Week 10 GDT - Saints @ Bills, 1pm EST on FOX

[whodatworm23]

So Vaccaro has been ruled out, Armstead is questionable. Vaccaro is interesting... When Payton took Vaccaro out in the 2nd half of the Bucs game with his groin injury he said it was precautionary only and now fast fwd to today him being ruled out is cause for alarm.

 

Still this represents a huge opportunity for Vonn Bell to showcase what he can do and it also gives the front office a chance go evaluate Bell vs Vaccaro when determining what Vaccaro's true value is to them come this offseason 

[Trentwannabe]

LT Cordy Glenn has been ruled out (Rookie Dion Dawkins will make his 4th start of the season) as has WR Zay Jones for the Bills.

Good luck to you guys. As I said in the Bills GDT I really hope the Saints win the division. Maybe finish 13-3 with one more loss this week? 

[Mid Iowa]

31 minutes ago, Trentwannabe said:

LT Cordy Glenn has been ruled out (Rookie Dion Dawkins will make his 4th start of the season) as has WR Zay Jones for the Bills.

Good luck to you guys. As I said in the Bills GDT I really hope the Saints win the division. Maybe finish 13-3 with one more loss this week? 

Thanks for the update, and the sportsmanship.

This is going to be the Saints toughest challenge we've seen for some time. Of course, I hope it's a good showing for us, and I hope the weather stays fairly calm. We can handle calm & 40, but not snowy, windy, rainy cold.

Cheers!

[Mid Iowa]

I hope Bell can play the run close to as well as Vacarro. That's my biggest concern at this point. That Bills rushing attack is nothing to joke about, and we all know our run defense is iffy. We allow the 4th most yards per rush in the league.

[JMG5]

I don't see us winning this game. We're on the road against a good home team, in the cold, that runs the ball very well. They've also had a lot of time to rest up, and this is a HUGE game for them when you look at their schedule. 

If it were in the dome then I think we win, but it's not. I want us to win, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

[Jlowe22]

I'm not expecting a win at all here.  The weather is not in our favor, although it shouldn't hurt us as bad as it has in the past, since we actually run the ball now and play defense.  The Bills have had rest and just got embarrassed and will look to bounce back strong on their home turf.  Their defense is outstanding and our offense will be at a significant disadvantage.  All I can hope for, is that if we lose, it refocuses the team to finish the season strong and win the division.

Also, I'm hoping the Bills can't resist the urge to play with their new toy Kelvin Benjamin and Tyrod tosses us a few picks.

[whodatworm23]

1 hour ago, Jlowe22 said:

I'm not expecting a win at all here.  The weather is not in our favor, although it shouldn't hurt us as bad as it has in the past, since we actually run the ball now and play defense.  The Bills have had rest and just got embarrassed and will look to bounce back strong on their home turf.  Their defense is outstanding and our offense will be at a significant disadvantage.  All I can hope for, is that if we lose, it refocuses the team to finish the season strong and win the division.

Also, I'm hoping the Bills can't resist the urge to play with their new toy Kelvin Benjamin and Tyrod tosses us a few picks.

Im not gonna sell us short here... Defense and running games travel a d we have both. Im concerned about Vaccaro being out but Bell and PJ should be up for the challenge.

[Jlowe22]

12 minutes ago, whodatworm23 said:

Im not gonna sell us short here... Defense and running games travel a d we have both. Im concerned about Vaccaro being out but Bell and PJ should be up for the challenge.

I'm not totally convinced we can lean on our running game if the weather negates our passing attack.  Even though we rely on the pass much less this year than we usually have, teams still have to respect it.  It doesn't feel like it(at least to me), but despite throwing less, we are still 3rd in passing yards and 3rd in passer rating.  It will be interesting to see if our running game can carry us if we have a really bad day passing.

One good thing, we utilize a lot of short passes that hopefully won't be affected by the weather as much.  It's the deep balls Brees really struggles with when the weather is bad.

[Spartica4Real]

We're beat up a bit and on the road vs a good team, wouldn't be surprising to lose. Still winnable though.

[Mid Iowa]

Looking at the weather, it's going to be 33 degrees, calm, and cloudy. That's not bad. If it's not windy, these guys won't struggle too much. You can bet the indoor practice field has had the AC on full tilt during prep this week.

Brees is playing a different game this year. He seems laser focused for some reason. Maybe because he knows he finally has help on the defensive side, and has a great youth movement on offense. These things are huge!

To date, this is Brees' most accurate year of his career (on paper, at least) 
Highest completion percentage
Fewest INT percentage
3rd most yards per attempt
3rd best QB rating
On pace for 2nd fewest sacks

Here's the big difference I see - The years we won big (11-13 wins), his stats were all about yards & TD's and so on.... with on HUGE exception, 2009

2009 - Comp % = 70.6 ~ INT's = 11 ~ Total yards = 4388 (fewest in NOLA)                   ~ QB rating 109.6
2017 - Comp % = 71.6 ~ INT's = 04 ~ Total yards = 2214 (pace, 2nd fewest in NOLA) ~ QB rating 105.0

The Super Bowl year and this year are really similar

[Mid Iowa]

Other interesting stats:

We're at 23 sacks, and on pace for 46 (2013 was 49). Most of Sean Payton's years are about 30-33 sacks.
We're at +4 turnover ratio (2009 was +11). All but 2 other SP years we are negative ratio.
Rushing attempts vs. Pass completion = 228 / 197 [pace is 448 / 394] (2009 was 468 / 378) Most other SP years were about 70-80% rushes to completions. The big exception was in SP's first few years when he had Deuce. Most of them were run heavy.

Just fun stuff to dig up that shows Sean Payton may be on a really good pace for substantial wins and a deep post-season run, provided we stay healthy.

[Spartica4Real]

I dreamed last night that we beat the Chiefs in SB 52 26-13 with a late TD to put the game away. So wrap this season up boys we already know what's happening, you're welcome for my dream. 

[sammymvpknight]

This is the type of game the Saints typically lose...a tough road appointment with a solid defense and running game in cold weather. 

This would be an enormous victory. 

[Jlowe22]

8 hours ago, Mid Iowa said:

Looking at the weather, it's going to be 33 degrees, calm, and cloudy. That's not bad. If it's not windy, these guys won't struggle too much. You can bet the indoor practice field has had the AC on full tilt during prep this week.

Brees is playing a different game this year. He seems laser focused for some reason. Maybe because he knows he finally has help on the defensive side, and has a great youth movement on offense. These things are huge!

To date, this is Brees' most accurate year of his career (on paper, at least) 
Highest completion percentage
Fewest INT percentage
3rd most yards per attempt
3rd best QB rating
On pace for 2nd fewest sacks

Here's the big difference I see - The years we won big (11-13 wins), his stats were all about yards & TD's and so on.... with on HUGE exception, 2009

2009 - Comp % = 70.6 ~ INT's = 11 ~ Total yards = 4388 (fewest in NOLA)                   ~ QB rating 109.6
2017 - Comp % = 71.6 ~ INT's = 04 ~ Total yards = 2214 (pace, 2nd fewest in NOLA) ~ QB rating 105.0

The Super Bowl year and this year are really similar

This year is actually really close to his 2006 year, where we went 10-6 and made the NFCCG.

2006- 26 TDs, 11 INTs, 64% comp, 276 yards/game, 8 yards/attempt, 96 rating. 554 attempts

2017 pace - 26 TDs, 8 INTs, 72% comp, 276 yards/game, 8.1 yards/attempt, 105 rating. 550 attempts.

Almost identical actually, the key difference being comp% and passer rating, both of which are significantly higher this year.

Also, in 2006, we had 19 rush TDs and 2 defensive TDs.  This year we are on pace for 16 rush TDs and 8 defensive TDs.  The same number of defensive TDs we had in 2009.

[Mid Iowa]

17 hours ago, Jlowe22 said:

This year is actually really close to his 2006 year, where we went 10-6 and made the NFCCG.

2006- 26 TDs, 11 INTs, 64% comp, 276 yards/game, 8 yards/attempt, 96 rating. 554 attempts

2017 pace - 26 TDs, 8 INTs, 72% comp, 276 yards/game, 8.1 yards/attempt, 105 rating. 550 attempts.

Almost identical actually, the key difference being comp% and passer rating, both of which are significantly higher this year.

Also, in 2006, we had 19 rush TDs and 2 defensive TDs.  This year we are on pace for 16 rush TDs and 8 defensive TDs.  The same number of defensive TDs we had in 2009.

Kinda fun, huh?

I'm glad SP is using what he has in the backfield. It's really similar to the Deuce/Bush combo, only Kamara is better (or that's my take) and Ingram is a bit smaller.

This is getting fun!