Girod Street End Zone

Claude Coupee
Lead Corresopndent

There’s the old saw that adversity doesn’t build character, but it does reveal it.  Such is the way of the final week of the NFL season, where all the bad marriages blow up (Jets, Oakland), the wannabes get exposed a little (Lions, 49ers), and the pros tell everyone to step aside so you can see how it’s done (Packers, Saints, Patriots). 

But before we try to start picking apart playoff scenarios based on who’s hot and not, whether/how badly we beat the Lions, should we get ahead of ourselves about Frisco (because they hate being called that, sort of their version of “New Orleenz”), we wanted to take a few quick deep data dives to get a sense of the Saints.  Most of us Saints fans are doing a pretty good job of ignoring the shiny object of various individual and team records because we want the permanent legitimacy and complete redemption that only comes with a second Lombardi.  Nobody wants to be the one-and-done dynasty that wasn’t, like the 80s Bears or the Colts of the ‘aughts; the teams you remember are the multiple winners, the 49ers, the Steelers, the Cowboys, the Patriots.  THOSE are the teams that set the standard and send coaches and players to the Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, we Saints fans have no frame of reference to gauge this current Greatness thing that’s been thrust upon us.  Last year, we looked (and we believe with great insight) into where the 2009 team fit with the Super Bowl winners of the last 10 years.  Thus, we decided to do a little digging as to how good this team is, not in any sense of premature celebration, but more for a foundation of how much swagga and steel the fan base should have starting Saturday night and hopefully all the way to a post-game victory party at St. Elmo’s.

-o-o-o-o-o-

I don’t think anyone’s particularly focused too heavily on the Saints having lead the league in plus/minus in points this year with a plus-208, most of which was piled up in the gaudy plus-147 in the team’s 8-0 finish to the season.   As we recalled that the plus-minus of plus-169 in 2009 was among the highest in the last decade or so, we went back and took a look at the other top plus scores since 2000:

2011 — Saints, +208
2010 — New England, +205
2009 — Saints, +169
2008 — Baltimore/Tennessee, +141
2007 — New England, +315 (wow — the 18-0 “eff you” team)
2006 — Chicago, +172
2005 — Denver, +137
2004 — New England, +177
2003 — Kansas City, +152
2002 — Philadelphia, +174
2001 — St. Louis, +230
2000 — Oakland, +180

We bolded the only two that were higher.  This proves nothing, obviously, other than right now the Saints, based on what all the other really, really good teams of recent vintage looked like, are an absolute category 5 ballclub heading into the postseason, even moreso than the 2009 team, or almost anybody else you were surveying over the past decade.  While being the top plus-minus hardly guarantees you a Super Bowl trip, the fact that it’s our second in three years removes a good chunk of the fluke aspect.  This team is for real.

Before you get all hot and bothered, though….the Packers were second this year at plus-201.  Yeah, they’re still a great, great team.  On the other hand, just to get ahead of ourselves a leeeeeetle bit, while Frisco was a nice little plus-151, they’re 6-2 and only plus-63 over the last eight games, so forgive my lack of nerves over the prospect.

-o-o-o-o-o-

 Meanwhile, how hard is it to win 37 games regular season games in three years?  In the 24 seasons since the league went to a 16-game schedule in 1978, only 14 teams have had a three game stretch with more than 37 wins, and an additional 13 (if you include the 1967-69 Raiders, who did it in a 14-game (!) schedule) have gotten to 37 wins over three seasons.  The Colts and Pats did it each five times in the ‘aughts (i.e. this decade), the 49ers six times in their Walsh/Seifert/Mariucci run from 1987-1998, and the Bears hit it three times from 1984-88.  Other than that, it’s one-offs like the 1992-94 Cowboys at 37 wins, the 1996-98 Broncos (38), the 1990-92 Bills, and the 1999-2001 Rams.

Again, this doesn’t prove anything, but it gives you more confidence to be in that company than one-year wonders that wander into the Super Bowl and wander back out again like the 2000 Ravens, the 2002 Bucs and the 2007 Giants.   And of the teams that did it, only the aforementioned Bears and the 1983-85 Dolphins and 2002-04 Eagles, neither of which won it, failed to go to multiple Super Bowls.

Again, this proves nothing, as at least one more great team is between the Saints and Super Bowl XLVI.  But I also don’t think you can discount the intangibles derived from playing consistently at a high level over periods of time, when they’re needed in moments of crisis in one-and-done, win-or-go-home playoff situations.  If you’re looking for a reason to be in that number and march with no fear, here it is.  This is a great team.   And to once again quote the great Damon Runyon (I’ve really got to start working on my own material), the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.

-o-o-o-o-o-

You know how HC Sean Payton is always trying to steal from the best?  How much of the non X-and-O stuff he learned from Bill Parcells?  In thinking about how we finished the season, basically curb-stomping everyone at home and winning with solid performances on the road (double-digit leads in the second half of each game, even if a couple of finishes were a little exciting), I am wondering if Payton took a leaf out of Pats HC Bill Belichick’s book from 2007.

In 2007, Belichick motivated his team with a demand to go 19-0, and not in a nice-guy way, but in a scorched-earth way, breaking records, smashing heads and generally running people out of the stadium (ESPN’s Bill Simmons essentially coined this an “eff you” mode).  Unfortunately, over the grind of a 16-game schedule, they just ran out of gas as the finish line and were foiled by a resourceful and loose Giants team in the Super Bowl.   Missed it by THAT much.

On the other hand, if you take the principle, but don’t try to extend it over a whole season, maybe you got a little something something there.  Payton’s always stealing from winners that he respects, and he respects Belichick a ton.  I’d be curious if the kernel of the idea for our own scorched-earth last six games or so didn’t come from the guy who got three rings in the ‘aughts.

-o-o-o-o-o-

It’s been noted that the only 13-3 team ever NOT to have a first round bye, other than us this year, was the 1999 Titans, who lost narrowly in the Super Bowl to the Rams.   I ruefully note that if you take the 1987 Saints, relegated to the wild card at 12-3 by the 13-2 49ers, only three three-loss teams since 1978 have failed to have a first round bye…..and we’re two of them.

No matter.  War on the whole world, and death to them all.

-o-o-o-o-o-

 One final thought as we head into the post-season, and it’s something I really haven’t seen anybody else focus on:  over the last eight weeks, the Saints defense has quietly turned into a playoff-ready unit.

It makes sense that we’d play better D in the back half of the year — the Saints wisely went out and revamped the entire front seven in the offseason, with only six (DE Will Smith, DT Sedrick Ellis, DE Jeff Charleston, LBs Jon Vilma, Scott Shanle and Jo-Lonn Dunbar) back from the 2010 squad, trying to mesh with nine new guys (DTs Aubrayo Franklin, Shaun Rogers, Tom Johnson, DEs Cam Jordan, Turk McBride, and LBs Tez Wilson, Jon Casillas, Will Herring (now on IR) and Ramon Humber).   But with all those new guys, there’s just so much implementing, teaching, and meshing you can do with a short training camp, and it showed.

I think the tide actually began to turn in the bizzarro three-game axis when Payton got hurt:  the 26-20 loss to the Bucs, the 62-7 Colts destruction and the terrible 31-21 loss to the Rams.  Playing some admittedly bad offenses, the defense gave up only two Touchdown Drives (six or more plays, 60 or more yards, ending in a TD) over those three games, with 11 Short Drives (10 yards or less or three or fewer plays, and the opponent doesn’t score or is held to a FG if they started already in FG range).

Even with that three-game stretch in the first half of the season, the split was pretty remarkable.  In the first eight games, the average of the NFL rank of opponent offenses (Packers, Bears, Texans, Jags, Panthers, Bucs, Colts, Rams — some bad offenses in there) by yards gained was 20.1, and we gave up 13 Touchdown Drives while having 27 Short Drives, and gave up an average of 23.4 points a game.

In the second half, against far better opposition (Bucs, Falcons twice, Giants, Lions, Titans, Vikings, Panthers), the opponents’ offenses’ average rank was 12th in the NFL, and we gave up 14 Touchdown Drives but had 40 Short Drives, while giving up only 18.8 points per game (FWIW, that PPG figure for a whole season would have been fifth in the NFL this year; we did take better care of the ball with fewer turnovers in the back half, but still).  And only one team, the Giants, scored more than two TDs, and that game was over when we were up 35-10 in the third quarter.

While the turnovers aren’t eye-popping (almost nobody had fewer takeaways this year), with our offense, we don’t need them as much.  We don’t need a short field; we can score from anywhere.  All we need are stops.  And we get those as well as any team in the league.  Those 40 Short Drives  in the back half, that’s roughly five three-and-outs a game, and generally against decent offenses.  You don’t think we can’t go to town and make bank on that?  What made it work was being fifth in the league (over the whole season) at allowing only a 33.2% third-down conversion rate, and a fabulous only 6-for-22 on fourth down tries by the opponent.  On a blended rate, including the fourth-down stops, we had the second best rate in the NFL of denying you a first down once you hit third down, and I didn’t scope all the games by hand but I can’t believe the numbers aren’t trending in our favor the last eight weeks.  And that fourth-down stop rate, that’s some hard, pipe-hittin’ work right there, as much of a lift for a whole team as a turnover or any other kind of big play, and we had more of them than any team in the league

In short, after 16 weeks,  I am still not sure if he’s The Witch Doctorr, but if he’s The Family Practitioner, he’s somewhere between Marcus Welby and House.  This defense is ready for the playoffs.

-o-o-o-o-o-

I’ll leave it for The Goat to go heavily into the Detroit game, but will first note with pride that we said before the 2011 opener this was at least a 12-win team, and if we had to, we ‘d bet the over (we also said we’d have the bye, of course, but gimme a break).  Bring on the post-season.  Not fearin’ ANY team.

WHO DAT.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at 6:57 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.