The last time these teams played, Brady was greatly frustrated by the Saints defense, as Drew Brees and company put up big points.

Coming off of another very impressive performance in Week 5’s tilt with Chicago, the Saints defense will take on the best quarterback they’ve seen all year when they take the field against New England today. Tom Brady will lead his 4-1 Patriots in to Foxboro to take on the undefeated Saints in what should be an excellent game. A year ago, this game would have had all signs pointing towards a shootout, but with better defensive play in New Orleans and some unfamiliar targets for Brady, things will look much different.

The Saints defense continues to ride their high of stellar play so far this year. They are coming off of a game in which they gave up more yardage since they played the Falcons in Week 1. The 434 yard output from Chicago dropped the Saints in to a tie for 11th in the NFL in yards allowed per game, but the most important stat is the next one. New Orleans’ defense ranks 4th in the NFL in points allowed per game with 14.6. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that it doesn’t matter how many yards a team gives up, but instead it’s all about keeping them from putting points on the board. The Saints have been very good at that. Once you factor in the potent offense on the other side of the ball, it doesn’t take much for the Saints to win when they are only allowing two touchdowns per game.

New England’s offense has been dealing with their own change of fortune so far this year. Tom Brady has played the first five games of the season missing over 75% of his completions from last year. Wes Welker moved on to play with another hall of fame quarterback, Brandon Lloyd currently sits unemployed, Aaron Hernandez is in prison, and Rob Gronkowski has yet to see the field after five off-season surgeries on his forearm/back. Brady has had to rely on younger, less familiar receivers to help him out, but things haven’t been easy for the Patriots. They find themselves in a very unfamiliar spot, ranked in the bottom half of the league at 18th with 343.4 yards per game. Even worse, they find themselves ranked 24th in the NFL with an average of 19 points per game. That’s certainly a surprising stat for many who may believe that the Patriots could be the first team to break the 20 point barrier on the Saints so far this year. 

Pass Defense

The Saints pass defense continues to play very well. Along with the good play of their secondary, the pass rush continues to put opposing quarterbacks on the ground. They are tied for 7th in the league with 15 sacks, led by Cameron Jordan with 4. The unit as a whole ranks 12th in the NFL in yards allowed through the air, giving up just 221.8 yards per game. Matt Ryan and Jay Cutler are the best quarterbacks they’ve face and both are the only two who’ve broken 300 yards passing against New Orleans. Strong safety Roman Harper will once again miss the game, this being his 4th in a row with a knee injury.

New England’s pass offense has surprisingly been their weaker asset so far this year. They rank 21st in the league, averaging 227 yards per game. In a stat you very rarely see, Tom Brady is 18th in the NFL in passing, behind names like Geno Smith and Sam Bradford. The Patriots’ struggles are well documented and very much expected with the absence of so many of their play makers from a year ago. Danny Amendola was brought in to replace Wes Welker in the slot roll, but his injury history has followed him to New England, as he’s played in just 2 of their first 5 games. He was limited in practice all week and is questionable, but will likely play. Julian Edelman got off to a hot start for the Patriots, filling Amendola’s roll and leads the team in both receptions and yards with 36 catches for 354 yards. Undrafted rookie Kembrell Thompkins has stepped up as Brady’s main redzone target, reeling in the team’s leading 3 touchdowns thus far. Shane Vereen was also expected to be a large contributor this season, but he badly injured his wrist in their first game of the season and is expected to be out till around Week 11. Needless to say, it’s been rough for future Hall-of-Famer Tom Brady, but he’s done a commendable job of working with what he’s got.

New Orleans may just catch a huge break today with Rob Gronkowski’s hopes of playing being slim. It’s appeared for the last few weeks that he had been growing closer and closer to a return and the news out of New England early this week was to expect to see him on the field. Unfortunately for the Patriots, word came out on Friday that Doctor James Andrews had still not yet cleared Gronk to play and his chances of suiting up were greatly diminished. Nothing is out of the realm of possibility, but it’s looking like New Orleans may be able to breath a little easier without having to guard one of the top-5 tight ends in the league. The Saints will need to continue to play good underneath coverage and limit Amendola and Edelman to minimal gains on their short catches. Thompkins has decent speed, but certainly nothing near what the Saints have already seen from Julio Jones and Mike Wallace. The Patriots do not have any pass catchers with a large stature, so the Saints average sized defenders should have no problem locking on to their assignments.

Run Defense

New Orleans’ run defense improved a bit against a very good running back in Matt Forte last week. His yards per carry average was a nice 4.6, but they stuffed him on plenty of runs and got lots of players to the ball. The unit comes in to Week 6 as the 18th ranked run defense in the NFL, allowing 108.6 yards per game. Preseason starting nose-tackle Brodrick Bunkley, who was injured early in the Week 1 game vs. Atlanta, has been getting closer and closer to his return. He practiced in limited fashion all week and is listed as questionable to play. I’d expect that the Saints elect to hold him out for one more game and allow him the extra rest with the bye week next week.

The Patriots run game has had a very odd start to the season. Although they rank higher than the pass offense with 116.4 yards per game, the man they were counting on to tote the ball has been very disappointing. Former LSU Tiger Stevan Ridley ran for over 1,200 yards and had 12 touchdowns last year, but has only been able to manage 43.5 yards a game so far in 2013. He is also a little banged up now after missing last week’s game against Cincinnati. He, too, was limited in practice all week and is questionable to play. Former Buccaneer LeGarratte Blount is the team’s leading rusher with 206 yards so far and a 4.5 yards per carry average.

This will likely be one of the worst rushing attacks the Saints defense faces this year, if not the worst. Barring a huge turnaround from Ridley, the Patriots just don’t have much to threaten with. Like the Saints, New England’s offense has had to cope with the absence of any sense of running game. Unfortunately for them, Brady doesn’t have the weapons in their passing game to try and make up for the lost yardage, thus yielding their tough start.

Players to Watch

Junior Galette and Cam Jordan

After a very quiet week for the two of them, I expect both of them to get back in to the action this week. Although the Patriots haven’t given up a lot of sacks, I expect the Saints to lean more on their normal pass rush, rather than blitzing like they did last week. Great quarterbacks are very good at beating defenses when they blitz, so Rob Ryan will be smart enough to not put his defense in a bad position when the Patriots don’t have much to work with anyway. Galette and Jordan will be expected to turn up the heat and put some pressure on Brady to try and force him to make mistakes and give the Saints offense extra possessions.

Curtis Lofton

Whether it comes from runs or short passes, I expect New England to run a lot of plays that are within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Lofton has the ability to get from sideline to sideline and make plays look relatively easy. He’ll be there to plug the middle, pursue runs to the outside, or close in on short underneath passes to Brady’s small receivers to prevent extra yards after the catch.

Malcolm Jenkins

Jenkins will be important for one main reason, protecting over the top. As I mentioned earlier, New England doesn’t really have much of a down field threat, so there’s no reason to get beat deep. As long as the defense can shut down a weak running game and make open field tackles on underneath routes, there is no way the Patriots can put up many points on the Saints, as long as Jenkins protects the deep part of the field. Brady is a quarterback who loves to take shots deep, regardless of who’s running the route, so Jenkins needs to not allow them to hit big on any of their plays, causing them to become pretty predictable.

Saints – 31

Patriots – 23

Who Dat?!