Hebert: Slow defensive start dooms Saints again in loss to Patriots

Hebert: Slow defensive start dooms Saints again in loss to Patriots

[Music] Well, uh, we got to make plays and, um, this the number one thing right here is that we’re behind a ball. We’re not good enough to have to play catchup. Now, we had our first lead in the first quarter this season. Now, we’re winning three to zero, but go five plays, 59 yards. Uh, Groovy makes a 35 yd field goal. It’ have been a lot nicer if you’d have been up, you know, seven to zero instead instead of three to zero. I said this at halftime. The defense has now allowed a touchdown uh by the opposing team in his first two possessions in four consecutive games. So that’s 14 points. Boom. Yeah. So I say we’re going to go to Chicago with the Bears are going to on the first two possessions. They going to have 14 points. That has to change. And we’ve been outscored now in the first quarter 65-6. So we having to play catch-up. And when you look at it, uh 51 offensive plays, that’s not good. Um you know, cuz we’re not converting on third down. You know, you want to be 65 plays at least as an offensive unit or 65 plus. And we’re three of nine, 33%. Now, that’d be good from a defense perspective like we did last week against the Giants, you know, giving up like uh that low 30s, but today uh the Patriots uh well, 46%. Six of 13. If you look at Drake May at halftime, he had a perfect quarterback rating. Well, uh, I mean, so that means a perfect quarterback rating, that means he’s not uncomfortable and he’s he’s he’s playing awesome. And Drake May definely looks like the real deal. Now, when you look at Drake May, I said this during the week to show you why he’s uh that’s a small fraternity and where he’s at right now and look at his age. Uh considering players under the age of 24 with at least 200 passing yards and a passer rating of 100 or higher in most consecutive games in NFL history, he now has five. Okay. Pat Mahomes uh did that in 2018. He had seven. Dan Marino when I was playing he had six back in 1984. Pat Mahomes again in 18 and 19 he had five. Dak Prescott 2016 had five. Now Drake May ties him today. He had a quarterback rating of 140 and he had 261 yards passing. Unreal. Uh I think for us to have a chance, the defense has to play better. We have to be more opportunistic. I thought we needed to be like plus one or plus two. We were uh plus five for the season coming into this game. The Patriots were uh minus one. So they end up being plus one. So they’re even for the season and now we’re plus four. So, uh, we’re not, uh, good enough for that to occur. Now, as far as penalties, I think it was a flag happy, uh, group. And you can’t say, uh, you know, usually, oh, a lot of Saints fans, oh, the refs cheated. No, the refs didn’t cheat. The Saints got at least two definite breaks. That ain’t no penalty. That went against the Patriots. So, the penalty calls went the Saints, I think, overall. Uh, they had 11 for 65 yards, but we had eight for 67. So that’s a flag happy crew. To me, 15 or more penalties, sometimes you wish they would keep it in their pocket. Now with Blake Groupy, uh this will help him out uh going forward. He was four for four in field goals and uh when he made that 54 yard, I said, “Well, he has to make this. He cannot miss it because you wanted to get within one score and end up having an opportunity for that.” Now, there wasn’t much punting going on. I thought that that was interesting. The first punt in the game was uh uh by Kroger four minutes and 23 seconds. He he shanked it, you know. Then their first punt was uh 2 minutes and 49 seconds. So really, you think you’d see more uh punts than that. Now, as far as Chris, okay, he started out the game, I thought, come on, Rattler, throw it out there. If you don’t underthrow it, that was a 53 yard gain. Uh maybe has a touchdown. uh splash chunk play uh from the get-go, but a couple of times, why are you jumping to catch the ball? The ball’s right there. You’re jumping. Uh don’t leave your feet. Why are you jumping? Um you look at uh one time was a deep pass, end up getting a penalty against him, but he looked kind of like a spash trying to adjust to the ball. I don’t know what he was doing. And uh a contested catch. I hope he’d make that. I mean, uh, that was a touchdown pass right in the end zone. He just got to come up with those plays if if he’s a number one receiver. And I thought overall, boy, it was a long day file young defensive backs. I I think I think they got kind of schooled a little bit when you look at the chunk plays uh by those prior receivers. And look at Bouty from LSU. Five targets, five catches, 93 yards, 18.6 sixyd average, two touchdowns, a long of 29. You look at Douglas, three catches, right average right under 24 yards, 53 long gain, one touchdown. So, no, um the they were dicing us up uh from the get-go. And L got targeted. He had 10 targets, six catches. The stat line looks good. 98 yards, 16.3 yd average. Had that long game to start the game, 53. But it should have been should have been a touchdown. Yeah, it should have been a lot better. It should have been a lot better than that. Now, uh we only ran the ball 23 uh attempts, but we really didn’t have enough plays. We only had 51 uh offensive plays. Like I said, that needs to be around 65 cuz you look at it good balance, 26 pass attempts, uh 23 rushing attempts, but we only averaged 3.2 yards a carry. Chimera was at 3.1. Kendry Miller uh you know compared to his two previous games you know where he was over four yards 2.6 yard average per carry. So uh Camarra total yards of scrimmage end up getting 76 uh but for him to tr truly to be where we need him for our offense that needs to be about 50 yards more I would say around that 100 uh 25 uh mark. Now looking at Spencer Rattler um I mean had a quarterback rating 102.6 six 20 of 26. Uh Spitzer Rattler is not necessarily why we not winning and we’re not helping him when he is making the plays. I think he’s playing with a lot of confidence, but as good as Spitzer Rer’s been, Drake May’s on a different level, right? Drake May looks like amongst the elite of the NFL quarterbacks right now. And you could see the future that they’re going to have uh with him. how he extends extends plays, his uh his pocket awareness. Uh you could see it on and on and and Spencer does an overall good job with his uh uh uh pocket presence or pocket awareness I should say. But uh the only time I thought well it was like a turnover. So I guess you could say that was even remember the fourth and seven and I don’t know if Drake May wasn’t ready for the snap. It was like it went by him or it didn’t look like a bad snap. It was like minus 16 aborted play. Uh to me that was like a turnover. Uh they were up 14-3. Uh now we went eight plays 27 yds and uh 34 Ra would have been a 20-yard touchdown. How about you catch the ball? So instead of settling for a field goal, you know, you could have had a touchdown with that opportunity. Uh and and I thought at halftime they wasn’t good though because we already had given up 22 points. Now if was at the end of the game and we were giving up 20 22 points I’d say oh well that that you know the Saints always have to do something. But we end up um you know doing pretty good when you consider they had 22 points at half and they only ended up uh with 25. So so that was a positive there. But it it didn’t seem like that if we really needed to get a a stop against the Patriots, they seemed like they were setting the tone and uh they were always uh under control of the Evan Florida tempo. Um I mean I thought overall uh uh like uh with our defensive backs I mean like Sanker. Okay. Uh uh uh Riley uh Quincy Riley. Oh. Okay. Uh this is the NFL and that’s good. They’re having to learn on the run. Um but they were making the contested catches and and we were not. And it’s going to be tough to win in Chicago. I can tell you right now we we’ll be dealing I think it might be a nice uh football uh day and uh right now I don’t know the forecast but we not going to be like it’s and playing the Bears in December or something. So uh we have a great opportunity but it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough. They come away with a win on the road, but unless you look at the Seattle game, well, that was an embarrassing performance. No. Um, it’s not embarrassing, but it’s not PE class. Are you winning or are you losing? There’s no moral victories, you know, like, oh, we’re playing hard, we fight this close makes it more frustrating. Yes. Yeah. U, but then I think the boobirds would come out if you were getting like a Seattle performance. But, uh, no, we’re right there. But again, it all goes back to the moral of the story. The defense now has allowed a touchdown on the on opposing teams first two possessions in four consecutive games. 14 points. Boom. Boom. Two drives. When we go to Chicago, just look the first two times the Bears got the ball. They can’t be winning. They can’t have 14 points on the board cuz then you always playing C. [Music]

The Saints allowed touchdowns on the opponents’ first two drives for the fourth consecutive game, and this time they couldn’t dig out of the hole in a 25-19 loss to the Patriots to fall to 1-5. So what’s the Cajun Cannon Bobby Hebert’s take?

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