Our offensive and defensive player grades for the Saints embarrassing 31-point loss to the Carolina Panthers are now ready for viewing, along with individual snap counts and written summaries which detail the performance of every player.

After an impressive showing at Heinz Field last time out, confidence was high going into this game against a Carolina side that hadn’t a victory to their name since mid-October. However, two turnovers in the Saints’ first three plays set the tone for the day, as the Panthers built an early and ultimately unassailable lead. As I’m sure you’d expect, the player grades make mostly tough viewing. A number of big name players fell deep into the blue this week, so read on to find out exactly who they were (you can probably already guess a fair few!).

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

In The BoiLa’s Week 14 Offensive Preview, we stressed how the Saints needed to find a way to prevent this Carolina defense from stacking the box and shutting down the run, as this approach was pretty much the only thing that had kept them in some close games recently. Ironically enough, the above actually happened, just not for the same reasons that we envisaged. Instead of an early air-raid from the Saints that would draw the Panthers into some more conservative formations, the reality was more the polar opposite. The Panthers raced into a 17-0 lead with less than 10 minutes gone, and from that point on they content to predominantly sit back in zone defense and keep the play in front of them. Even against this vanilla, 4-man rush, zone D, the Saints still failed to execute, converting only 1 of their first 9 third down attempts on the way to racking up a lowly 10 points.

The passing game was hampered by three main factors. The first was Drew Brees having easily his worst game of the season. The second was the fact that neither offensive tackle seemed to be able to handle Charles Johnson this time round. Before Terron Armstead limped off in the second quarter, Zach Strief really struggled, which was somewhat surprising given the way he had shut down Johnson back in Week 9. Things only got worse after Harris came in for Armstead, with Johnson switching his attentions to the much-maligned back-up. This isn’t the first time Harris has struggled while deputising this season, and the Saints may well start to look elsewhere to fill that 3rd tackle spot come 2015. The final factor that compounded the Saints efforts through the air were the dropped passes. Jimmy Graham was the main culprit, but Pierre Thomas, Josh Hill, Ben Watson and Marques Colston (albeit on a tough one) were also guilty on Sunday afternoon as the Saints aerial attack looked a shadow of its usual self.

Due to the “soft” zone defense the Panthers were employing for the majority of the game, the ground game did actually put up some pretty decent numbers on limited carries. Ingram and Thomas both ran the ball well, again through lanes that were mostly created Jahri Evans for the most part. After a couple of rough outings earlier in the season, Evans drew even rougher criticism from certain quarters, but he’s answered those critics in just the right way. Looking back over The BoiLa’s grades from the past five weeks, Evans has been the only consistent performer on this embattled offensive unit. While on the subject of interior offensive lineman, it’s also worth noting that Jonathan Goodwin and Ben Grubbs also graded out positively. While not as effective as Evans on the ground, they were rarely beaten on passing downs, making sure that at least Brees scarcely faced any interior pressure to go alongside the barrage coming off the edge.

The final story arising out of Sunday’s game broke on Tuesday afternoon, with the Saints waiving wide receiver Joe Morgan. The third year speedster did show brief flashes of what an exciting player he could be in the Black & Gold, but was more often than not simply a peripheral figure, stuck on the sideline looking in. The most obvious example of this was during his statement performance against Baltimore this season. In that game, Morgan played only 19 snaps, which was less than half the number of any other wideout, despite making two massive plays early on. Payton seemingly wasn’t fully convinced by Morgan on the field, a “mystery” suspension coming off it can’t have helped, and it seems most likely these two factors have combined in signalling the beginning of the end for Morgan’s Saints career. Whatever the exact reason for his release was though, we certainly wish Joe Morgan the best for the future.

With reports now circulating that Sean Payton called as many as 10 players into his office for performance reviews following Sunday’s embarrassment, choosing a new WR4 to get snaps against Chicago may not be the only change the Saints make on offense for Monday night. Combining the reports of this Payton shake-up with some low level performances over recent weeks, it may well be a tense few days in Metairie.

DEFENSE

In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s game, we posed the question of whether it was the worst peformance of the Sean Payton era… Nearly one week on, we have now finally battled our way through the wretched game tape. Unfortunately a few days “cooling off” did nothing to improve what was on that tape. On the defensive side, it was downright ugly out there.

We had flagged in our defensive preview that the absolute key for the Saints against Carolina was to win the battle up front. On paper, it looked like the Saints would absolute outmatch the Panthers in the trenches. The Carolina offensive line had struggled mightily for most of the season. On Sunday, however, the Saints made the Panthers look like one of the best offensive lines in the league.

Both Cam Jordan and Akiem Hicks had their worst games of the year so far. The Saints soft play up front meant the Carolina offensive line was able to dominate and open big holes for running back Jonathan Stewart. It wasn’t just against the run where the Saints got manhandled in the trenches – it was equally the case in the passing game. Newton almost spent the entire game untouched and, save for a few QB hurries from Galette, was always in absolute control. Against such a struggling O-Line, it was a huge disappointment for the Saints.

Carolina’s gameplan was clearly to prevent the Saints defensive line from having any kind of effect on the game. They used the read option frequently, which caused hesitation and confusion up front for the Saints. In addition, Newton through a high number of quick 1/2 step drop passes to “safety blanket” Greg Olsen and to running backs on the day. By getting the ball out quickly, Newton was able to take advantage of the soft coverage from Saints linebackers, and was able to avoid allowing the Saints defensive front from getting into any kind of rhythm.

Soft coverage wasn’t the only issue for the linebackers on the day. Both Lofton and Hawthorne struggled greatly with the read option offense. Their hesitation allowed blockers to find and engage them too easily and – as has been a common theme for the Saints linebackers this year – they showed very little ability to fight through and get off blocks once engaged by offensive linemen.

The only glimmer of light was offered by the Saints secondary on the day. Keenan Lewis looked very much back to full health on the day, putting in an excellent shift on Kelvin Benjamin. Other corners Robinson, White and Dixon were all solid. Unfortunately, the well prepared Carolina gameplan meant the opportunities for these players to contribute and make plays were very limited. The Panthers were absolutely relentless in attacking the middle of the field on the day – and dominated as a result.

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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.

Despite the disappointment of last Sunday, the play-off hunt (incredibly) continues for the 5-8 New Orleans Saints. At The BoiLa we’ll be turning our attention to the Chicago Bears now, in what could well become a must-win game on Monday Night if results don’t go the Saints way on Sunday. As always, we’ll be studying the film of the Bears over the next few days, but do check back for our Week 15 Offensive and Defensive Previews, which will most likely be published on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.

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