The New Orleans Saints and New York Giants meet in Week 14 in a matchup of teams who had hoped for better circumstances.
The Saints suffered through a 7-game losing streak and a head coach firing before winning two of their last three games. The Giants are currently mired in a 7-game losing streak that the Saints are hoping to continue. They benched and cut starting QB Daniel Jones, but to this point haven't made a move on either head coach Brian Daboll or GM Joe Schein. NFL insider Mark Schlereth didn't pull any punches when he spoke to Mike Detillier and Charlie Long on WWL Radio this week.
"The Saints caught a break because Dexter [Lawrence] is really that guy. Now, you know, you’re not afraid to … get all five, all five eligibles out in the route combination because you’re like, ah, we don’t have to double — we can single-team guys, so we can go 5-O and single team guys and get everybody out and give our quarterback a bunch of options, so it just gives you another tool in the toolbox offensively to attack a defense with.”
Listen to the full interview with NFL analyst Mark Schlereth in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
But it's the way the Giants organization handled the benching of Daniel Jones, followed by the decision to go with third-stringer Tommy DeVito -- only for him to get hurt and force the team to start Drew Lock anyway -- that really drew the ire of Schlereth.
"That whole thing is such a debacle and it’s an absolute clown show and it’s embarrassing and if I was a player in that organization and I was sitting in that locker room, I wouldn’t trust anybody within the organization that runs it as far as I could throw them" Schlereth said, "and [head coach Brian Daboll] is a friend of mine and I just look at that and I don’t know if that comes from Joe Schoen, I don’t know if it comes from Daboll, I don’t know if it comes from the owner, but it’s a clown show and, you know, and they come out and play after that, you know, and they’re playing against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they just absolutely get throttled. … It was awful from the word go."
There were also some strays for former LSU star Malik Nabers, who complained about not getting targets early in that 30-7 loss to the Bucs in Week 12.
"I always joke around, the further you get away from the football the less you actually know about the game. I go, why do you think the wide receiver didn’t get the ball early? Because you were peeling the quarterback up off the turf every freaking play. They brought pressure, they jammed, they played man-to-man and brought pressure on just about 75% of the plays, they sacked him four times in the first half," Schlereth said. "They had him under duress the whole game. There’s a reason you didn’t get the ball, moron, because the quarterback couldn’t throw the ball. It blows me away that you don’t understand how the game works. 10 other guys have to do their job for you to sniff the football, and when they’re bringing football and you guys can’t block them, you’re not gonna get the ball. The fact that it was an epiphany that all of a sudden Malik Nabers, you started getting the ball when they called off the dogs, yea, you did start getting the ball. Come on, you guys, it’s ridiculous.”
The Saints (4-8) visit the Giants (2-10) for a noon kickoff at MetLife Stadium in Week 14. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
