Girod Street End Zone

Claude Coupee
GSEZ Correspondent

First, please accept our apologies for the temporary technical difficulties last week; as you can see, thanks to our friendly neighborhood hosting service, we are back on line.

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Please don’t think we’ve been asleep during the bye week.  A lot of what we’ve been doing is health care-related, trying to figure out the exact proper dosage of Jim Beam that’s going to be necessary the next time we have to ask our defense to protect a lead in a mission-critical road game.  Right now, my best guess is something like six ounces, or two doubles, for one seven-minute game stretch of football that will last about 20 minutes in real time.

The reason we’re checking the bourbon metrics is that it makes more sense than the following syllogism:

Major premise:  In critical sports situations, you want your best players on the field.

Minor premise:  The worst position group by far of the 2011 Saints, based on talent and results (if you believe any of the stats we’ve seen from various sources since Labor Day), is the linebackers.

Conclusion:  In protecting a hard-earned 10-point lead over Atlanta with seven minutes to go, I would make sure that LBs Scott Shanle, Jo-Lonn Dunbar and Jon Casillas were on the field together for every last ******* one of the defense’s final 23 plays.

Madonn’!…. *facepalm*

As enjoyable as beating the Falcons always is, for 2011 we’ve always wanted more.  We want(ed) this to be a great team, one clearly capable of a championship….and once again we failed to make the leap.  Up 17-13 in the third, we had numerous shots to go up by 11 points and force the Falcons in effect to need two TDs to beat us.  Instead, settling for field goals, we left the door open for them, a door our defense absolutely failed to shut, as the Falcons were down 23-13 at their own 19 with seven minutes left, and just a little while later we were damn lucky we didn’t lose in regulation.   Oddly, the one conclusion I reached watching those last two Falcons drives in regulation told me not so much about the 2011 Saints in particular as this:  Gregg Williams is nothing special as a defensive coordinator.

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The basis for my Helen Keller-level epiphany was seeing all three linebackers on the field for every play of the final two drives.  And then it struck me:  The Witchh Doctor is not a witch doctor, nor is he a complete Quackk, as my man Patronius has posited in the past.  Instead, he’s sort of a family practitioner whose only nostrum is bringing some kind of blitz, or not.  He learned it as defensive coordinator under Jeff Fisher, in the shade of the Buddy Ryan defensive coaching tree, and he’s not got much else.

He left all three LBs in a 3-3-5 defensive package in the final two drives against the Falcons’ spread offense, with three WRs, TE Tony Gonzales and a back in the game, and the only possible reason I can think of is that to blitz, or not to blitz, you have to have linebackers, otherwise you cannot blitz or not blitz.

Of course, the results were disastrous.  In the first drive, the Falcons went 81 yards in a crisp nine plays.  On the seven pass plays, we only rushed more than three twice, and one of those was a softer mush-rush, and we got zero pressure from three DLs.  Falcons QB Matt Ryan was 6 of 7 for 77 yards and a TD, throwing mid-level passes easily over the LBs.  While some of me would like to give Williams credit for not going all blitz-happy, it was staggering to watch him leave three linebackers in no-man’s land against a spread offense with three WRs and maybe the greatest pass-catching TE of all time, while the opposing quarterback stood in the pocket simply waiting for someone to clear the LBs at the second level and turn for the ball.

The next drive, Williams figured he’d better try getting more pressure on Ryan, and plus ca change.  Having the LBs crowd the line and rush….fooled no one.  The Falcons started at their six-yard line with 1:55 to go, the Saints sent six, five, five (including SS Roman Harper just to spice it up) and six rushers, and in just four plays, the Falcons went 61 yards to our 33 yard line.   Thankfully, we were able to slow them down just enough to keep them out of the end zone, blitzing five, six or seven on all but two of the final seven plays, but not until they were at our nine-yard line and had had three shots into the end zone.

A bunch of questions I just can’t even speculate at good answers for:

Why were so many of our worst defensive players in the game for that entire critical stretch?

If we’re going to play a little prevent (as on the first drive), why aren’t we in a basic dime package (six DBs, one LB to spy on the back and four DLs) against their spread offense?

If SS Roman Harper is a bit of a liability in coverage but so versatile rushing and in the box, why can’t he be one of the LBs if you have to play a 3-3-5?

If we got DT Shaun Rogers to provide pressure up the middle, why do we make him do it in a three-man line where he’s guaranteed to see a double team?

On the second drive, why were we sending six guys and leaving the slot receiver open on three consecutive plays?

There’s only one place to lay this:  Gregg Williams.  And none of it’s the mark of a great defensive coordinator.  There is simply no excuse for being so helpless in such a critical situation, especially when you are getting beat with your worst players on the field.

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The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Williams is pretty much a one-tool guy.   And when the only tool in your box is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  If it doesn’t involve bringing pressure, or not bringing pressure, he’s not…..bringing anything.  I struggle to remember when we succeeded on defense because we took away somebody’s best player.  This year alone, for example, Andre Johnson almost beat us, Matt Forte kept the Bears as close as he could,  Steven Jackson did beat us, and we almost let Matt Ryan beat us throwing medium-range passes over the middle, and there’s not a whole lot else he can do.

And we’ve been beaten by too many damn rookie/journeyman quarterbacks the last couple of years when all they managed to do was not screw up with the ball.

We just blitz, or not.  And while it’s fine, and it sure worked like a charm in 2009, it’s not as much as we thought, or we hoped.

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You might think to blame our talent, or the front office, if you would, but I do see a whole bunch of high draft picks on defense in rounds one and two since 2008 (DBs Tracy Porter, Malcolm Jenkins, Patrick Robinson, and DEs Sedrick Ellis and Cam Jordan), as well as some solid FA signings (FS Darren Sharper, CB Jabari Greer, DTs Shaun Rogers and Aburayo Franklin), so I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

More to the point, if you look back over Williams’s career as a defensive coordinator (Tennessee 1997-2000, Washington 2004-2007, Jacksonville 2008, New Orleans 2009-present), and throw in the results of Buffalo while he was head coach from 2001-2003, what you get is a guy with a middlin’ track record.  We surveyed his 15-year career as DC or HC, and where his team ranked, on average, in a number of our favorite key defensive stat categories over that period, and here’s what we got:

Yards allowed per game:  14th
Points allowed per game:  15th
Opponents’ passer rating:  18th
Takeaways:  22nd
Third down % conversion allowed:  14th

[There's some good raw data here if you're interested as well -- http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/WillGr0.htm ]

He’s had one great defense (2000 Titans, one of the best ever), some good ones (Washington 2004-2005), a whole bunch of middling ones, some that weren’t as good as they looked (New Orleans 2009-2010, in particular the latter), but 15 years gives you a lot of data, and what these data say in unison is “He’s a little above average.”  One thing that stands out is the myth that pressure causes takeaways — if it does, why are his teams historically well below-average in that category, finishing six (!) times in 15 years at 30th or worse in the league?

The bottom line is that with all the past data, and what I finally think I see now, I’m not smelling greatness.  I’m sniffing an aroma of decency with a whiff of very goodness, but not much more.  To be fair, being consistently just above average is really better than that, since the bottom guys are wannabes who shuffle out every three or four years or so, so it’s really a pool of 40-50 you’re finishing 15th out of overall, but still.  In any event, for all the 15 past years and two Sundays ago, the message is clear that I need to temper my expectations of Gregg Williams, n/k/a the Family Practitioner, for good.

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Hey, we’re still 7-3, and there’s six games to go.  The defense (barring that late collapse) has been showing real signs of life and strength over the last three games, not world-beating strength, but more than earlier in the season.  There’s still time, and some optimism, and we’re healthy to boot, so we’re hardly giving up on the season.  And if Williams has any magic left, we’ll be at home four of the last six games, and now’s the time.

The Goat will be around later with various and sundry and a look at the Giants.  Until then,

GO SAINTS GO!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2011 at 1:52 pm and is filed under The New Orleans Saints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.