The New Orleans Saints showed they mean business this season, DOMINATING the Carolina Panthers in the season opener. Yes, Carolina hasn’t been good in some time, but a 47-10 final in the NFL, is a 47-10 final in the NFL.
This Saints Offense Looks DIFFERENT
The first thing that I wanted to talk about was the Saints offense. Klint Kubiak and this new offensive scheme looked incredible straight away. There was a ton of motion, Taysom Hill was lining up at running back/full back, Rashid Shaheed played a down or two at running back, and Alvin Kamara played snaps at receiver. Everything came together for this group, which has way too much talent to struggle to score points. Derek Carr completed all but four passes for three touchdowns without an interception. Alvin Kamara took 15 carries and turned them into 83 yards and a touchdown. Jamaal Williams had 11 carries for 38 yards and a touchdown, and Taysom Hill had five rushes for 35 yards. It didn’t matter who was in the backfield, holes were opening up and plays were being made.
In the passing game, everybody got involved. Shaheed had three receptions for 73 yards and a touchdown including a bomb to open the game for the Saints. Foster Moreau had four catches for 43 yards and a touchdown, and Juwan Johnson had a couple of grabs with a score. The only true weapon that didn’t appear was Chris Olave, with two catches for 11 yards. However, we all know what Olave is capable of, New Orleans was just so ahead that it didn’t even need to incorporate their elite receiver. And for the offensive line, they were excellent. All of them played well, created rushing holes, giving Carr time to scan the field, and finished their blocks. Incredibly impressed with what I saw in this unit.
The Defense Showed Up Again
As for their defense, what more can you want? Alontae Taylor leads the league in sacks as a CORNERBACK, with three of them on the afternoon, Jordan Howden snagged an interception, Will Harris grabbed one, and there were forced fumbles on the stat sheet as well. Four sacks on the afternoon, three turnovers, pressure from all three levels, and just 10 points allowed (seven coming in garbage time), yeah, that’s a great performance all around. The only concern was that Marshon Lattimore left the game with a hamstring injury that’s been bothering him. However, he said after the game that it was nothing serious and he was likely not back in the game because the score had broken open already.
Carolina Had Nothing Going
With the Saint’s positives out of the way, let’s talk about the Panthers. I don’t know what it is, but Bryce Young just doesn’t look at all improved. He completed just 13 of his 30 pass attempts for 161 yards and two interceptions. It wasn’t even the turnovers (of which he threw one on the very first play for the Panthers offense), it’s really the lack of accuracy that’s alarming. He had a couple of passes that fell to the ground with receivers in the area. If you take these types of plays and replace Young with CJ Stroud or Patrick Mahomes, you can almost guarantee that the Saints would have been gashed a couple of times. Young can extend plays, then the accuracy falls off. It’s an odd situation, though I do hope that Bryce figures it out as the season progresses.
Their backfield couldn’t get any room either. The entire backfield combined for 20 rushes and turned them into 38 yards. New Orleans dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and it showed for this matchup. The Panthers receivers didn’t get much going because, well, their quarterback didn’t. Adam Thielen paced the group with three receptions on 49 yards, but there wasn’t anything else that was notable.
How Much Stock Can We Put Into This?
At the end of the day, you could spend a significant amount of time talking about what went wrong for the Panthers. However, I don’t want to drone on about that, due to them having been expected to finish towards the bottom of the standings again. Let’s move on to if this game was for real. Do we really trust this game to be a good indicator of how this season might play out for the Saints? Given the expectations for the Panthers coming in? I believe we can. The Saints offense looked leaps and bounds different from anything I’ve seen in the last few seasons under Kubiak. Kamara was utilized in all sorts of different ways, and Carr looked as confident as he ever has, even sending some trash talk toward Jaycee Horn in the middle of the game. Plus, the division is more open than everybody was saying before the season began. The Atlanta Falcons just did NOT look good in their season opener, losing at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers, scoring just 10 total points, and turning it over multiple times.
I am super excited from what I saw in this game and hope it carries over into Week 2 against the incredibly talented Dallas Cowboys.