The New Orleans Saints are hitting the road to face the Carolina Panthers, but there will be a lot of familiar faces waiting to greet them.
Former Saints safety Vonn Bell, DT Shy Tuttle and QB Andy Dalton all joined Carolina this offseason. Guard Calvin Throckmorton was claimed on waivers after this year's final cuts. The familiarity those players have with the Saints' schemes is not something that's been lost on the current coaching staff.
"We’ll have to just pay attention and pay attention in the game," Allen said, "make sure that we’re changing up some of our signals and things that we do on defense."
Familiarity cuts both ways, though, as Deuce McAllister explained on WWL Radio this week. Should Throckmorton get in due to some OL injuries, the Saints have had multiple seasons to work with him and find out where he excels, or more importantly where he struggles.
The same will be true for Bell and Tuttle, and the Saints can look to exploit that.
"I don’t know that the book that the Saints had on Vonn has changed a lot," McAllister said. "So there’s going to be, hey we can go back to the scouting report, we can go back to the report when we had him, what are some of the things that he likes? What were some of the coverages that we know he doesn’t like, and how can we [take advantage of that]?”
The Saints will take any edge they can get against a Panthers defense that has stumped them as effectively as any other over the past few seasons with effective zone blitz schemes. The Saints lost both matchups in 2022 with an average of 10 points scored. Those two losses came despite Baker Mayfield being held to 170 yards passing the first time around, and Sam Darnold only managing 43 yards passing in the season finale.
This year, however, they've changed to a 3-4 scheme under new defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, and even with many of the same play-makers -- including stars Brian Burns and Derrick Brown -- a lot of that previous scouting has ended up in the trash bin.
"You know what kind of player they are, what personal traits that they have as a player," said James Hurst. "But as far as scheme, yes, a lot of things are different. So we have to take a look at that and make sure we’re sharp on that.”
One area this Saints team knows it must improve is in run blocking, with Jamaal Williams averaging just 2.5 yards per carry against the Titans (18 carries for 45 yards). A lot of the issues came down to losing 1-on-1 blocks, with the team ID'ing as many as 10 plays where one player missing a block turned a potential 10-plus-yard gain into 1 or 2 yards.
"We’ve got to take advantage of those opportunities,” Hurst said.
