Jameis Winston spent a lot of his Sunday afternoon running for cover against a tenacious Carolina Panthers pass rush, which prevented the New Orleans Saints offense from doing almost anything productive. After the game finished with a disappointing 26-7 final tally, both Winston and Saints coach Sean Payton identified the same problem — miscommunication up front.
“I have to take responsibility for communicating with the offensive line,” Winston said. “Got to get us in better protections. Just communicate better out there.”
The Saints looked sloppy after a year spent playing in front of half-empty stadiums amid the pandemic. They were slow to break the huddle, slow to get in position, and slow to snap the ball. As Winston noted, they were ineffective in making adjustments, too. A number of unblocked Panthers defenders crashed through the offensive line untouched. The blocking assignments weren’t up to snuff, and the offense as a whole suffered for it. New Orleans is built for the big men in the trenches to pave running lanes for Alvin Kamara and buy time for a subpar wide receivers corps to get open downfield. They weren’t able to accomplish either of those goals.
“Our protection plan wasn’t good,” Payton added. “It had nothing to do with us being short-handed.”
Payton wasn’t willing to accept the coaching staff’s absences as an excuse, but it clearly tripped them up. They took a couple of penalties and burnt a few timeouts they shouldn’t have had to with cleaner lines of communication from the sideline to the press box to the field. Eight different position coaches were unable to join the team while in the league’s COVID-19 protocol. Rookie quarterback Ian Book, inactive, did his best in signaling personnel substitutions.
But not all of that blame falls on poor communication. Winston admitted he had to make better decisions, not just in where he put the football (tossing a pair of ill-advised interceptions) but in the pre-snap adjustments he called out along the line. Working with a new center in Cesar Ruiz while Erik McCoy is on the mend, too often he misdiagnosed the defense’s pressure packages, putting himself and his teammates in a tight spot.
The good news is that the entire coaching staff is vaccinated and should be back to full strength sooner rather than later. McCoy avoided a three-game stint on injured reserve, so he should return soon, too. We’ll just have to hope the offense can get back up to speed in the meantime.