By Ross Jackson
The New Orleans Saints won’t win many over with a win against the Carolina Panthers this weekend. But the return of starting quarterback Derek Carr is just in time to heal some wounds and take advantage of an irresistible mismatch between the two teams.
At least, it should be.
The Saints have not played the brand of football they wanted to this year. In fact, at certain points throughout the year, they’ve played bad football. Coaches and players have said it themselves. Now, with the season and potentially jobs on the line in Carolina, the Saints are looking to stay afloat.
New Orleans is in the midst of its first six-game losing streak since 2005. A loss to the Panthers would mean their first seven-game losing streak since 1999. Beyond that, as outmatched as the battered Saints have been lately, the Panthers are flat out worse. And a loss to Carolina, who is turning back to their young quarterback Bryce Young, would make things far worse than a win will make things better.
Enter Carr, who returns just in time with the hope of helping the team avoid what would be their most embarrassing loss of the season. If the Saints were to lose the weekend, it would have to be on the backs of again beating themselves. They have done with Carr at the helm, yes. But it does not seem likely this weekend.
Carr has been one of the NFL’s safest quarterbacks this year while still playing a far more aggressive brand of football than has been seen over the last three weeks in his absence. Carr ranks No. 5 in the NFL this year among safe quarterback play, yielding just a 5.37% negative play rate, Ideally, that will mean fewer mistakes that give the Panthers life.
Although, it is a slippery slope once those negative plays do get started. Thinking back to the losses to the Atlanta Falcons and Kansas City Chiefs should provide some context there. It will be important to play and maintain that safe, but aggressive, style from the first snap.
The difference in the Saints offense with and without Carr has been staggering. Bear in mind, all three quarterbacks took snaps with injured interior offensive lines, without premiere pass-catchers and without do-it-all offensive weapon Taysom Hill. In Carr’s five contests, the Saints averaged 28.0 points per game. Aided heavily by the first two weeks, yes. But bear in mind that their opening opponents were the very Panthers he will face this weekend.
Since Carr has been out of the lineup, New Orleans has averaged just 15.0 points per game. That includes only two offensive touchdowns being scored outside of the final twi minutes of a game and a punt return score as well, all of which took place in the same Week 6 matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With scoring potential and safe quarterbacking (ideally) back for New Orleans, the only thing that could make things more comfortable is a lack of pressure. There’s good news there as well. Per Next Gen Stats, the Panthers defense has generated both the second-lowest pressure rate (26.4%) and sack percentage (3.4%) in the NFL through Week 8. On top of that, they have averaged 2.87 seconds to get to the quarterback on pass rushes, the NFL’s longest, and have brought quick pressure (within 2.5 seconds) on just 8 percent of their pass rushing snaps – again the lowest in the league.
Carr is back just in time to take advantage of a very, very favorable matchup against the Panthers. He will still be without starting center Erik McCoy and the team’s receiving touchdowns leader wide receiver Rashid Shaheed. But overall, Carr should be comfortable in his return.
Again, a win against the Panthers – no matter the deficit – can’t be sold as a rebound from the Saints’ six-game losing streak. But it can stop the bleeding. Losing seven in a row will always feel bad. But losing the seventh against the NFL’s worst is unshakeable.
New Orleans has a favorable matchup at the right time in Carolina. But division games are always unpredictable. So, it will take the Saints getting the execution on offense rolling early and the defense not surrendering game-defining explosive plays to make sure the unfathomable doesn’t happen. Because if it does, the questions will be loud and the answers may have to be even louder.
