KC Chiefs: Behind Enemy Lines with New Orleans Saints

The one true downfall to having an elite franchise quarterback is that he’s eating up a lot of the team’s money, making it difficult to bring in true defensive talent. The Saints have been victims of just that.

LO: The Saints defense is notorious for getting torched over the past few years. They’ve given up 300 yards passing in the past two games and gave up over 200 rushing yards to the Falcons a few weeks back. What is the Saints’ strength on defense and will we see much of it in this match-up?

BH: To be perfectly honest, I don’t believe they have anything that would be considered a “strength” right now. Their pass rush is below average, their secondary has been depleted by injuries, and their linebackers are suspect.

If there is anything good, it would be their two young safeties (Kenny Vaccaro and rookie Vonn Bell), who maybe have the potential to become one of the better young safety tandems in the League going forward.

But this unit was bad BEFORE all of the injuries, and now they’re beyond that. I’ll personally be stunned if they can hold the Chiefs to below 30 points (they give up a weekly average of 33.6). If they somehow manage to hold the Chiefs to somewhere in the mid-20’s, then this will be a “winnable” game for New Orleans.

A Saints fan telling you point blank that there’s no strength on their team is a good sign for Chiefs fans. At least the Chiefs, despite not having a pass rush and a young secondary, have guys like Marcus Peters and Derrick Johnson that could be considered strengths of the defense.

If Alex Smith and the Chiefs offense can’t get something going against this poor New Orleans defense, then I will begin to question how good they actually are.