Canal Street Chronicles
The Saints travel to face the Cowboys this Sunday.
Wow. I’m going to be honest, I expected to the New Orleans Saints to win this past weekend, but I don’t think anybody predicted that. The offense looked fresh, and the defense looked just as good, if not better.
Don’t get too excited though. The Saints have to go from playing one of the worst teams in the league at home to traveling to face one of the best teams in the league this weekend. The Dallas Cowboys also enjoyed a smooth week one. They decimated the Browns 33-17, but if it weren’t for a late touchdown, it would’ve been 33-10.
The Saints offense was the biggest question mark heading into this season. They hired a new offensive coordinator in Klint Kubiak, who seems to have already lit a new fire under these players. They genuinely seemed to enjoy playing football this past weekend, but we’ll see if they can find sustained success.
Derek Carr had one of his best games as a Saints, completing 19 of his 23 pass attempts for 200 yards and three touchdowns. He wasn’t asked to do too much, especially once they got out to a big lead, but he made some incredible throws such as the touchdowns to Rashid Shaheed and Juwan Johnson.
On the other side, the Cowboys defense did a really good job of limiting Deshaun Watson, but granted, he’s just not that good anymore. Watson threw for 169 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions while completing just over half his pass attempts. The Cowboys have two ball hawks in Daron Bland and Trevon Diggs, so Carr is going to need to be careful with the football this weekend.
One area where both the Saints found success this week was in the rushing game. They averaged 4.9 yards per carry on Sunday and the run game just looked brand new. Instead of running it right up the middle every time, they were getting Alvin Kamara and others outside and were pulling guards and tackles to get lead blockers. On top of the scheme, you have to give credit to the Saints offensive line, which was incredible in the run game. Eric McCoy earned a 90+ PFF grade in run blocking while the rest of the offensive line graded out in the 70s (besides Fuaga).
The Browns also found some success in the run game against Dallas, rushing for 93 yards on 19 attempts (4.9 YPC), but that was inflated by Watson averaging over seven yards per carry on seven attempts. Carr isn’t a huge rushing threat, so if you take out the QB, the Browns averaged 3.9 YPC.
The Saints were also very good in pass protection, which might’ve been the most surprising part of the weekend. Every starter, even Trevor Penning, earned a 75+ pass blocking grade from PFF, and four of them were 80+. They were credited with just two pressures allowed against the Panthers.
As for the Cowboys, they had...
