AU-panther

None of those stats tell you how many are in the box. Watch the tape. For identical downs and distances are teams using different alignments for Hubbard as opposed to CMC taking in to account that teams tendencies for all RBs.

They saw tools. He is an above average athlete and he has some arm talent, although not the accuracy. If you look at our other free agency signings, and even our draft classes, you can see a theme with this staff, they definitely like players with tools, measurables, or positive traits. Cam Erving, Darnold, Henderson, all first rounders, you don't get drafted in the 1st round unless you have some good tools. Even Elflein was drafted relatively high for a center and was consider to have good "traits". I think this staff believes they can take talented players and make them better players. Honestly it might be their biggest downfall and might be leftover from them being college coaches. With high school kids you are looking for best athletes and then you turn them into football players. At this level, once a player has been in the league a few years, the chance of you getting more of them than other NFL staffs is rather slim.

That's a myth. Down and distance dictates a lot of that. 3rd and 10, passing situation, of course someone is going to watch him coming out of the backfield, same would be true with most RBs. 1st and 10, a lot of teams are going to play 8 men in the box, not because of CMC, but because its a running down and down and distance. I'm not saying he doesn't get more attention than Hubbard but it is severely overblown by this fanbase.

And how many more 8 man boxes does he face? Does anyone have real numbers on that?

All of these reports makes me think Houston is trying to pump up offers. My guess, one team has made a decent offer, another team is trying to low ball, and Houston is hoping for a great offer.

I’m saying on a large percentage of running down and distances they are seeing similar looks, and the tape says the same. Even if we do say he is seeing considerable more attention on running downs and we add .5 yard to his YPC over the course of a 20 carry game that is an extra 10 yards rushing, which isn’t much considering he is shaking off the initial arm tackle as often as you made it sound. This idea that you would have drastically different results with CMC rushing is overplayed, if carries are equalized.

Down and distance predicates number of defenders more so than who the actual running back is. For example, 1st and 10 they are probably seeing similar number of guys in the box. CMC is probably getting some different looks in the passing game but the majority of rushing attempts are probably more similar than you think.

Why is their YPC the same then? Fans severely overate the differences between RBs given similar circumstances .

Everyone likes to look for a singular person to blame when things go bad but that isn't how it works. Pass hits receiver in hands, should receiver be expected to catch it? Of course. but Over the course of a season an accurate QB is going to have less drops than an inaccurate QB ,if everything else is equal, because the accurate QB is making it easier on his receivers.

This is the problem, people keep making excuses for him. Several of us posted stats during the offseason that a lot of people just chose to ignore. Historically with a CLEAN pocket he has been bad, very bad. If you QB can't play well when things go right, that is a bad sign.

Our offense is dependent on Dan Arnold to be successful?? just think about that

I don't think they are trying purposely to just trade for CBs, just so happens that the good opportunities that have presented themselves this season have been CBs. A player like Gilmore you might can flip later for what you paid now. I seriously doubt they are turning down great trade offers for OTs just to sign the CBs.

bingo "time for me to meddle"

based on what? I would say Wirfs has been great so far and the other two have shown promise. Like I said earlier OTs take time to develop. The Wirfs and Slaters are the exceptions, you have to draft guys, give them time to develop, and even then there is no guarantee.

Everyone wants to blame the NCAA for not developing O-lineman but in reality its the same number of players coming into the league, they are just earlier in their development and teams should draft accordingly. Our problems this year should have been addressed last year or the year earlier. Everyone wants to talk about us passing on Slater this year, but last year we had the choice of Wirfs, Wills, and Becton.

That is his grade for the season, I think you need the higher end membership for individual game grades.

Out skill positions are plenty good enough for our offense to be better than they are. Play calling, offensive line play , and QB are all bigger questions marks.

I think Rhule sees the value in a franchise QB, he just thinks he can takes shortcuts to find one. Most franchise QBs follow a similar path, you draft then early and you develop them. TB didn’t work out, we will see with Sam.

If you have already decided the Saints OL is better than the Falcons why are you even looking at stats? The Falcons might not have the better perceived OL, or better OL over the past few years, but based on the stats you listed, they have played better during a small 4 game sample. I'm not looking for a magical single stat, I just said on the chart that you listed the single best metric is pressure %. Do you not agree with that? If you don't agree with that which single stat do you think is better?

You have to factor in number of attempts also or just the individual numbers lose contect. Lets put it in practice. Lets look at your way: Saints 7-12-9 (sacks, hits, hurries) Falcons 8-20-11 (sacks, hits, hurries) You could make the argument the Saints are better at pass protection. Factor in the number of attempts, pressure percentage. Atlanta 22.7% which is 14th in the league. Saints 26.4%, which is 23rd in the league. Saints are way worse. Stats without context are useless and often misleading.

Great point.

Sack, hits, and hurrys can be a bit misleading because some teams have more or less pass attempts then others. That same table has a pressure % number that accounts for that. We are actually 8th worst in the entire league based on that.

But who has been an above average pass blocker this year? Moton? Honestly Paradis might be our second best lineman, or at least playing 2nd best, if you factor run and pass block together. When Paradis gets beat it tends to be pretty spectacular, like that first sack of the last game, but honestly almost all of them have struggled this year pass blocking. Daley actually played a bit better last week at LG. I think your best chance of turning the line around is if Daley can build on that, and IF BC and Moton can stabilize the OT spots, and IF Miller gets healthy and plays better or Brown develops at RG. Lots of IFs.

Surprising, since everyone seems to think Paradis is the worst one. I thought you even said that overall Erving wasn’t nearly as bad as the interior guys. Either way what do you think is the best course of action among the options you gave?

From a development standpoint I would agree. Problem though, is with a rookie you have 3-4 years to decide if they are worth a big contract, with Sam you better have a pretty good idea after this season. What we gave up for Sam isn't that big of a deal, what we will have to give up to keep him will be a lot more. Honestly at this point I don't know if anyone knows for sure.