Our offensive and defensive player grades for the Saints third straight Superdome defeat are now ready for viewing, along with individual snap counts and written summaries detailing the performance of every player for the matchup with the Baltimore Ravens.

In our Offensive and Defensive Previews for Week 12 we focussed mainly on the battle in the trenches. Looking at the strength of Baltimore’s front-7 and offensive line, it was fairly self-explanatory to deduce that the Saints would have to win the war up front to get the W on Monday. Unfortunately, and as we all witnessed on Monday night, the Saints lost that battle. And, we’d be lying in saying anything other than that the grades were again disappointing on the whole. However, there were still a few Saints who should be praised for the way the played against the Ravens, so read on to find out exactly who did what under the Monday night lights.

For those of you viewing our Player Grades for the first time, our Player Performance Grading System uses a 9-point color-coded scale to produce an easy to understand visual indicator of the performance of each player on both 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.

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

Ok, onto the grades. (Please note, you can click on the grading chart for each individual position group to load a slightly enlarged version in a new window/tab).

OFFENSE

It’s fair to say a number of things broke down on offense on Monday night, which in all honesty the Saints and Drew Brees actually did a pretty good job overcoming by managing to score 27 points. The most obvious problems were apparent on the offensive line. Straight after the game, a lot of the heat was directed at the interior for what was an ineffective ground attack, but the most disappointing performances for The BoiLa were actually produced by the two bookends on the offensive line, Zach Strief and Terron Armstead. In total, they managed to give up nine hurries and two sacks between them as Dumervil, Suggs, McPhee and Upshaw all overwhelmed the pair.

In previous weeks I’ve lauded Strief and Armstead for the pass protection they’ve offered while often working “on an island”. I was particularly impressed by the job Strief did on Charles Johnson in Week 9, and similarly with what Armstead did in largely stone-walling Clay Matthews in Week 8. However, this week Dumervil, Suggs & Co appeared to be a step too far for both, with each tackle turning in by far their worst performance of the season.

When you consider the above problems the Saints had in protecting the quarterback, it makes Brees’ 420 yards, 3 TDs and 78% completion even more impressive. However, another one of his momentary lapses that we’ve all become far too familiar with threatened to overshadow all that great work. The “momentary lapse” this time was throwing a pass straight into the hands of a trailing Will Hill for a simple pick-6. There’s no sugar-coating this interception, it came at a pivotal time of the game and sucked the air right out of the Superdome. Despite it however, we still have to grade Drew out positively, because that one throw aside he was absolutely on point.

Admittedly the Ravens secondary has been struggling, but the Saints receivers still made some impressive plays on Monday night. Kenny Stills benefitted the most from the Brandin Cooks injury, and had one of his best games of the season as Brees continuously looked his way. Jimmy Graham was the only player to have more targets than Stills, but some criminal drops stopped him from capitalising fully. Colston drifted in and out of the game but was at least sure-handed, while Joe Morgan’s usage was a bit of a mystery. The speedster totalled 129 yards on two touches in the first quarter, but wasn’t targeted beyond that, hardly playing a snap in the second half despite the Saints being behind for the majority of it.

For all that success through the air however, the ground game was bad. Embarrassingly bad in the first half. The most obvious thing to do is simply point the finger at the interior O-Line and be done with it. It’s fair to say that Grubbs and Goodwin weren’t great, with Brandon Williams in particular getting good push at times. However, they weren’t totally dominated either. As far as Jahri Evans is concerned, he actually had a fairly good game, subduing Haloti Ngata for the vast majority of snaps, and clearly getting the better of him on others. So, where did the running game go so badly wrong? In all honesty, the main reason I could come up with from watching the tape is simply the exceptional play of the Ravens linebackers. All of them played the run well, and they basically swarmed/overloaded the O-Line at the line of scrimmage, meaning on a lot of plays they were almost powerless to create holes without relying on extra blockers.

And, as far as those “extra blockers” are concerned, they were either ineffective or totally absent. Ben Watson had his worst run-blocking game of the season, while Erik Lorig only featured on 7 offensive snaps as Sean Payton (understandably) appears to have grown wary about putting him in the game following a string of disappointing performances. Just to compare FB usage from earlier in the season, Austin Johnson averaged 18 snaps per game before Lorig returned in Week 8. Make of that what you will.

All told, with the defense playing like it currently is, there unfortunately appears to be very little margin for error as far as the offense is concerned. At the moment, the offense isn’t quite hitting that margin, and they may well need to hit it, or at least get very close, if they want to beat the Steelers on Sunday afternoon to finally get this season back on track.

DEFENSE

In our Defensive Preview, we had suggested that the Saints might need all of their “primetime” Superdome magic to overcome the Ravens… And it proved to be just so on Monday night.

Our number one priority in previewing the Ravens was shutting down Justin Forsett and the powerful Ravens running game. Unfortunately, New Orleans had absolutely no answer for either Forsett or the bruising run blockers up front for Baltimore. The Saints certainly weren’t helped by losing Broderick Bunkley after only 10 snaps. Bunkley consistently grades strongly against the run, so to lose him against (arguably) the best run blocking interior O-Line in football was a tough blow. John Jenkins stepped in, but struggled mightily against Center Jeremy Zuttah. Jenkins was often one-on-one on Zuttah, but generated little or no push on almost every down. This created huge holes and lanes for Forsett up the middle, and allowed the rest of the Ravens line to double team Akiem Hicks and Cam Jordan. The consequences were just disastrous, as Forsett scampered for 182 yards on 22 carries (8.3 YPC).

In terms of the pass rush, yet again it was only Junior Galette making things happen for the Saints. They desperately need a threat opposite Galette, and more push up the middle on passing downs. Otherwise, QB’s with strong O-Lines in front of them will continue to pick apart the Saints.

For the linebackers, it was a disappointing Monday night as well. Perhaps the lasting memory of the night, from a linebacker perspective, is the image of David Hawthorne dropping Flacco’s off target force in the first half. Flacco forced the ball out under pressure from Galette, and it had “pick six” written all over it as the ball wobbled towards Hawthorne. Unfortunately the linebacker made a complete hash of the pick, and the Saints missed out on a huge swing play. The fact Hawthorne was in position for the pick was as much about Flacco missing his man as it was about Hawthorne “ballhawking” in coverage. The drop was unforgivable. Aside from that, Hawthorne and Lofton both made plays in the run game, but were equally guilty of being swallowed up by blockers at the line and misreading “simple” counter and cut back runs.

In the secondary, despite Rob Ryan trying to make a change it was another tough day. Corey White was benched for the first time this year, after a string of bad performances. Rather than starting Brian Dixon outside, though, Ryan chose to start P-Rob. Unfortunately P-Rob duly turned in one of his worst games in weeks, as he struggled to switch back to the outside. It was disappointing, as P-Rob had played a string of strong games as the slot corner in previous weeks. Equally disappointing was Keenan Lewis’s performance on Monday night. It seems his lingering knee injury is still affecting him, which is bad news for the Saints. The secondary looked woefully exposed without Lewis playing his usual game.

So long as Lewis can get healthy, though, the main problem for this secondary remains finding someone to play opposite him. Arguably the only option left at cornerback for Ryan will be to start Brian Dixon on the outside. Dixon only had limited snaps on the day, and got beaten for Steve Smith’s opening TD, but his coverage was decent and it was a perfect throw by Flacco. Dixon seems the most natural “outside” cornerback to play opposite Lewis.

At safety, the Saints had Pierre Warren making his debut. It was a baptism of fire for the UDFA as, particularly in the run game, he was tested early and often with Forsett frequently rushing into the second level. Warren played far more cautiously than Rafael Bush, and his inconsistent tackling showed what the Saints miss with Bush on the sideline. Kenny Vaccaro had yet another bad game in the SS spot – with the same old story of missed tackles, poor angles and a lack of discipline.

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Do let us know what you think of these grades in the comments below, or you can holler at us on Twitter @CrAwFiShBoiLa. If you’re interested in the rest of our Saints player grades then be sure to check our Saints Player Grades Archive.

At The BoiLa we’ll now be turning our attention towards what is the final opportunity to salvage anything from the AFC North as the Saints travel to Pittsburgh this weekend. We’ll be scrutinising the Steelers plays this season over the next 48 hours or so, but check back before the game on Sunday for our Week 13 Offensive and Defensive Previews, in which we’ll explain exactly what we think the Saints can expect from Mike Tomlin’s men.