Our offensive and defensive player grades for the Saints much-needed victory over the Chicago Bears are now ready for viewing, along with individual snap counts and written summaries detailing the performance of every player.

Coming off the back of what we concluded was the worst game of the Sean Payton era, the Saints went into Soldier Field on Monday night knowing that drastic improvements were needed across the board. Even on first viewing, it was obvious that the Saints’ were thankfully much-improved, albeit against a raggedy Bears outfit. Regardless of the strength of the Bears though, it was still refreshing to see the Saints dominate the Bears on a field that has oft served as a graveyard for Saints teams in recent years. On the whole the grades this week are good, very good for some in fact, so read on to get The BoiLa’s full Chi-Town rundown.

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 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:

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

After last week’s showing, for many players there were few places this week’s offensive grades could trend apart from upwards. The most important of those that had to bounce-back was Drew Brees himself, after putting in an uncharacteristically inaccurate and out of rhythm showing in Week 14. Thankfully Brees did “bounce-back”, turning in what was one of his performances this season. After disappointing against an inexperienced secondary last week, Brees went someway to redeeming himself, victimising the slew of young defensive backs that makeup the Bears secondary . If Brees remains in a similar zone to Monday night from hereon in, the Saints can still be a threat in the post-season. If he reverts back to Carolina form, the Saints won’t even get there.

What made Brees’ job easier on Monday night was the ability of his receivers to get open. Colston, Graham and Stills accounted for over half of all completions on the day (15 out of 29), and all three showed, in their own ways, how proficient they can be at getting open. Graham and Colston also showed safer hands than what’s been on show recently, which was definitely reassuring. The receiving corps wasn’t quite mistake-free however, with Nick Toon giving up a red zone fumble early on. Such errors could prove costly down the stretch, and you’d imagine Toon will be doing a few extra ball-security drills this week as a result. Still, this shouldn’t de-rail what has been a strong second half of the season for the young wideout.

Another factor that contributed to Brees’ aerial effectiveness was a fairly strong showing from the offensive line is pass protection, although this was somewhat overshadowed by Terron Armstead leaving the game early for the second week in succession. We stressed in our Offensive Preview for this game how important it would be for Armstead to actually make it through the full 60 minutes. Looking back, we probably cursed it there and then, but in fairness to Harris, he actually held up pretty well this week while deputising. He didn’t shut down Jared Allen by any means, but he did do a much better job when compared to his efforts against Charles Johnson or Carlos Dunlap in previous weeks. The other four members of the line were solid enough in both phases. Zach Strief’s pass protection was the biggest positive, as the right tackle proceeded to shut down Willie Young on almost every down. Strief may sometimes struggle against top level defensive ends, but his ability to completely shut-down many others is certainly valuable to this offense.

Monday night also saw the welcome return of the New Orleans screen game, obviously starring none other that the PT Cruiser. The Saints had attempted to get the screen going ever since Thomas returned in Week 12, but a run of Pro Bowl-calibre linebackers (Suggs/Harrison/Kuechly etc) seemed to be scuppering the Saints’ best laid plans week-after-week. However, with a more mediocre set of backers ling up for Chicago on Monday night, the PT screen was back with a bang. With Atlanta possessing a similar looking group of young and inexperienced linebackers, Thomas could well be poised for more success in Sunday’s divisional showdown.

Focussing more on the actual ground game, the offensive line did a good job to keep the chains moving, despite never really opening up any gaping running lanes. This is the main reason why Ingram’s YPC was lower than normal, rather than a lack of effort from #22. Erik Lorig also had a good game contributing to the run game, and definitely now looks to be increasingly comfortable in this offense. The most obvious weak point in the run game on Monday night was unfortunately Ben Watson, who seems to have hit a wall as far as run blocking this season is concerned. It’s a strange one as Watson’s blocking was often the catalyst for many of Ingram/Robinson’s longer runs earlier this season. However, in recent weeks the veteran tight end appears to be struggling to engage even the most static of linebackers. With a $2million cap number in 2015, Watson will be keen to recapture some of that early season form if he wants to justify his 2015 price tag.

DEFENSE

We had flagged in our Defensive Preview that perhaps the easiest way to beat the Bears was… to let the Bears beat the Bears! And so it proved on Monday night. QB Jay Cutler had an appalling game, as the much maligned Saints defense were able to effectively shut out the Bears until near garbage time at Soldier Field.

Credit must go primarily to the Saints defensive line. As with most strong New Orleans defensive performances, it all started up front. In particular, the Saints pass rush was absolutely dominant on Monday night. Cutler was sacked a season high 7 times, with Junior Galette, Cam Jordan and Akiem Hicks all having very strong games in the pass rush. The best “all round” performance up front came from big John Jenkins, who absolutely controlled the line of scrimmage on both rushing and passing downs at Soldier Field. Jenkins has been inconsistent at best this year, but played with genuine hunger for all four quarters on Monday. If he can keep up that level, the Saints will be a far better defense for it down the stretch (and hopefully into the playoffs).

The pass rush didn’t only come from the defensive line on Monday, though. Cutler’s biggest foe was Saints LB David Hawthorne – who terrorised the interior of the Chicago O-Line with a series of blitzes, recording 3 sacks. Whilst Curtis Lofton continued his slight downward turn, Hawthorne was more than happy to pick up the slack. Overall he was arguably the Saints best defender on the day.

DC Rob Ryan rolled the dice on Monday with the Saints secondary, giving it a completely new look. However the gamble largely paid off. The secondary benefited hugely from the strong pass rush up front, which meant the CBs and safeties were not required to cover for the 5-6-7 seconds that opposing QBs have often had in the pocket against the Saints this year. Instead, Cutler was forced to offload the ball early or under duress, which made it far easier for the secondary to make plays.

Safety Pierre Warren continued to settle into the defensive scheme, and looked almost Sharper-esque at times patrolling the deep zone on Monday. Warren had two interceptions on the day, and otherwise assisted in taking away any kind of “home run” plays from the Bears. The Saints will certainly need a similar showing from Warren this week against the far superior Falcons offense. Fellow safeties Kenny Vaccaro and Jamarca Sanford also had solid outings on the day – Kenny V in particular looking much more comfortable in the nickel role. At cornerback, Keenan Lewis largely contained the potentially explosive Alshon Jeffery outside. Playing opposite Lewis was Terrence Frederick, for his first big league start. Frederick looked very much at home and showed good coverage skills and sound tackling technique. It had all the ingredients of a performance that Frederick can build on in the weeks to come. The defensive play of the day also came from the secondary, with Patrick Robinson making an exceptional diving pick in Q1.

Overall though, and as touched upon above, watching back Monday’s tape it remains genuinely difficult to know whether it was a case of Chicago’s offense being “that bad” or New Orleans’ defense being “that good”. As always, I would suspect the answer lies somewhere between the two. What was abundantly clear, though, was the hunger and intensity that the defense brought for all four quarters. Let’s hope Rob Ryan has bottled a strong dose of that up, to unleash on the Dirty Birds on Sunday.

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Agree with these grades? Think they’re way off the mark? Feel free to let us know 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’re now focussing all of our attention on the Atlanta Falcons, with a massive divisional tussle coming up against the Dirty Birds on Sunday. With that Falcons depth-chart much changed from the team that took the field in Week 1, be sure to check back on The BoiLa on Sunday for our Offense and Defense Previews, in which we’ll give you the lowdown on these “Week 16” Falcons and how the Saints matchup.

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