New York Giants Week 14: A Look at the New Orleans Saints Defense

The New York Giants will again use Drew Lock at quarterback this week as they try to beat the New Orleans Saints. The Giants are looking for their first win at home this season; the Saints, under interim head coach and New Jersey native Darren Rizzi, are looking for their second road win and their first since Week 2.

What is the Giants offense looking at from this Saints defense?

The Saints are one of the rare teams in modern football that rarely rotate anywhere other than the defensive line. They’re perfectly content keeping linebackers and defensive backs in for just about every snap.

On their defensive line, they have a healthy rotation of Carl Granderson, Cameron Jordan, Chase Young, and Payton Turner on the edge.

Granderson and Young have been the most significant players and the best pressure creators, with 42 and 41 pressures, respectively.

The interior is built through Nathan Shepherd, Bryan Bresee, Khalen Saunders, and John Ridgeway.

Bresee has been the group’s big-time pass-rusher, but outside of him, there hasn’t been much interior production.

The Saints have, in my opinion, one of the worst interior run-stuffing groups in the NFL.

I’m a fan of the linebackers in New Orleans, as I think Demario Davis and Pete Werner make this defense go around. They’re both capable of hanging around in coverage, are willing and able in run defense, and line up on edge to rush the passer as well.

The secondary has Kool-Aid McKinstry and Alontae Taylor as cornerbacks, Ugo Amadi in the slot, and Tyrann Mathieu and Will Harris as safeties.

When the Saints go with a single-high safety look, more often than not, the deep safety will be Mathieu.

Amadi’s aggressiveness coming downhill usually gives the Saints an active run defender out of the secondary without being a liability in coverage.

The Saints’ defense is built around versatile personnel, both in their position and their skillset.
Linebackers will play off-ball as well as lining up on the edge in certain packages, mostly Werner.
Coverage-wise, the Saints play mostly Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 3, or Cover 4 without relying on too much blitzing.

On the back end, the Saints frequently disguise their coverages to cause confusion among quarterbacks.

The Saints’ blitz rate is 23.4% this season, the ninth-lowest rate in the NFL, and that number has only been decreasing with Rizzi at the helm.

The Giants’ offensive line needs to keep its collective head on a swivel, as the Saints use stunts as a major part of their pass-rush plan to create chaos in more ways while only rushing four players.

In a stunt, one rusher attacks an offensive lineman to occupy them, while another rusher loops around that initial defender, leaving the offensive lineman in an almost impossible position.

PRo Football Focus did a study earlier this season on which teams have had the best success rate with stunts through the first five games of the season. Surprisingly, the Saints were ranked near the bottom of the league with a 39.30$ success rate.

Historically, the Giants’ offensive line hasn’t been great against stunts. This year, the unit has been a little better, but there are some questions as to who will be able to play–tackles Evan Neal and Jermaine Eluemunor are both iffy with injuries—so we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t a concern about the line’s abilities to deal with stunts.

The Giants should be able to run the ball successfully this week against a horrid Saints run defense that allows 5.1 yards per carry, the same as the Giants.

Tyrone Tracy, Jr. has 545 rushing yards and three touchdowns. He’s fourth in the league with an average of 5.3 yards per touch and has only six negative carries. 

Among his statistics are zone runs with a 5.86 YPC and a 53.1% success rate. If you’re into fantasy football, I would say starting Tracy this week is probably a smart decision, given the matchup.

In the passing game, the important part for the Giants is to take what’s there and not be fooled by disguised coverages. 

The Saints have allowed 249.1 passing yards per game, are 29th in the league, and opponents are averaging 7.22 yards per pass attempt, which is 28th in the league. 

The Giants offense has been far from a juggernaut this season, ranking 26th overall, 15th in the rushing game, and 31st in the passing game.  But it can help itself by cutting down on the mistakes that have wiped out far too many decent gains this season.