The Saints defense didn’t do many things the right way. They missed what felt like dozens of tackles and allowed the least-explosive offense in the NFL to make gains of 36, 36, 26, 23, and 22 yards over the course of the afternoon, largely because of poor plays in run defense. Even usually-reliable tacklers like P.J. Williams were swatted aside by a Steelers run game that hasn’t, well, run on anyone all season.
Now about those penalties. The Steelers were given 6 first downs through fouls on New Orleans, with the Saints drawing 10 penalty flags for 74 yards. Two of those were defensive pass interference fouls on cornerback Paulson Adebo, who is looking just as grabby as he was a year ago but without the ball skills that served him well as a rookie. He’s regressed hard. This was a rough game for rookie corner Alontae Taylor, too, who missed multiple tackles and was fouled three times: once for defensive holding, again for illegal use of hands, and another time for defensive pass interference. He’s got to learn from those mistakes.
As for the offense: we didn’t see the Saints put the ball in their best players’ hands. Alvin Kamara only had 8 carries, many of them going directly into the teeth of the Steelers defense for little gain he was only thrown to 4 times, catching 3 passes for 19 yards. What’s egregious is the reduced role for Taysom Hill. The do-it-all tight end had 3 carries, gaining 1 yard, while attempting 1 pass (which was incomplete) and not drawing a single target as a receiver. He’s one of their most electric talents, but the Saints haven’t even tried to get him involved with any volume since he scored four touchdowns in a single game early this season.
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