Saints: Number One Offense – So What!

If you watch the Saints vs. Lions game, no doubt you will hear these words that have been spoken all year: the Saints have the number one Offense in the NFL. Well, this is true if you measure Offensive effectiveness in the traditional way as total yards or points per game. If the Saints are the number one Offense in the League, then it is no surprise that Drew Brees is also ranked the top passer in terms of yards. Well, the Saints may be ranked number one, and their QB may have the admiration of every sports announcer in the world, but guess what? It does not matter because the Saints also have a 7-7 record which means they don’t get to go to any playoff games unless they go as spectators. How can this be?

Well, let’s examine the yards and points stats. This traditional analysis can easily be skewed by game situations. If you look at the Saints’ games this season, on the surface it seems as if the Saints lost a lot of close games. However, let’s look at some of their losses:

In Week 3: New Orleans fell behind 21-3. The Saints rebounded but finally lost 34-32 to the Broncos. Brees threw for 421 yards.

In Week 5: The Saints were down 20-10 in their game against the Vikings. They managed to stage a comeback and take the lead, but relinquished it again and lost 30-27. Brees had 330 yards passing.

In Week 7: The Saints lost 30-7 to the Panthers, and Brees still had 231 yards.

In Week 10: The Saints were down 27-6 at one point in their game against the Falcons. At the end, the Saints lost to the Falcons by a score of 34-20. In this game, there were two, late "so what" drives of 80 and 69 yards which made the game seem closer than it was. These “so what” points helped to pad Brees’ stats as well. He threw for a total of 422 yards.

In Week 13: The Saints were down 20-10 to the Bucs in the 4th quarter. Then, another late game rally allowed them to tie the game. Again, that rally was short lived, and the Saints could not hold on. They ended up losing by a score of 23-20. Brees still threw for 296 yards.

In Week 15: The Saints were down 21-7 to the Bears. Again, they took the lead but lost in OT by a score of 27-24. Brees had 232 yards.

Brees and the Saints piled up the yards this season even though they lost seven games. It might be safe to say that some of the yards the Saints posted were not due to a stellar Offense but rather due to their opponents’ Defense who may have relaxed a bit after securing large leads. The Saints are no different than any other team in that moving the ball or getting in the end zone may not be as difficult a task when they are on the losing end of a lopsided score. Games like week 3 and 10 illustrate this fact. The Saints were losing by large margins in both of these games, but Brees’ combined passing yardage in these games totaled 843 yards. His total passing yardage for this season so far is 4332.

Should we assume that New Orleans’ Defense should bear the blame for the Saints not making the playoffs? Well, their Defense is 20th in yards and 25th in scoring. The Defense must be the reason why New Orleans is left out of postseason play. Who could win with such a lackluster Defense, right?

Well, before we condemn the Defense, let’s go back to 2006 and look at the last time the Saints led the NFL in Offense. In that year, the Colts were third in Offense and their Defense ranked 21st in yards and 23rd in scoring. The Colts went 12-4 and won the Super Bowl. It seems winning with those kinds of Defensive stats is possible. By the way, that year the Saints’ Defense was ranked 11th and they went 10-6 and got to the NFC championship.

The difference between the Saints of 2008 and Colts of 2006 may boil down to this: the Colts’ Defense did not have impressive numbers because the Colts frequently had big leads which at times they surrendered thus allowing their opposition to pile up the stats. The Saints of 2008 have had some big games, but they have also had games in which they fell way behind forcing them into a rapid catch-up mode. In some of these games, the Saints actually did manage to crawl back into the game only to give up the ground they gained to lose.

So, we wonder: what is the advantage of being the number one team in yards and points if that team cannot win? As Herm Edwards said when he was Head Coach of the Jets “You play to win the game.” Stats without winning seem shallow. That is why PossessionPoints.com is always seeking significance in statistics. We constantly work on correlating stats to winning, and if we can’t correlate the stat to winning, we tend to not think that much of the stat.