With three consecutive victories in the book, and the ailing 1-6 Titans heading to the Dome in Week 9, things were finally starting to look up this week for the 2015 Saints. Fast-forward to 3.30pm on Sunday, though, and all sense optimism was brutally extinguished. Despite not trailing at any point in regulation, the Black & Gold painfully succumbed to a humbling overtime defeat at the hands of Marcus Mariota & Co, in their second home loss to a rookie QB this year. As usual, we’ve trawled back through the game film to try and piece together exactly what went wrong, whilst also trying hard to find any shred of positivity to latch onto heading into Washington and beyond. Read on to check out our (highly varying) player grades this week, along with individual snap counts and analysis on the performance of every Saint who took to the field in Week 9.

For those of you viewing our Player Grades for the first time, our Player Performance Grading System uses a 9-point color-coded “temperature based” scale to produce an easy to understand visual indicator of the performance of each player on rushing plays, passing plays and in the game overall. You can find a more thorough explanation of our grading system, along with diagrams of what exactly everything means, by clicking here.

And as always, for ease of reference, our 9-point color-coded grading scale is pictured below:

OFFENSE

Editor’s Note: Click on each individual table below to open a full-sized version in a new window/tab (it makes them easier to read).

Believing the Saints offense would pick up right where it left off against the Giants was likely a touch naive going into Sunday’s game against Tennessee. However, with 11:01 to go in the second quarter, the Saints had just completed their third consecutive touchdown drive, putting up 21 points and 231 yards in the first 19 minutes of the game. Unfortunately, New Orleans could only muster another 7 points and 185 yards during the 41 minutes that followed. A quick glance above will tell you that one unit was largely at fault for this; the offensive line.

Not one of Armstead, Lelito, Unger, Evans or Strief had days to be proud of. In comparison to last week, it’s almost inexplicable how the same group of players can go from heroes to zeroes in just seven days. Looking back at the tape, a clue may well be in the aggressive gameplan employed by Titans defensive coordinator Ray Horton (and assistant Dick LeBeau). Unlike Steve Spagnuolo’s insistence last week that the Giants almost religiously employ just a four-man rush, the Titans took the opposite approach; they blitzed a lot on Sunday. Of Brees’ 43 dropbacks, Tennessee rushed 5 or more on 26 of them (gaining 15 “pressures” off those blitzes). As the game wore on, the Saints O-Line looked increasingly fragile. It was almost as if they had been lulled into a false sense of security last week, before Brian Orakpo, Da’Quan Jones, Jurrell Casey, Al Woods (and many others) provided a rude awakening. Perhaps the most disappointing (and dangerous) aspect of the O-Line’s performance were the numerous communication errors up front, which in turn allowed the Titans a number of “free runs” at Brees on the day.



Despite the protection issues outlined above, a lot of credit must go to Drew Brees, who somehow managed to ride it out for the most part. #9 deservedly graded out the highest of any Saint on offense. A regrettable force to Ingram aside, Brees was on point for the second week running. If there’s any kind of offensive solace to be gained from Sunday’s depressing defeat, it’s that on recent form, Brees is playing as well as he has done for many a season. Over the past two weeks, Brees has now thrown for 892 yards and 10 TDs.

For the second week running, #9 also received some solid support from his WRs (and again Ben Watson). Cooks, Snead and Coleman all had grabs of 30-yards or more downfield, while Colston managed to hold onto everything that was thrown his way. We speculated last week that his breakout against the Giants could potentially signal the “rebirth” of Colston’s 2015 season, and although Sunday was in no way on par with that 8-catch, 114-yard performance, it was at least encouragingly “mistake-free”.

Another interesting wrinkle on Sunday was the Saints high-usage of 3 TE formations (as evidenced in Hoomanawanui/Hill’s relatively high snap counts). Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have much positive effect. One thing it did do was allow Tennessee to stack the box against the run which, coupled with a slack effort from the O-Line and a tentative performance from Mark Ingram, meant the Saints could get little going on the ground. CJ Spiller did manage to hit the heady heights of a 4 YPC average on the day, but this came on only two carries as the running back saw his usage bizarrely reduced despite the Saints only using two RBs on the day. Payton’s usage of Spiller continues to perplex us, with the running back still yet to carry the ball more than 4 times in any one game despite averaging a respectable 4.5 yards per carry over his past 3 outings.

DEFENSE

Editor’s Note: Click on each individual table below to open a full-sized version in a new window/tab (it makes them easier to read).

After struggling against the powerful Giants offense, a matchup against rookie Marcus Mariota and his patchwork Titans offensive line seemed to be exactly what this Saints defense needed. On paper, at least. On the field, it was a different story. Yet again, the Saints defense got shredded by their opponent – this time for 34 points and nearly 500 yards on route to their shocking 34-28 OT defeat. The poor defensive performance was made all the more painful as, for nearly 1 quarter of the game, the Saints defense was in absolute control. Until the freak clash between Jairus Byrd and Keenan Lewis in the secondary which led to Tennessee’s lucky opening TD, Marcus Mariota was just 1 of 5 for 5 yards and Tennessee’s backs had spluttered for 19 yards on 7 carries. The clash between Byrd and Lewis came with just 1:12 left in Q1, on a horrible hanging throw from Mariota that fully-deserved to be picked off. Had Lewis (or indeed Byrd) hauled it in, the Saints would have had the football near midfield as the clock ran out in Q1 with a 14-3 lead. Those types of play simply change a game, though, and this one seemed to suck all of the momentum out of the Saints defense and feed it to the Titans offense. From that point on, after his terrible 1-5 start, Mariota went 27-34 for 366 yards. Where did it all go wrong for the Saints, then? This week, the blame can’t really fall on the defensive line. Particularly against the run, the D-Line put in one of their best performances of the year. Much-maligned nose tackle John Jenkins dominated his rookie counterpart C Andy Gallik on route to 10 stops and a season-high grade. Kevin Williams, Bobby Richardson and Cam Jordan were all equally solid alongside #92 in the base defense. Indeed, Tennessee gained just 22 yards on their 13 carries “between the tackles” on the day. Admittedly, the pass rush was rather less effective, with the Saints failing to sack Mariota and only getting limited occasional pressure on the rookie (despite frequent blitzes). A big reason for this, though, was the “quick release” gameplan of the Titans. Much of Mariota’s passing was of the short, check-down variety on the day, picking on soft coverage from the Saints over the middle and seams in the zone. The Saints undermanned linebacking corps were responsible for a lot of those “easy” yards. With both Dannell Ellerbe and Hau’oli Kikaha out of the game, Rob Ryan was forced to start David Hawthorne and Michael Mauti. Both had highly disappointing games. Hawthorne was a liability in coverage as he constantly bit on play fakes, and Mauti simply looked lightweight and way out of his depth on several plays. Whilst the Saints interior run defense was rock solid all day, when Tennessee sought to rush towards the tackles and outside they had far more success. 62 of Antonio Andrews’ 88 rushing yards on the day came on 3 particular runs where he was able to get to the edge and explode through (wide open) running lanes – thanks in no small part to WR/TE blocks taking out the outmatched Mauti. To his credit, Stephone Anthony played well against the run, but he also found himself struggling to read Mariota’s playfakes on several occasions. The distraction of David Hawthorne blindly rushing towards the (supposed) ballcarrier probably did not help Anthony on the day. All eyes will be on the injury report this week to see the status of Ellerbe and Kikaha. The secondary was equally disappointing for the Black & Gold on Sunday. Aside from safety Kenny Vaccaro, who continued his consistent campaign, nobody graded positively. Brandon Browner was the worst of the group, looking constantly vulnerable in coverage, missing 4 tackles, picking up 2 flags, and getting away with several other potential penalties. Delvin Breaux was also average on the day, allowing catches on back-to-back plays on the Titans game-tying Q4 TD and 2PC. Indeed, aside from the “collision” between Keenan Lewis and Jairus Byrd, the secondary failed to ever look like stepping up to make a big play on the day. This was highly disappointing against the rookie QB and weak WR corps that Tennessee brought to the Dome. But it was Browner who was the true villain in the secondary. #39 is still playing every down of every game – from our perspective, that simply cannot continue if this Saints defense wants to improve down the stretch. Browner may have a (limited) role as a situational defender, but at this point both Kyle Wilson and Brian Dixon would represent better options on the outside. The Black & Gold desperately need Keenan Lewis to be “full go” again. Unfortunately, with Lewis’s snap counts still so limited, it is unclear when (or even if) #21 will be 100% again this year.

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Missed our Saints Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis from the first eight weeks of the 2015 season? You can check them out by clicking on the links below:

Week 1: Saints @ Cardinals – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 2: Saints vs Bucs – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 3: Saints @ Panthers – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 4: Saints vs Cowboys – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 5: Saints @ Eagles – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 6: Saints vs Falcons – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 7: Saints @ Colts – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

Week 8: Saints vs Giants – Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis

And finally… be sure to give us a shout out on Twitter if you want to keep up to date with what’s going on with The BoiLa. You can hit us up on: @CrAwFiShBoiLa.