The New Orleans Saints have out-dueled several high-scoring offenses during their ten-game win streak. After falling to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ninth-ranked scoring offense in Week one, New Orleans has since beaten five teams with top-15 scoring offenses, including both meetings against the 11th-ranked Atlanta Falcons. The Saints have come out on top in these games thanks to a balanced offensive approach and a stifling run defense.
On Thursday night, New Orleans faces a road matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, who have recently shown more balance offensively. Dallas currently ranks 23rd with 21.3 points per game, but they have topped that average in each of their last three games.
Still, New Orleans should be able to beat Dallas with the same formula they’ve used for much of the season: Shutting down the opposing run game, controlling the clock, and establishing an early lead.
New Orleans Saints Limiting Ezekiel Elliot and Making the Dallas Cowboys Offense One-Dimensional Will Be Critical Thursday Night
Cowboys Offensive Overview
The strength of the Cowboys offense is clear. Dallas typically wins when running back Ezekiel Elliott runs successfully behind their excellent offensive line. Elliott leads the NFL with 97.6 rushing yards per game and 19.7 attempts per contest. Dallas is 6-1 this season when rushing for 100 or more yards and 0-4 when falling short of that figure.
The Cowboys passing game, led by third-year quarterback Dak Prescott, hasn’t been nearly as effective. In their first six games, Dallas topped 200 yards passing only once. However, they’ve shown signs of improvement in recent weeks, passing for 225 or more yards in three of their last four games including a season-high 258 passing yards last week in a win over the Washington Redskins.
The trade for former Oakland Raiders wide receiver Amari Cooper triggered this increased production in the passing game. Cooper quickly contributed 14 catches for 169 yards and a touchdown in his first three games with Dallas, then broke out last week with eight catches, 180 receiving yards and two touchdowns on nine targets last week.
Cooper’s immediate impact will change how the Saints and other opponents prepare for Dallas, but Elliott remains the focal point of their offense.
Saints Run Defense Continues to Excel
New Orleans had one of their all-time best performances against the run last week, holding Atlanta to 26 rushing yards. This was the lowest rushing output allowed by New Orleans since 2000, and 16 of Atlanta’s rushing yards came on two Matt Ryan scrambles. After nine weeks of tough run defense, a shutdown performance like this was bound to happen.
The Saints are allowing 73.2 rushing yards per game, which is the fewest by any team this season. The second best team against the run is allowing 7.6 more yards per game. The Saints also rank second with a 3.6 yard per carry rushing average allowed to this point. The top-10 rushing offenses of the Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns, and Baltimore Ravens all failed to post 100 or more rushing yards against New Orleans.
Since allowing the Buccaneers to rush for 112 yards in Week one, only the Cincinnati Bengals have managed to top 100 rushing yards against the Saints during their winning streak. Cincinnati would have also fallen short of 100 if not for a 27-yard scramble late in the fourth quarter after many Saints defensive starters had been pulled from the game.
Stopping Elliott won’t be easy, even with a banged up Cowboys offensive line in front of him. Still, the Saints run defense has proven itself against the likes of Todd Gurley and Saquon Barkley, so they should be up to the task. It helps that New Orleans has a methodical, efficient offense that forces opponents to abandon their run game early on.
Why the Saints Offensive Approach Helps Their Defense
The Saints combination of ball control and production is unmatched by the rest of the NFL. New Orleans leads the league with a 32:30-minute average time of possession and 32.7 points per game. They’re scoring on 60.9% of their drives, which is 7.1% better than any other offense, and they average a league-high 3.5 points per drive. Since the Saints can control the clock and consistently score, they’re able to build big leads early and give the opposing team little time to do anything about it.
New Orleans has led by 14 points or more at halftime in each of their last four games. None of those opponents were able to come back and establish a lead at any point in the final 30 minutes. This is largely because the Saints (like most teams) play better pass defense when they have a lead and know it’s too late for the other team to establish a run game. It’s not surprising that New Orleans has defended a league-low 224 rushing attempts this season.
The Cowboys passing attack is trending upward, but they clearly aren’t on the same level as past Saints opponents like the Rams, Falcons, and Minnesota Vikings, among others. If Dallas faces an early deficit against New Orleans and has to abandon the run, they may not have the offensive firepower to catch up.
Outlook
If the Saints are able to continue their winning formula of stopping the run, controlling the clock, and establishing a lead, it will once again be up to the Saints pass defense to seal the win. This has worked out for most of the season, but there’s still reason to be concerned about the Saints ability to prevent big pass plays.
For a couple of weeks, it looked like the Saints pass defense had turned a corner. They held the Bengals to 174 passing yards two weeks ago, then surrendered just 138 yards passing to the Philadelphia Eagles. Last Thursday however, Ryan threw for 377 yards at eight yards per attempt in New Orleans.
Much of this Falcons pass production came when the game was well out of reach, but three weeks earlier, the Rams passing game also took off against New Orleans in the second half. They managed to erase a 21-point deficit and tie the game in the process. Again, Dallas doesn’t have a passing attack like Atlanta or Los Angeles, but second-half pass defense looks to be a key stat for the Saints going forward.
Minimizing Elliott’s impact is still the most important task for New Orleans and will be the first step towards beating Dallas. Prescott and Cooper already look like a dangerous connection after just four games, but defending them will be much easier if Elliott can’t be effective. Even if Dallas is able to pass effectively, they’ll face the challenge of out-dueling the Saints thriving offense, which no team has done since Week one.
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