Into the Fire: How the Saints Can Live Up to Expectations

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When nothing less than a Super Bowl for your team is what you expect as a fan going into an NFL season, it elevates the stakes from Training Camp all the way to the moment where your team meets those expectations or falls short. This is the best kind of season to experience as a fan and whether you like this kind of stress or you don’t, this is the kind of season Saints fans are in for in 2018. The expectations are real and they are realistic. This isn’t a case where you might be having delusions of grandeur like, say an LSU fan. The Saints truthfully should be one of the better teams in the NFL considering their performance last season as well as all of the positive moves they made in free agency and the draft.

There are 1,001 ways to win a Super Bowl; but the Saints road map to success seems very clear. This road map will include more than Drew Brees “slinging the football up and down the field.” The Saints need great quarterback play no doubt, but they also need a few other things to happen in order to get another ring for their legendary QB. The expectations of 2018 can be met if the Saints can maintain their solid red zone offense, develop Marcus Davenport or someone else on the defensive line as a dominant pass rusher, and avoid injury on the offensive line as much as possible. If these three things are coupled with a little bit if luck, the Saints will finish this season as Super Bowl champions.

Last season the Saints finished 5th in the NFL in red zone scoring. Over 61% of the time the Saints made it inside the opponent’s 20 yard line, they were able to score a touchdown. That, number was down from 2016 actually, but Sean Payton’s expertise as a head coach is being able to get points when his team gets close. To check this box, the Saints need to continue to do what they did better than most teams last season. With Alvin Kamara’s creativity and Michael Thomas’ sure hands, it should be more of the same in 2018.

The player everyone is going to put a microscope to will be rookie defensive end Marcus Davenport and with good reason. The Saints traded up for Davenport and are looking to make the leap from “improved pass rush” to “elite pass rush.” Last season the Saints totaled 42 sacks as a defense which was good enough for 7th best in the league. “Coverage sacks” you may say. I wouldn’t argue, since last season the Saints had their biggest improvement in the secondary. This season, those sacks need to increase, the 19 forced fumbles the Saints created need to happen again and Davenport is what can elevate the Saints’ defensive line to do so. Davenport is an athletic freak; bigger, faster, and stronger than most normal NFL players. Putting his physical tools to use would make him an instant superstar and it would make the Saints defense and elite defense.

Finally, the Saints need to avoid injury up front on the offensive line at all costs. The starting five offensive linemen for the New Orleans Saints are as good of a group as there is in pro football. Drew Brees was hardly touched last season while Ingram and Kamara were both able to have all-pro caliber seasons on the ground. That doesn’t happen without an elite offensive line. The Saints have one but after the starting five they have a bunch of rookies and journeymen. If too many bumps and bruises occur the whole dynamic of the offense could change.

The expectations might be high, but they are not ridiculous. The 2018 New Orleans Saints are built as well as any team in the NFL when it comes to having a great mix of young budding superstars and legit veteran talent. If edge rushing monster emerges, disaster is avoided with the big uglies, and the Saints continue to get their rocks off inside the goal line; then a Super Bowl they expect and a Super Bowl they shall get.

– Alan Michael