The New Orleans Saints have had their fair share of issues over an up-and-down 10 games to start the season.
But there's one that stands out on offense above the others: Where are all the explosive runs? That's one of the questions Saints color analyst Deuce McAllister broke down on WWL Radio this week.
Listen to the full interview with Deuce in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
"You are making an effort to run the football. It may not be the design or maybe the play call that some fans want, but you are trying to run the football," McAllister told WWL's Bobby Hebert and Mike Detillier. "The problem the Saints run game has right now, you’re not creating explosive plays."
The Saints rank 8th in the NFL in rushing attempts through week 10, but they rank 18th with 1,000 total yards. Their 3.6 yards per attempt is tied for 28th in the NFL, and their one rush over 20 yards -- Taysom Hill's TD against the Colts -- is tied for last.
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The culprit? There are multiple factors. One is running backs failing to break tackles. Alvin Kamara is credited with just four broken tackles on the year and 1.0 yards after contact per attempt. Among players with at least 100 rushing attempt, that latter figure ranks 28th out of 28 qualifying players.
But the onus can't all be on the running backs. The OL has to get up to the second level, and there has to be more efficient blocking downfield. But however you slice it, the Saints have to be better in that department if they want to make life easier on offense.
"The numbers are the numbers. It’s hard to argue with that, but I can tell you from looking at it and being in it and what I was doing, too, the part about it that’s hard, it is hard to grind out a 10 to 12-play drive and not have any explosive plays," McAllister continues. "If every run is going to be a plus-4, plus-5, it’s hard. I’ve got to make somebody miss. I’ve got to be able to block it up where I can get my guy on a 1-on-1, where you have a plus-15, where you have a plus-20. And so that’s where this offense really, when you talk about run game, that’s where they’ve got to get back to."
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MORE FROM DEUCE
On defense's frustrating run of slow starts
“There’s not this big adjustment factor. Here’s the thing that I see. Offense and defense, but particularly for defense, because that’s probably the most talented bunch, you have too many guys that are kind of doing individual things instead of team things. So I may have a guy that his responsibility, and I’m just making this up … his responsibility may be outside edge. So instead of him holding the outside edge, he decides to go inside, so now I’ve got two players in one gap. ... He knows he has to be outside. The defense is called for him to be outside. That’s not coaching when a player decides to do [something else].
“That’s not coaching. Yea, I can get on him and tell him, hey, look, you’ve got to do your job, but that doesn’t help me for the play that was just run. Here’s, if you pay attention, you hear that, hey, look, I’ve got to coach them right. But this week, what did you hear? Maybe we need to look at the personnel. He’s trying to tell you what’s going on. … I mean, and so, but at some point and that’s why this team needs a break. They need a break. You’ve got to, and at some point, yea, look, 10 days, 7 days, whatever. At some point you’ve got to want to do it for yourself. Because if you don’t want to do it for yourself, you don’t want to do it for the other guys either.”
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On Lattimore/Mike Thomas injuries
“I would be highly surprised if you got either one of them back for Atlanta. Now, you’re probably in the range of, when you talk about high ankle sprain, we would be jumping for joy if it’s only 2 weeks, but normally you’re talking about 4 weeks or so on a high ankle. And here’s the problem, we don’t know how bad it is … but normally, typically that’s what you get and then you talk about the knee issue with Mike T. We haven’t seen, or at least I haven’t … I haven’t seen anything that says there was structural damage or at least from an MRI perspective, so you’re probably talking about some type of bone bruise or some type of issue with the knee in that manner, and that’s normally going to be some type of week to week situation. And the one thing you don’t want to do is to kind of do what happened to the ankle.”
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On Saints not generating enough sacks/bringing in JPP
“Being able to hit the quarterback, being able to sack the quarterback, we haven’t done a great job at it. And that’s just, hey, you’ve got to be better. And I don’t know, I need to see JPP, be able to see him. I can tell you what he looked like in the past and what he could do in the past, but I don’t know how much he truly has left in the tank. But the Saints are looking. The Saints were in the market as far as a trade to be able to add somebody, and you don’t draft Foskey and you don’t draft Turner without being in the market to try to get pressure on the quarterback, and those two young players, those are guys that they were counting on and they’re not available. So they’ve got to figure out how to get after the quarterback without having to send pressure. Because right now, when you send four, whether it’s three defensive ends and a tackle, you’re not getting there enough. You are not getting there enough.”