Peon Awesome

Maybe the Saints aren't the Chiefs, but Kamara is still Kamara and their offensive line is one of the best in the NFL, and yet Kamara had 5 yards. FIVE! Not to mention our 6 sacks. And this was one week after the Saints scored 38 points, Kamara had 83 yards rushing and the line gave up zero sacks. I know McCoy was out, but Ruiz is a damn good replacement and I don't see him making up for that huge difference.

I actually think they made more of an effort this week not to completely take their foot off the gas. Ran a lot of pass plays, even midway through the 4th quarter and Darnold even took a couple shots down field. The Saints just did a better job of clamping down their coverage.

Yeah they've been surprisingly "good enough". Which I'll happily take. Give Darnold credit for getting the ball out and extending plays with his legs. But even Mahomes couldn't escape his offensive line in the super bowl and he is otherworldly in making something out of nothing. Our offensive line is doing just enough to make Darnold's plays effective. They might get exposed by a great defensive team, similar to the 2015 team in the super bowl, but hopefully we'll see even more growth by then.

Apparently Erik McCoy is the difference between putting up 38 points against the Packers versus only having 128 yards total and a measly 7 points after getting the ball in the redzone on a turnover. Someone give that man a $50 million per year contract.

The Panthers played an NFL team and had an absolutely convincingly dominating win. How long has it been since we can say that? Let us be happy please.

Gotta consider putting in a waiver claim for the Panthers defense. That's smelling like 30 fantasy points.

Kinda glad we missed the 1st down there. We need more reps for our kicker to see if we need to panic sign another one before his 3 weeks are up.

Serious question: do we have the best defense in the league?

Only 18 more games. Don't forget the #1 seed in the NFC gets a 1st round bye.

What an absolutely beautiful half of football. Let's hope we keep our foot on the gas and not replicate last week's anemic 2nd half gameplan.

Just go ahead and line up for the field goal.... sigh

Well you gotta understand the decision to kick the field goal considering we might be the worst short yardage team in the league. Personally I would've preferred a play action pass on 3rd down. I don't think we've ever been successful on a goal line run in the Joe Brady era.

It's becoming more and more unfathomable how we signed Reddick for $6 million. That's less than we signed Stephen Weatherly for on a per year basis.

Saints are going to have multiple defensive starters out or far less than 100%. If our offense can't capitalize and keep things competitive, then we're obviously still a year away from playoff contention.

You probably want to actually look at the data that's available. His average distance was 46.4 yards. That's 2nd most on the entire list and by a considerable margin. The difference in yardage between Gano and 3rd place (43.6 yards or 2.8 yards difference) is the same as the difference between 3rd place and 19th place on the list. In other words, Gano (and Zuerlein at a whopping 48.4 yard average) is a huge outlier and was faced with harder kicks than the average person. If he had an equal number or xps and field goals, his average field goal would've had to be 59.8 yards. Obviously they aren't equal, but even if you assume 2 to 1 in favor of field goals, that's an average of 52.5 yards per field goal. Not a chip shot.

Crazy that despite 33 yard extra points counting for him, Gano's average kick distance was 46.4 yards. So that means the overwhelming majority of his field goals were 50+. Which makes 63% pretty average at least.

Yeah the Huddle was so damn ready to kick Gano to the curb. Everyone felt like it was just unfathomable that we would keep Gano over cutting him for an unknown rookie. Since 2017, Gano has been 79-83 on field goals (95.2%), including 10-12 from 50+ and a 63 yard game winner. You could honestly say he might be the best kicker in the NFL right now. Now we're shuffling through every team's practice squad hoping something will stick.

I predict a slugfest from start to finish with Panthers keeping it close throughout with great defense, a couple turnovers and a heavy dose of McCaffrey. We have the ball with a chance to tie/lead with 3 minutes left. More redzone woes force us to line up for a game tying 35 yard field goal, only to see it clank off the upright. 24-21 Saints.

Until Santoso starts missing a bunch of kicks, I'm going to blame Rhule and his overly conservative gameplan before I assume Santoso is incapable of making a 50 yard kick, particularly since he was 1 for 1 from 50+ in the preseason and outside of the missed XP, has been hitting his kicks right down the middle. Remember when Rivera would punt every time we had a potential 50+ yarder with Gano and he has been one of the most accurate long ball kickers since then? Could be seeing flashes of that. I also think if we were playing a high flying offense like Tampa or KC, no way we don't either go for it or kick the fg.

You know the list makes no sense when McCaffrey doesn't crack the top 5. Just stop reading after that

I was hoping someone would make a thread about Horn. I couldn't remember him conceding a catch other than the td so glad my eyes didn't deceive me. And he played that TD perfectly; seemed like he may have even gotten a couple fingertips on the ball. It was just a perfectly placed pass; nothing anyone could have done. Really impressed so far.

Let's call out our deficiencies without using "we barely beat the worst team in the NFL" as your argument. The truth is, we don't know who are the worst teams or whether the Jets are firmly in that conversation. They've got almost a brand new team and have a new coaching staff. Houston has been considered the consensus worst team in the league and they blew out the Jaguars. The Eagles were another of the consensus bottom 5 teams and they had the most dominant win of the day against the Falcons (who many predicted would be better than the Panthers). The Packers are probably the 2nd favorite team in the NFC to make the super bowl and are getting manhandled by the Saints. The NFL is impossible to predict. Hell the Panthers were the most predictable team in the league in week 1. Overreliance on McCaffrey, a talented young defense, conservative playcalling that collapses in the redzone. Not much surprising today. But happy for a win regardless.

Context matters. I don't necessarily say I agree with the thought process but it seemed pretty clear that Rhule felt pinning a young Jets team with a rookie qb deep near their endzone would be more advantageous that kicking a long field goal, especially with how dominant our defense played. Does that mean he thought Santoso was incapable of making a 50 yarder? Doubtful. I think he hoped Charlton would've placed those better, gotten the Jets inside the 10, forced a 3 and out, and gotten the ball back with a fresh set of downs near mid field. Didn't quite happen but that seemed to be the thought process.

Perhaps a backup MLB and possibly TE if they cut Ian Thomas and aren't sold on Thompson or Ricci as TE3. Outside of that, I don't see the need or value in picking up a team's castoff right before the season is starting. Honestly, we should only be talking about filling out the bottom of the roster. Put to rest the idea of finding a starting LT or C from the waiver wire.

Not sure what to think about Bonnafon. He has done some good things for us but not seeing him on the field has him as an afterthought now. And Hubbard seems to have made him expendable as they serve the same role. I'm not necessarily sold on Brown. I think he's the guy who shows flashes when playing against bottom of the roster players in the preseason but will probably routinely get stuffed when up against starters. I see him on the practice squad and us rolling with CMC, Hubbard and Cannon, with Bonnafon making it if we want 4 RBs. I don't see Tecklenberg making the 53. If we really want him, we can cut and then resign him after shifting Shi Smith to IR. But seems like he's destined for PS. I agree with cutting (or trading) Ian Thomas but not sure if the team agrees. I don't see the downgrade from Thomas to Thompson being worth $2 million. I think safety will be the hardest group to predict. Franklin, Chandler, Robinson and Hartsfield all have good cases to be made. Hartsfield might get an edge for positional versatility. I think whoever gets cut is a lock for the PS and call up for injury. But honestly if you can't make our 53 with out limited depth, probably not someone worth shedding tears for.