Before the season began, I detailed how Drew Brees shows no signs of slowing down. He is a Super Bowl champion, 11-time pro bowler and two-time offensive player of the year.
This season, he’s broken the all-time passing yard record. He also joined an exclusive club with Brett Favre, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning of 500 touchdown passes. Last year, Brees had one of his best seasons statistically. He completed 72% of his passes, racking up 4,334 yards as well as 23 touchdown passes with only eight interceptions.
Yet this year he is blowing those stats out of the water. He is completing 76.3% of his passes and already has 18 touchdowns for only one interception.
This team has a huge chance of making a Super Bowl run. They are 7-1 and on fire.
Saints as a Whole
The Saints remaining schedule is something that this power team can easily handle. As of right now, they only have three teams that are above .500 (the Bengals this week, the Eagles Week 11 and the Panthers twice). Although the Panthers are 6-3, their game on Thursday was atrocious. Cam Newton threw pick six trying to avoid a safety and they turned the ball over two other times against the Steelers and the defense allowed Big Ben to boast a perfect passer rating and throw more touchdown passes than incompletions.
Offense
The Saints are 7-1 on the season so far. Their only loss came Week 1 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yet Brees still threw for 439 yards and top receiver Michael Thomas had 180 yards, they just got outplayed.
That hasn’t happened since then though. The trio of Brees, Thomas and Kamara have been hot. In Week 9, they played their heart out, defeating the Los Angeles Rams, who were previously unbeaten, 45-35.
All-star wide receiver Michael Thomas has 70 receptions for 880 yards and five touchdowns on the season. He had a career-high 211 yards against the Rams and he’s catching an outstanding 88.6% of his targets.
Running back Alvin Kamara, last season’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, doubles as a power back and receiver. He has a total of 917 yards and 12 touchdowns from scrimmage.
This team is one of only two teams in the NFL to utilize their 2018 quarterback draft pick. Taysom Hill has been used as a running back, a receiver and a quarterback. They are able to use him to pull out trick plays to confuses defenses and score points.
This team has endless weapons including rookie Tre’Quan Smith, Austin Carr, Benjamin Watson, Josh Hill and newest addition as of Nov. 7, Dez Bryant if he hasn’t in fact suffered from a torn Achilles.
Defense
On the defensive side the Saints have the current defensive rookie of the year, Marston Lattimore. Lattimore has five deflected passes, 24 tackles and a forced fumble on the season.
They are ranked first in the NFL in rush yards allowed, averaging only 76.4 yards per game. This is mostly due to defensive ends Cameron Jordan and Alex Okafor as well as defensive tackles Sheldon Rankins and Tyeler Davison.
So far this season, Jordon has five sacks, 24 tackles and three deflected passes. Rankins has four sacks and 21 tackles. Okafor and Davison each have a sack and a deflected pass on the season as well.
Overall, the Saints defense ranks 19th, but a young secondary is bound to give up some yards. The game against the Atlanta Falcons was an all offensive game, the Saints pulled away with the win in overtime but not before their defense allowed 37 points.
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