flummox the Saints and it had the same effect. Alvin Kamara was held to 44 yards on 17 carries (2.6 YPC), not exactly a banner day for one of the league’s most consistent backs.
But pass protection was an issue, too. It just seemed like they were losing early and often and torpedoing plays that had a chance.
This is now back-to-back weeks where the OL was a major problem. I also don’t think this was Derek Carr’s best day, but it’s hard to be too critical with no protection and no WRs.
For this team to do anything notable down the stretch that group has to be better. Hopefully some time on task will help that, since it seems all five of those starters came out healthy.
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A KILLER INSTINCT
How many opportunities did the Saints have to put this game away? It feels like somewhere in the low 900s.
They had chances on offense. Chance after chance after chance after chance in fact, up two scores and needing another to really put things away. They couldn’t get it done. Even after Derek Carr dove to set up a 3rd and 1 and is feared to have fractured his left hand and potentially suffered a concussion in the process, nope. The Saints got stopped on 3rd down and punted.
The Giants’ touchdown drive? The Saints had a Drew Lock-led offense in 3rd and 9, 3rd and 18 and 4th and 10. They couldn't get off the field. Oh, and the tipped up 2-point conversion? That fell into Malik Nabers' arms. WTH.
On the next possession Demario Davis picked off Lock, but the Saints couldn't ice the game, admittedly with a backup QB in Jake Haener. The next Giants drive? They faced another 4th and 10 and converted. It wasn’t until New York got down into chip shot field goal range that they relented — giving up on a third down shot at the end zone in the process — for a kick that should’ve sent the game to OT. It didn’t because the one-man wrecking crew of Bryan Bresee leaped over the line and ended the game. That’s what living on the edge looks like, and that’s what bad teams do in games they shoud just put away.
At the end of the day a win is a win, but when you’re struggling to beat this Giants team that’s now lost eight in a row, it’s hard to see this as a winning trajectory.
Good teams put away games. The Saints don’t seem capable of that right now.
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MATT HAYBALL
Any time your head coach goes apoplectic directly at you on the sideline, things aren’t going particularly well. That was the case for Matt Hayball against the Giants.
It wasn’t a terrible day on the whole, but it sure didn’t reflect the image of a guy who’s currently the leading Pro Bowl vote-getter at his position (I still can’t quite figure that one out). Rizzi said it was one of the Saints’ worst special teams days all season, and the punter was a big part of that. The punt that drew Rizzi’s ire was actually returned for a score by Ihmir Smith-Marsette, but it was negated by a penalty. In a game like the one we watched on Sunday, that could’ve very easily been the difference. Instead it’s a footnote.
On the whole, though, it simply wasn’t a strong day. It was made even more notable by just how effective Jamie Gillan was at pinning the Saints inside the 10 with side-bounding kicks that seemed to do exactly what he wanted.
Here's how all seven of Matt Hayball's kicks went on the day:
- Q1, 13:43: From NO 21 to NYG 44, 8 yard return; 27 yard net
- Q2, 14:12: From NO 31 to NYG 23, 11 yard return; 35 yard net
- Q2, 6:33: From NO 13 to NYG 44, 56-yard TD return negated by holding; 38 yard net
- Q2, 1:55: From NO 25 to NYG 37, no return; 38 yard net
- Q3, 10:23: From NO 46 to NYG 18, no return; 36 yard net
- Q4, 3:16: From NO 38 to NYG 11, 3 yard return; 48 yard net
- Q4, 1:31: From NO 39 to NYG 18, 9 yard return; 34 yard net
That should give you a good idea of what we're looking at. Hayball may be among the league leaders in kicks downed inside the 20, but considering where he’s sent a lot of his punts from, that’s an inevitability. The punts that change games are the ones that really back the other team up inside their 10, and there simply haven’t been enough of those.
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A FEW MORE
I get it, I’m not supposed to talk about kicker stats because that means if he misses the next kick it’s my fault. I posted on Saturday that Blake Grupe is the first kicker in Saints history to make five 50-plus-yard kicks, and he’d done so without a miss. The whole point was to illustrate how good his season has been, while also noting that the upcoming remaining games against the Giants and Packers represented two very difficult kicking scenarios for a guy that does what, 90% of his kicking indoors. Predictably he missed twice from that range in Week 14, but only one was a serious attempt. It was from 53 and he missed to the direction the wind was blowing. The second was a 60-yard attempt at the end of the first half that was blocked. I’m surprised the Saints even attempted it. Regardless, Grupe missed a few kicks so we have to note it, but it doesn’t change my opinion of his season. … I’m getting a little exhausted of Taliese Fuaga alignment penalties. It’s been a point of emphasis for NFL refs this year and it’s tackles that are getting the vast majority of that attention, but I haven’t seen this issue with Trevor Penning on the other side. Those penalties can’t happen and they’ve been happening all year. That’s got to get fixed.