The numbers back up such a bold statement.
Looking back at the past version of myself who was just happy to watch my team give it a go against better teams, it’s wild to me that we’ve gotten to a point where we can bask in sustained competence. My last two opponent previews have had oddly arrogant headlines, but if you know me I’m loathe to be disrespectful to other teams/competitors. The phrase “Any Given Sunday” has validity and the New Orleans Saints are top to bottom professionals too.
So, sincerely, these previews are the same old analysis at their heart. It’s not that I think the Saints should be looked past or that they can’t win. It’s just that when you do the analysis, things looks pretty lopsided.
The Saints (stats) Come Marching In
I’m a huge fan of these +/- charts from the NFL. As a quick reminder, on both charts the red highlighted areas are “under.” On offense that translates to “bad” and on defense that translates to “good.”
It’s not heat mapped exactly, so it’s not a simple binary. For example, being 16.6 yards less per game below league average is still within the realm of average and shouldn’t be indicative of much. On the other hand, being 0.82 yards per play less than league average puts them at 28th in the league, which is definitively bad.
Translating those two things suggests that they’ve merely managed to come up with a high number of plays. That bears out, with the Saints having 206 plays so far this season — tied for first with the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills (more on that in a moment).
Feel free to peruse these, but the bottom line is that the Saints protect the ball well, but don’t do anything all that effectively with it. Scoring a full touchdown and extra point less than league average isn’t the worst thing, but only because there’s three teams with even lower points per game.
On defense things are a bit better with a thoroughly average yards per play. Their run defense per play is actually good, and their pass rush is too. But like the offense, the potential bright spots haven’t translated well, allowing a touchdown higher than average.
And now for the Bills
We’ll start with defense here. While Buffalo allows the highest yards per rush in the league, they also are allowing the fifth-least yards per pass in the NFL. The defense is good at stopping first downs and when it all adds up they’re pretty average when it comes to points allowed. Or putting it in matchup terms, it’ll be a mediocre Bills defense against a very bad Saints offense on paper.
On offense the only red is the punt return average, which is technically not on offense. Not all of the measures are elite but many of these are, including third-down conversion rate and yards per play. Of course the points per game is up there too, fourth-best in the league. On this side of the ledger, the tale of the paper is incredibly lopsided.
To reiterate, none of this guarantees a win and only three weeks in the stats don’t have the validity we’ll get later in the season. That said, this is what we have to go on right now. When the Saints visit Orchard Park, NY, the odds are heavily tilted toward a Buffalo win.
Category: General Sports
