What did you take away from the New Orleans Saints‘ season-opening loss to the Arizona Cardinals? Pro Football Focus grades are far from the end-all be-all of analysis, but they’re a good starting point to get a dialogue going. So we’ve highlighted the best and worst PFF player grades from Sunday’s Saints game, while taking a longer look at Spencer Rattler’s performance as a passer and the special teams units.

Here’s who stood out in Week 1, for good and bad reasons:

Top 5 players on offenseC Erik McCoy: 79.7QB Spencer Rattler: 77.3LT Kelvin Banks Jr.: 69.1RB Kendre Miller: 64.5WR Devaughn Vele: 64.0

Banks and McCoy combined to allow just two pressures in this game (Banks allowed two hurries), which is really encouraging. Rattler earned high marks for escaping pressure and making the most of his opportunities to run with the ball (gaining 29 yards on just four attempts), but it’s tough to justify his 73.7 passing grade. He gained 214 yards on 46 attempts. That flat-out isn’t good enough. He wasn’t intercepted, but not for lack of trying; PFF had Rattler with two turnover-worthy plays, and the one time he was picked off he got bailed out by an unrelated penalty on the other side of the field.

Bottom 5 players on offenseRG Cesar Ruiz: 36.5RT Taliese Fuaga: 41.3TE Jack Stoll: 43.2RT Asim Richards: 44.1RB Devin Neal: 51.2

Ruiz has an argument to be the worst guard in the NFL right now. He’s the only guard (Monday night’s action notwithstanding) to be penalized three times in Week 1, drawing fouls for holding, a false start, and lining up offsides. He’s started 70 games in his career so far and and is two years into a $44 million extension. He must play better. Fuaga was charged with allowing four pressures and a sack while drawing a penalty, and the Saints eventually benched him while dealing with a knee injury. This is far below his standards so that knee must have been bothering him.

Top 5 players on defenseLB Demario Davis: 90.7FS Julian Blackmon: 83.9DE Cameron Jordan: 80.8DE Chris Rumph II: 64.6DE Carl Granderson: 64.0

Blackmon’s season-ending labrum injury is tough for several reasons, but in this situation it hurts to see him go down after having such a great game. He was the second-highest graded player on either side of the ball for New Orleans. Beyond him, though, Davis looks immortal and the defensive ends rotation had some great moments even without Chase Young in the mix.

Bottom 5 players on defenseDE Fadill Diggs: 30.5LB Pete Werner: 37.8DT Jonah Williams: 42.5DT Bryan Bresee: 53.7DT Jonathan Bullard: 55.1

Diggs only got on the field for seven snaps, so he didn’t have many chances to make up for a couple of negative plays. That isn’t the case for Werner, who logged 60 snaps and missed two tackles while giving up four completions for 39 yards. Seeing three different defensive tackles rank this low is disappointing after all the work the Saints did to turn over that group. Bresee made more of an impact in the game than his PFF grade suggests. Kyler Murray threw several incompletions because Bresee forced him out of the pocket while having to throw on the move.

Special teams

Defensive tackle Bryan Bresee was the highest-graded player in the kicking game, having gotten up high to block a field goal late in the fourth quarter. Second-year linebacker Isaiah Stalbird continued his strong performance on special teams with two tackles (but he did miss one). Rookie linebacker Danny Stutsman, defensive end Chris Rumph II, and tight end Jack Stoll were each credited with at least one special teams tackle, and two other players had assists (cornerback Rejzohn Wright and linebacker Jaylan Ford). Rookie safety Jonas Sanker missed a tackle on special teams. Kendre Miller was effective on kick returns, averaging 29.3 yards per attempt.

Kai Kroeger was one of this week’s top-graded punters, averaging 50.5 yards per attempt (43.0 net) and 4.66 seconds of hangtime. He placed two of his punts inside the opposing 20-yard line.

Quarterbacks

Like we said earlier, Rattler received an above-average grade as a passer (73.7) even if the production wasn’t there. He attempted 46 passes but gained only 214 yards. Teams can’t win with that. Seriously — they’re 5-51-1 in games with quarterbacks throwing at least 46 times while gaining 214 or fewer yards. But let’s focus on the numbers from PFF. Rattler had an average depth of target at 7.4 yards, which is solid, and only one of his incompletions went down as a drop. Three others were throwaways. He got the ball out in a hurry (2.38 seconds on average) but too often that meant checking down well short of the sticks. He only converted 13 first downs on all of those passes.