Credit: Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images
By Ross Jackson
It can be easy to figure out how a change at quarterback impacts the offense. In fact, it’s obvious. While the New Orleans Saints aren’t seeing any rifts, bumps or bruises from their recent decision to start rookie quarterback Tyler Shough beginning this week, there will obviously be differences on the offensive side of the ball with a new signal caller.
For the defense, it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine that not much will change. It’s an entirely different side of the ball in which the quarterback is on the sideline. However, Saints’ veteran defensive end Cameron Jordan sees it differently. For him, it’s a challenge to the defense to make more plays.
“It’s a huge vibe shift,” Jordan said during his Friday media availability. “[A focus on] how much more our defense has to make these turnovers. We keep saying, ‘Hey, we’re aiming at multiple turnover games.’ We had one to date? One that we won the turnover battle by multiple [takeaways]. We got to have those. I mean, the emphasis this week is to take the ball away.”
Leave it to one of the team’s defensive leaders to extend the challenge of changes on offense to the defensive side of the ball. But of course, the logic is sound. To some, obvious. With a young passer at the helm, generating takeaways not only keeps points off the board, but it will also give the offense more possession and therefore a better chance to create some rhythm.
A lot of the talk about Shough has been centered around the idea of his need to be aggressive and attacking, but the defense can benefit from that as well.
Last week, second-year cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry had two outstanding pass breakups in goal line situations. Instead of celebrating those plays on the ball, defensive coordinator Brandon Staley indicated that he would instead be frustrated for not notching an interception.
“He’s going to be disappointed that he didn’t intercept one of those,” Staley said. ”That’s that next step is to go pick one of those off and make that a huge swing for us. Just [with] more experience, more playmaking will come.”
The team is echoing the charge to create takeaways and get the ball back to the offense. Not just from the veteran leadership, but from the young playmakers as well.
The team has won the turnover battle only once so far this season. That game, Week 5 against the New York Giants, is also the 1-7 club’s only win of the season. Some things are correlation, others are causation, but it’s a well-known cliche that taking the ball away leads to victories. And that’s cliche for a reason.
