After a 2-5 start, New Orleans is approaching territory where they throw in the towel on this season. Being in arguably the worst division in football, they can still salvage the year by winning the division but let’s look at why this team can’t close games.
LIABILITY No. 1: OC/COACHING
Pete Carmichael has been bad at play-calling. He doesn’t know when to run, he doesn’t know when or how to scheme the passing game. He played ‘‘not to lose’ against Cincy in the second half and what did they do? Lose. The biggest issue is that he’s load managing peak Alvin Kamara, the best RB in football. He starts drives with AK on the sideline, on top of sidelining AK in the red zone… on top of sidelining AK on 3rd downs… it’s nonsensical.
Ingram & Taysom should not be taking away as many touches from AK as they are, no matter what way you look at it. AK has eclipsed 105+ scrimmage yards in three consecutive games, averaging more than 4.5 YPC this season. Again, this is while he’s splitting touches and snaps with 2-3 other guys.
Having a QB room of players with completely different intangibles, Pete has been on record insisting the playbook is essentially the same regardless of who’s at QB (??). The numbers offensively have picked up over the past month, but the turnovers are still there, drives stall out on second-and-long runs that go nowhere and more importantly, this team settles for field goals too often. It’s been the same story… every… week…
LIABILITY No. 2: SECONDARY
This secondary gives up big plays for fun nowadays. The front office foolishly let BOTH Marcus Williams and Ceedy Deuce go in the name of depth. Well, now that depth is nonexistent.
Lattimore banged up his abdomen trying to make a play for someone else, Adebo. Adebo has missed games on top of being average when he’s playing. Tyrann Mathieu is a shell of himself, and misses tackles every game. Roby has been decent but still gets beat at the worst times.
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