Having taken a step forward against the Cowboys last week, the Saints took (numerous) steps back against the Eagles this week. The Black & Gold surrendered 519 yards and 34 first downs to an Eagles offense that had languished in the NFL’s statistical basement until Sunday afternoon. Watching back the tape, it wasn’t pretty viewing . Read on to see what we gleaned from some at times painful game film, along with our color-coded player grades and individual snap counts for all Saints who took the field during Week 5’s demoralizing defeat.



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 much easier to read).

Turnovers. They were the offense’s biggest foe in the City of Brotherly Love on Sunday. Four of them to be precise, and as always, rearing their heads at particularly unwelcome junctures. The reasons behind the turnovers were varied. Failures in pass protection, failures to hold onto the football, a failure to read basic zone defense. What they all had in common though, they were individual failures – which in turn ripped the heart out of a Saints offense that had initially (at least) put together some passages of textbook road football. Ingram and Robinson were moving the chains on the ground, Brees was throwing downfield to his WRs, and a patchwork offensive line was managing to keep #9 on his feet for much of the opening 30 minutes. Well, until 1:12 left in the second quarter, that is…

It was at that point, with the Saints driving to take the lead (and with the ball after halftime), Brees coughed up an albeit contestable fumble, hit hard by Fletcher Cox after he escaped Kelemete’s grasp. From then on, it unraveled. The O-Line started to crumble. Andrus Peat in particular faded as the game grew old – his grade suffering as a result. With the Saints falling further behind, the lucrative (almost 5 YPC) run game was abandoned, allowing the Eagles pass rush to zero in on #9. Going into Sunday Philly had just six sacks all season, that number has now risen to 11 after Brees was brought to the turf five times. It was a disappointing second half collapse, that was admittedly exacerbated by the ineffectiveness of the Saints D (more on that later).



On the ground, whilst Ingram (4.8 YPC) and Robinson (6.0 YPC) both put up solid numbers, CJ Spiller was not as fortunate. Payton’s usage of Spiller remains rather perplexing. The RB was sent out onto the field for the Saints first play from scrimmage (a swing pass blown up by Malcolm Jenkins). However, his next touch/target? Not until 3:28 left in the second quarter. The play? Another swing pass stopped for negative yardage by Jenkins (of course). It all just seems a little too easy to telegraph with CJ Spiller at the moment, most likely due to the low number of snaps #28 is receiving. Essentially, if Spiller is in the game, he’s likely getting the football. That’s certainly what the Eagles gambled on on Sunday – and it worked. Payton, and the rest of the offensive staff, need to do a much better job with their “marquee” offensive free agent signing of 2015.

One area where there was at least slight improvement was in the Saints efforts to get Brandin Cooks the ball downfield. Cooks put up his best stat-line of the season (9 targets, 5 catches, 107-yards), as we got to witness glimpses of the single coverage and separation that have eluded #10 for much of 2015. There were still examples of “non-elite” CBs like EJ Biggers and Byron Maxwell sticking with Cooks stride for stride in man coverage – but on balance, he was much more “in the game” than in any other matchup so far in 2015. Elsewhere at wide receiver, Willie Snead continued to impress, leading all Saints in targets (11), catches (6) and yards (141). We mooted Snead may well have become the undisputed WR3 in last week’s write-up, and with Colston now banged up, it’s looking like Snead may well be introduced as a starting wideout for the New Orleans Saints in the not too distant future. Brandon Coleman on the other hand… the less said the better.

DEFENSE

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

As the old cliché goes, “it all starts up front”. Never was this more apparent than at the Linc on Sunday. Outside of strong performances from Cam Jordan and Kevin Williams, the Saints got absolutely dominated in the trenches. The pass rush was non-existent, with the D-Line only laying one hit on Bradford on 45 pass attempts. Oh, and the Saints got pounded for 186 rushing yards. Some would point the finger at the playcalling – the Saints only blitzed Bradford 9 times (less than 20% of snaps) – but even on those snaps Bradford went 8/9 for 79 yards. The cold hard truth was that the Saints 4 man rush simply was not close to good enough on the day. The aforementioned Jordan and Williams generated occasional pressure, but John Jenkins, Tyeler Davison, Kaleb Eulls and Tavaris Barnes failed to get close to Sam Bradford (let alone record a hit or sack) in some 73 combined pass rushing snaps.

The Saints line arguably weren’t helped by the officiating. We rarely talk about it on the BoiLa, as it smacks of desperation, and it is out of the control of the Saints coaching staff. However, watching back the tape, there were numerous occasions where Philadelphia offensive linemen had clear holds on Saints defenders. Indeed, at one point in Q3, veteran Kevin Williams snapped at the back judge having been quite clearly prevented (again) from making a TFL by RG Josh Andrews. For a crew that was extremely keen to throw defensive flags, they were curiously “light touch” on the offensive side. There wasn’t a single offensive holding call on the day, against a Philly line that had amassed some 9 holding flags on the year before Sunday.

But to blame Sunday’s performance solely on officiating would be highly naive. The Saints line underperformed, and so did the Saints linebackers. Hau’oli Kikaha in particular had (easily) the worst game of his young career. With DE Bobby Richardson inactive, Kikaha was asked to play as a 4-3 DE more frequently, and looked completely outmatched against talented LT Jason Peters. Stephone Anthony was better, but struggled in pass coverage.

The Eagles success on the ground on Sunday was largely borne from their aggressive zone blocking scheme. There was one particular playcall – an outside zone run with both Center and Guard pulling to attack the LB’s and second level – which the Eagles went to again and again with devastating success. Indeed, 16 of the Eagles 33 rushing plays were outside plays to LE or RE. On those 16 plays, the Eagles gained 128 of their 186 rushing yards. The flip side of this is that the Saints interior defensive line did a good job between the tackles – holding the Eagles to 58 yards on 17 carries. But as soon as Chip Kelly saw the Saints’ frailty on the perimeter he went there again. And again. And again.

The secondary provided the only true defensive bright spots on the day. Delvin Breaux was stellar, as usual, underlining his performance with an exceptional endzone pick. The much-maligned Brandon Browner was a hero (for a moment at least), hauling in an endzone INT, before the penalty flags reared their ugly head again. Vaccaro, Byrd, Lewis and Swann were all solid enough. Indeed, it is quite clear that this secondary is a key strength of the Saints defense. The coverage largely contained the Eagle WRs on the day, with Bradford forced to “check down” to RBs and TEs on 19 of his 32 pass completions. But this secondary cannot cover forever. Unless and until the Saints can find – or manufacture – anything even vaguely resembling a pass rush, whoever is under center will (eventually) find an open man.

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Missed our Player Grades, Snap Counts and Analysis from the first four weeks of the Season? You can check them out by clicking 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

We’re also working on adding a page to The BoiLa that will show “week-by-week” player grades and snap counts for every Saints player. The aim of this is to make it much easier to get the full picture on how each player has performed so far this season, and also how much playing time they’re actually getting. The idea would be to keep it updated through every week of the season. We’re hoping to have that live over the next couple of days – so do check back for that as we feel it’ll be a useful reference resource for the Who Dat Nation.

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.