Between the Lines: Saints' Pass Rush Looks Overmatched

Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams has an interesting dilemma this Sunday. His Saints' defense is at its best when Williams' mixes in six and seven-man blitzes to create confusion and mismatches. But on Sunday, he'll be facing Peyton Manning, a quarterback who wants you to blitz him.

So do you stick with what's been successful and risk Manning getting some big plays, or do you back off and let Manning nickel and dime his way down the field? There is no obvious answer for Williams.

From rewatching the Saints' front seven in its recent games this looks like a mismatch. Williams simply doesn't have the players to consistently pressure Manning. If Williams backs off on his blitzing, defensive end Will Smith is the only Saints pass rusher who is capable of consistently beating his man one on one (and he's been quiet during the playoffs). Add it up and you should expect to see the Colts pile up some points.

If Williams does decide to blitz, he's taking a big risk. This year Manning had a quarterback rating of 118.5 (88 of 127, 1,188 yards, 10 TDs, 2 INTs and only three sacks) when teams blitzed him. If you blitz Manning you have a very low likelihood of sacking him (only 2.3 percent of all blitzes resulted in a sack by ESPN's stats) and a high likelihood he'll pick you apart.

The Saints did record 35 sacks this season, but they are not a great pass-rushing team. They piled up a large portion of their sacks against rookie quarterbacks who were confused by Williams' blitz schemes. In the playoffs against Kurt Warner and Brett Favre (two veteran quarterbacks who are still relatively easy to sack), New Orleans has one sack and 10 quarterback hurries in 83 pass attempts.

The Saints did beat the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, but that may lead many to gloss over the team's defensive problems in that game. The Vikings' offensive line isn't the pass-blocking group that Indianapolis' is. And Brett Favre is much, much easier to sack than Manning, but the Saints weren't able to consistently hurry Favre. If you watched the Fox broadcast you may have thought that the Saints were beating up Favre every time he dropped back. The reality was much different -- Favre was hit on only eight of his 46 pass attempts. Two of those hits came when the Saints sent seven pass rushers and on both of those Favre completed passes (for 20 and 13 yards). Another hit came when the Saints sent six, three came when the Saints sent five and two came when the Saints sent four.
The Saints reliance on the blitz shows up in another stat. In logging every sack of the 2009 season, the Saints record 15 percent of their sacks on seven-man blitzes. Only two teams (the Jets and Lions) matched the Saints in their reliance on seven-man blitzes.

Williams' blitz schemes worked well against inexperienced quarterbacks, but it was covering up a defensive flaw -- the front four can't generate pressure on its own. The Saints recorded 11 of their 35 sacks against rookie quarterbacks (six against Josh Freeman, one against Matt Stafford and four against Mark Sanchez). That's the most sacks against rookie quarterbacks of any team in the league. Carolina (10 sacks) was the only other team to record more than seven sacks against rookies. Another four Saints sacks came against backups (Chris Redman, Kevin Kolb, David Carr and Bobby Hoyer). Only five of the Colts 34 sacks were recorded against backup quarterbacks (all against Seneca Wallace) and only two of the sacks came against rookies (both Mark Sanchez).

Part of the problem in the playoffs has been the injury to starting defensive end Charles Grant. Grant, who was second on the team with 5 1/2 sacks, was placed on injured reserve before the playoffs with a torn biceps. He wasn't a great pass rusher, but he did pull some of the attention away from Smith. His replacement, Bobby McCray, had only 1 1/2 sacks all season. Defensive tackles Remi Ayodele and Sedrick Ellis are run-stuffers with very few pass-rushing moves. Not coincidentally since Grant went down Smith hasn't recorded a sack.

If the Saints are going to generate pressure, there are two players to keep an eye on. Smith is the obvious one. He recorded 13 sacks by showing a nice pair of pass rushing moves. Five of his sacks came when he beat offensive tackles on speed rushes. But another four came when he faked a speed rush to the outside, and then cut inside. Smith has the speed to beat left tackle Charlie Johnson to the corner, but he also has the power to drive Johnson into the backfield if Johnson gets overly concerned with Smith's speed. Only one of Smith's sacks came because of a blown assignment, while three others came when he picked up garbage sacks forced by either good coverage or a quarterback being flushed by another rusher.

The other player to watch for the Saints is backup lineman Anthony Hargrove. Starting defensive end Charles Grant had 5 1/2 sacks compared to Hargrove's five, but one of Grant's sacks came because of a bad snap and another 1 1/2 came because of blown assignments. Hargrove picked up nearly as many sacks in less snaps. He showed he could bull rush (a sack against Chad Henne where he drove guard Justin Smiley into the backfield), use his speed (a sack against the Panthers when he hauled down Jake Delhomme on a rollout) and use his athleticism (he leaped over an attempted cut block by Lousaka Polite for another sack of Henne).

Either Smith or Hargrove could cause some minor problems, but the Saints do not appear capable of getting to Manning consistently, so they are really left with two hopes. One hope is that the Saints secondary plays the game of their lives. More realistically, they can hope that Drew Brees and the Saints' offense can outscore the Colts, because this isn't a good matchup for New Orleans.