Saints Quarter Season Check-In

            Coming off their bye this week, the New Orleans Saints currently sit third in the NFC South with a record of 1-3. They’re a half game ahead of the 1-4 Panthers and two back in the loss column behind the division leading Atlanta Falcons. As is our tradition, let’s check in on the Saints season so far. New Orleans has scored 114 points and allowed 130, good for a point differential of -16. Based on their Pythagorean win expectation (a modified version of the Pythagorean theorem based on points scored and points allowed that is better at predicting win-loss totals than actual win-loss totals), we would expect that the Saints would have a record of 1.7 wins versus 2.3 losses. While the four game sample size is rather small, this figure suggests that they’re a little bit closer to a 2-2 team than their 1-3 record suggests.

Wait, I thought there wouldn't be any math! 

            After Week 4, New Orleans ranked 18^th in Football Outsiders DVOA metric (defense-adjusted value over average compares the result of every play against league average and turns it into a percentage 0= league average). Their offensive DVOA of 10.3% is sixth in the NFL and their defensive DVOA of 13.8% (on defense positive percentages indicate below league average) is 27^th in the league.  Their special teams, meanwhile, sport a DVOA of -3.2%, 23nd in the NFL. In other words, the Saints have a really good offense, bad defense, and bad special teams. If you’ve heard this story before, it’s because this is the story of the Saints the last few seasons. Now let’s take a closer look at the New Orleans offense and defense.

SAINTS OFFENSE

	Total DVOA	Passing DVOA	Rushing DVOA
2016	10.3% (6)	18.8% (14)	3.0% (8)
2015	10.5 (7)	30.1% (7)	-7.1% (15)

Comparing the Saints offense through four games this year, we see that overall they’re doing about the same compared to 2015, but the way they’re getting there is different. Through four games the Saints passing attack is less effective than in 2015, but their running game behind Mark Ingram and the offensive line is much stronger. Much of that improvement has come from two specific areas of play. The Saints rank first in the NFL Power Success according to Football Outsiders. Power is the percentage of runs on 3^rd or 4^th down with 2 or fewer yards to go that resulted in a first down or a touchdown. Saints running backs have similarly been stuffed—tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage—the fewest times in the NFL. This means more first downs, longer drives, and generally more points.

Let’s go a little bit deeper and look at the Saints stats per drive this season and see how they compare to last year.

	Yards/Drive	Points/Drive	Turnovers/Drive	Starting Field Position
2016	36.51 (6)	2.63 (3)	0.093 (9)	27.44 (18)
2015	37.09 (2)	2.24 (6)	0.109 (13)	26.33 (21)

Again the similarities are pretty clear.  They’re top 10 in yards per drive and points per drive. Despite often playing from behind, they don’t turn the ball over at a debilitating rate—part of that is a function of the fact that they have so many drives in the first place. Unfortunately for New Orleans, their special teams rarely gives their offense great field position, meaning the Saints have farther to go to drive the ball down the field.

SAINTS DEFENSE

	Total DVOA	Passing DVOA	Rushing DVOA
2016	13.8% (27)	23.9% (25)	-0.5% (24)
2015	26.1% (32)	48.1% (32)	-2.4% (27)

While the Saints showed defensive coordinator Rob Ryan the door midway through last season, the defense under Dennis Allen hasn’t been that much better.  Going from 48.1% below league average on passing defense to 23.9% below league average is an improvement, I guess, as long as we define improvement from going from historically awful to just plain awful. More likely though it’s just regression to the mean—after all it’s really hard to be 48% worse than league average two years in a row. After last year’s secondary featured veterans Keenan Lewis, Brandon Browner, Jarius Byrd, and Kenny Vaccaro in starting roles, this year the Saints have given playing time to undrafted rookies like Ken Crawley and De’Vante Harris. They signed veteran corners Sterling Moore and B.W. Webb off the street in recent weeks. Second round pick Von Bell has supplanted Byrd, yet another of Mickey Loomis’s failed free agent signings, as the starter. In other words, don’t expect things to get better any time soon.

	Yards/Drive	Points/Drive	Turnovers/Drive	Starting Field Position
2016	39.40 (28)	2.67 (30)	.140 (12)	28.60 (20)
2015	38.62 (32)	2.64 (32)	.119 (19)	26.75 (11)

A look at the drive stats for the Saints tells a similar story. In 2016, they’re allowing similar numbers of points per drive and yards per drive as they did in 2015. In other words, you’re seeing a 2016 Saints defense that looks a lot like the 2015 one. And if that’s the case, then it’ll be another long season ahead for Saints fans.