After a day dominated by the New Orleans Saints offense, Demario Davis and the defense responded very well on Thursday. This was the team’s final practice before their first preseason matchup on Saturday in Houston. As they prepared for the Texans, and by extension the NFL regular season, New Orleans proved it still has the talent to be a wining team led by a strong defense. Here are our observations from Day 14 at Saints training camp.
Biggest story: The defense bounces back
Quarterback Andy Dalton led off 7-on-7s Wednesday with five straight touchdowns, three of which to wide receiver Michael Thomas. On Thursday, the defense took over from the very beginning of those drills with a pass break up (PBU) by safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and cornerback Bradley Roby’s fifth interception of training camp. From there, the unit rarely let up.
Cornerback Jordan Brown notched a PBU later in the drill, safety Tyrann Mathieu had his own in redzone team drills on an Alvin Kamara option route, and defensive end Taco Charlton had a sack in the very next second-team series after beating undrafted free agent rookie Sage Doxtater. The defense clearly took exception to Wednesday’s performance and bounced back strong on Thursday.
Play of the day: Tyrann Mathieu shows his value
It’s hard to believe that Mathieu is in New Orleans on a contract that averages less than $10 million per year. His play so far throughout camp exemplifies production and value far beyond that. Today, he matched up with Kamara who was running one of his famed “choice routes” from the backfield.
These routes allow the running back to react to the way he’s being defended. If running out to the flat draws outside leverage by the coverage assignment, he can bounce back inside and cross the middle of the field. He can also choose to sit down where there’s a hole in zone coverage. This gives Kamara a lot of freedom to counter what the defense is doing. There’s a lot of trust in place for these kinds of routes. Mathieu however, was not fooled.
It looked like he got a great read on where Kamara was headed after dipping his hips and coming out of his break. The All-Pro safety trusted his instincts and pounced into the passing lane to break up the pass from Dalton. These types of plays may seem small in camp, but they can save scores and win games in the regular season.
Michael Thomas update:…
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