Our offensive and defensive player grades for the Saints topsy-turvy, and ultimately heartbreaking loss to the 49ers in Week 10 are now ready for viewing, along with individual snap counts and written analysis on the performance of every player. After a comprehensive victory on the road over the Panthers last Thursday, Sean Payton and his charges were heading back home for a three game stretch that started with the visit of Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers. However, things didn’t go to plan right out of the gate, and despite clawing back a 14-0 deficit, the Saints ultimately fell short in overtime. Read on to get the BoiLa’s full rundown and color-coded player grades for each and every player.

As always, for those of you who don’t know, our Player Performance Grading System uses a 9-point colour coded scale to produce an easy to understand visual indicator of the performance of each player on both rushing plays, passing plays and in total. If you are unfamiliar with our grading system or would like to read a more thorough explanation of it then click here.

Also, for ease of reference, our 9-point colour-coded grading scale is pictured below:

Right, onto the player grades. (You can click on each individual position group chart to open an enlarged version in a new window).

OFFENSE

In our Week 10 Offensive Preview, we highlighted how we thought it would be extremely hard for the Saints to run the ball on the 49ers, and that the Saints would probably be forced to mainly move the ball through the air in this one. However, a key injury to 49ers nose-tackle, and primary space eater/run stuffer Ian Williams in the 2nd quarter opened the running game up for the Saints. Mark Ingram again graded out as one of the top performers, and run-blocking wise it was one of the best performances from the O-Line this season, especially from the interior. Grubbs, Goodwin and particularly Evans all graded out positively in the run game. The reason for these better interior grades is because the Saints opted for a marked change of tack, concentrating their ground efforts in between the tackles rather than outside of them, with such an approach certainly paying dividends in the 2nd half.

Through the air however, it was a jekyll-and-hyde affair for quarterbacks, receivers and pass protectors alike. Brees seemed to revert back to the type of QB we’d hoped to have seen the last of against Tampa Bay, mixing predominantly great play with some head-bangingly frustrating interceptions. He still scrapes a positive grade due to the vast majority of his work being strong, with some plays simply borderline ridiculous, but he needs to cut out these costly, costly interceptions.

Also, as good as the O-Line were run blocking, they struggled in pass protection. Terron Armstead found it rough going taking on a two-punch attack that combined the strength of Justin Smith with the speed of Ahmad Brooks. Goodwin was arguably the most disappointing, giving up a number of pressures to the lesser known Quinton Dial. The hobbled Zach Strief was the only positive on passing downs, putting in a warrior-like performance whilst up against the high energy rookie Aaron Lynch. All told, it was a less-than-stellar day on passing downs from the O-Line, and they’ve certainly got “Drew-dini” to thank that there weren’t even more sacks chalked up against each of their names.

Brandin Cooks and Jimmy Graham led the way for the receivers, and in that order chronologically. Cooks shone in the first half, showing his speed and hands, before almost completely disappearing in the second. Graham on the other hand was only targeted once on a pass of more than 10 yards in the first half, and that was picked off. In the second however, he once again victimised single-coverage, picking up two touchdowns in the process. It could have been three but for “push off-gate”. Stills and Colston both punctuated their days with disappointing drops more than anything else, and Nick Toon came in as the 4th wideout but was pretty much a non-factor, only playing seven snaps.

The offense on Sunday struggled to find its groove, before looking great on TD drives in the 3rd and 4th quarter. Eventually it succumbed to the San Francisco pass rush in overtime. One thing seems certain from all of this, and that is if the Saints want to win more games than they lose this season, the offense needs to start consistently putting together four quarters of football, rather than just two or three.

DEFENSE



So much for the “new” 49ers and their spread offense! As John Lynch (persistently) reminded us in the play by play on Sunday, the 49ers went back to basics in the Superdome – and in the early going it seemed to catch everyone (not least Rob Ryan) by surprise.

Gone were the exotic 4 WR and empty sets that we’ve seen San Francisco employ, with mixed results, so far this year. Back instead were the strong power I jumbo sets that made the 49er offense what it is now. In the first few series, the Saints defense simply did not look ready for such a war. Hicks, Bunkley, Jordan and Galette were all manhandled early on by the San Francisco offensive linemen in the trenches, leaving Frank Gore huge holes to run into and allowing the 49er linemen to frequently get to the second level and swallow up Saints linebackers. The result was a string of consistent gains for the Niners running game in the first half. In previous games this season, particularly on the road, the Niner line has failed to generate any kind of push or holes for Gore. They played easily their best road game of the year on Sunday.

The Saints defense also seemed to struggle with motion in the early going. With the Niners running the ball so effectively Rob Ryan was forced to give extended action to Parys Haralson in an attempt to bolster the run defense. The result was that Corey White was often left isolated in coverage – at times only with the struggling Kenny Vaccaro in the box as support. The Niners used frequent pre-snap shifts and motions to great effect to create mismatches on the outside – almost always on the “Corey White” side of the field.

To Rob Ryan’s credit, though, the Saints were constantly adjusting on defense on the day. Especially in the second half, Ryan seemed to find the formula to slow down the 49er offense. As the Saints defensive line slowly got to grips with the 49er offensive line, it allowed Ryan to make more use of a 5th defensive back on 2nd and 3rd down. This got Patrick Robinson onto the field more often, and P-Rob had another excellent game. He is easily the best nickel option on the Saints roster, and seemed to be the only defender capable of covering Boldin out of the slot on Sunday. Against 3 WR sets, Robinson should always be on the field for New Orleans.

On a more positive note, the Saints were also able to largely contain Colin Kaepernick on the day. Much like against Cam Newton, the Saints did a good job of preventing Kaepernick from running on them. Kaep’s passing numbers on the day were flattered greatly by that 4th and 10 play to Crabtree. Aside from that, the Saints secondary played another strong game overall and Jordan/Galette were able to generate good pressure on the 49er QB.

The Saints defensive card was soured somewhat, though, by several breakdowns. The most glaring was the coverage mistake on the crucial 4th and 10 completion in the 4th quarter. The BoiLa has watched the play over and over again – and our conclusion is that, if any defensive back was at fault, it was Kenny Vaccaro rather than Corey White. That said, allowing any QB 7+ seconds to make a throw is never going to end well. Kaepernick did an exceptional job of extending the play, and the Saints defensive line was unable to get to him before the coverage breakdown. In many ways, it summed up the season for this Saints defense – 59 minutes of hard work undone by one bad play.

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Let us know what you think of these ratings in the comments below (or you can holler at us on Twitter). Also, if you want to view our full Saints Player Grades archive then you can click here.

With Week 10 in the books, we’ll now be turning our attention towards the Cincinnati Bengals, as to be honest, at the moment we know very little about them here at The BoiLa! Still, after a couple of days devoted to watching their game film this seasn, we’ll be back on Saturday to impart all of our Bengal-based wisdom on you in our Week 11 Offensive and Defensive Previews. So, make sure you check back for those.