I was cruising through my Twitter feed the other day when I noticed this:
The Denver #Broncos own the NFL’s best front-seven.
See where all 31 other teams stack up: https://t.co/RD3QBrHbt2
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) July 12, 2016
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As I’m sure you’re conditioned to do when you see “analytics” rankings, I immediately feared when I saw an evaluation piece that would include the New Orleans Saints defense. In fact, I fully expected them to rank the Saints 32nd and dead last overall. Instead, the Saints ranked 29th on this list of front 7s in the NFL. So it was almost a pleasant surprise to see three apparently worse NFL front sevens ranking lower (Chargers, Bucs, Browns). Here’s what they had to say about the Saints:
Projected starters: DT John Jenkins, DT Sheldon Rankins; DE Cameron Jordan, DE Bobby Richardson; LB Stephone Anthony, MLB James Laurinaitis, LB Dannell Ellerbe
Other names to know: DT Nick Fairley, DT Tyeler Davison; DE Darryl Tapp, DE Kasim Edebali; LB Craig Robertson
Key stat: The Saints allowed breakaway plays on 8.3 percent of runs in sub-package defenses, the worst rate in the NFL in 2015.
The Saints’ run defense was dire last season, with a league-worst 4.80 yards per carry allowed in base defense and 5.40 yards per carry allowed in sub-packages. Regardless of how many defensive backs they had on the field, the Saints simply couldn’t stop the run. New Orleans will hope that first-round pick Sheldon Rankins (Louisville) can pair with Cameron Jordan to provide the spine of a strong defensive line to disrupt opposing offenses at the line of scrimmage. Behind them, the Saints boast a linebacking corps that, Stephone Anthony aside, is simply too short on production against the run to offer hope of a significant leap forwards in 2016.
Honestly, this all seems pretty fair. I certainly wouldn’t expect any better given what the Saints produced on that side of the ball the past two years. That said, they have a lot of new faces (Robertson, Laurinaitis, Fairley, Rankins, Nate Stupar) that could contribute as well as hopefully improving players (Edebali, Obum Gwacham, Davis Tull, Richardson, Davison). And, they have a new defensive coordinator in Dennis Allen that will have the offseason to properly install his defense the way he wants it. I am surprised no mention was made of Hau’oli Kikaha or his likely season ending injury. That seems like a massive blow to the front seven’s fortunes and it went ignored in this piece.
Hopefully this part of the defense will improve. So much of it will depend on the development of young players combined with the impact of veteran additions. The front seven didn’t see a major overhaul but there was enough done to give hope of a different result. Hopefully they move up this list next offseason.
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