Week 3’s New Orleans Saints game wasn’t exactly an easy watch. They tripped themselves up often against the Carolina Panthers and struggled to move the ball when it mattered on offense, creating an extremely thin margin for error on defense.
Still, it’s important to take a look at things afterwards and see who played the most impactful football, both for good and for bad. To that end, here are the highest and lowest player grades from Pro Football Focus after Week 3’s loss:
Top 5 offense (minimum 23 snaps)
WR Chris Olave: 85.6
WR Tre’Quan Smith: 80.9
LT James Hurst: 73.1
RT Ryan Ramczyk: 71.9
WR Michael Thomas: 69.5
Olave deservedly won all the headlines, but Smith turned in an impressive performance with 4 receptions for 105 yards, converting a first down each time. We got a good look at the results of the work he’s put in during the last two offseasons training with Jameis Winston, so it’s all the more disappointing that he suffered another injury at the end of this game. As for Olave: he’s gained 268 yards off of 112 routes, a very healthy ratio of 2.39 yards per route run.
The bookend tackles did their jobs well, for the most part. Ramczyk and Hurst were dinged for allowing 4 quarterback pressures, but they yielded just 1 hit and no sacks this week. New Orleans averaged 5.2 yards per carry running behind them, as a team, but that pace drops to 3.5 if you don’t account for Alvin Kamara’s 27-yard outlier early in the game.
It was another strong game from Thomas, but a second-half toe injury limited his reps on the afternoon. He caught all 5 passes sent his way to gain 49 yards, converting 3 first downs, and an early 17-yard gain on third down that got the Saints into the Carolina red zone was annoyingly wiped out by a penalty in another part of the field.
Top 5 defense (minimum 20 snaps)
DT Kentavius Street: 83.1
DB Justin Evans: 76.8
DT Shy Tuttle: 67.2
DE Cameron Jordan: 65.7
DE Marcus Davenport: 63.9
This was a nice bounce-back game for Evans, who was credited for 3 tackles (2 solo) and a big tackle for loss. He was thrown at twice in coverage and allowed 1 completion for a loss of 2 yards. It’s exactly what he needed after some shaky play against the Buccaneers a week ago. Street also experienced some bright moments by creating some pressure, a defensive stop, and three assisted tackles. He did well in the rotation.
Jordan bagged his first sack of…
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