NFL: Column: There is a new Super Bowl favorite

The NFL has finally arrived in the second half of the season – and what conclusions can be drawn now? The Oakland Raiders are at a crossroads and run the risk of becoming the new Browns. Several head coaches are sitting on increasingly shaky chairs – and why are there no dominant defenses anymore? But first: The New Orleans Saints are the hottest Super Bowl candidate after Week 9!

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Everything was looking forward to Brady versus Rodgers; a game in which the coaching of the Patriots was so far superior to that of the Packers that Green Bay’s individual advantages on the pitch didn’t matter.

But the real heavyweight fight in Week 9 took place in Louisiana, between the Saints and the Rams – a duel that we hope to see again in the playoffs and that showed all that modern football must look like in the NFL.

After New Orleans had taken a completely different approach against the Vikings last week and attacked Minnesota again and again with screens and Underneath passes, the plan against the Rams was obviously much more aggressive. The Saints were set to attack mode in this game, and rightly so.

New Orleans collected a lot of Big Plays, partly about the Run Game – Alvin Kamara’s 17-Yard-Run including another jump over an opponent for example -, partly about simple Go-Routes like Ben Watson’s spectacular 32-Yard-Catch.

But sometimes it was also plays where New Orleans picked up the rams, like this touchdown pass to Kamara. The rams are in man coverage with free zone defenders in the middle of the field. The vertical route of the tight end on the right side of the offense occupies the deep coverage on the one hand, but on the other hand it provides a rub effect.

Kamara has a free release from the backfield anyway, his opponent Lamarcus Joyner first has to navigate around the route of the tight end and its opponent to get to Kamara. The running back also has the option to pull inwards, while Joyner cannot use the too distant sidelines as support. This route from this situation against Kamara can probably not defend a defensive back in the NFL.

Joyner can’t do that either, just like the free zone cover player who doesn’t get to the sidelines from the centre in time either. The Saints garnish this play with all sorts of action on the other side of the formation, although Kamara is clearly Brees’ primary read here. A switch release of two receivers also with a vertical route pulls the defenders away from Kamara – just like the indicated screen pass through the outside receiver.

A wonderful example of the mix of real play call and play design is the Touchdown Pass just before the half-time break. The Saints still have three timeouts at 1:17 minutes on the clock and are in the Red Zone – so time is not a factor. At 1st&10 they come out with heavy personnel, in the form of a fullback in addition to the running back and two tight ends, i.e. 22-personnel.

A running move is therefore an absolutely realistic option here, and the rams bite the fake to the full. This allows Tight End Ben Watson, who is the only pass catcher positioned on the right side of the offense formation, to escape into the secondary after a fake block, so to speak undiscovered, where he finally catches the touchdown pass with over a yard distance to the next opponent.

Play action in the Red Zone in general and in this situation in particular is simply a clever call that too many coaches still successfully ignore. The whole play design gives Brees a clear read with a player completely isolated on the side of the formation – who, despite the play action fake and the shortened field of the end zone, gets as open a touchdown catch as you could wish for in the NFL.

Also in this game it is striking again: The Saints are incredibly difficult to read because of their formations. Spread formations, tight formations, three players in the backfield, shotgun, I formation, several tight ends as blockers in the backfield, unbalanced lines, receiver isolated, receiver in bunch formations – it’s the dream of an offense fan, no team presents so many different looks before the snap.

And we’re not even talking about the different packages with Taysom Hill that go on and on. With Hill the Saints have the opportunity to suddenly play a Zone Read Opense, he is also integrated into the passing game as a receiver and in contrast to the Ravens with their Lamar Jackson plays New Orleans is much more dangerous from these sets.

Other teams such as the Chiefs or the Panthers work a lot with motion, fakes and the like, but the Saints are the most versatile team in their formations, and that was clearly seen again against the Rams. And what else did you see? The Saints had identified some clear weaknesses in this rams defense.

By name? Cornerback Marcus Peters. No Rams-defender was targeted so often, Troy Hill on the other side saw a whole target (a 4-yard-completion) and also Nickell Robey-Coleman in the slot got only two.

New Orleans attacked Peters again and again with Thomas (all nine targets Peters saw were against Thomas) and the destroyed Peters by every trick in the book: Thomas caught seven of these nine targets for 146 yards, six first downs and a touchdown.

The highlight was, of course, the 72-yard touchdown shown here, which put the lid on this game. The Saints Running Back moves Mark Ingram to the top of the screen, followed by a linebacker – a clear indicator of man coverage. Kamara stands in the slot and has a defensive back against him, a second comes from the middle after the snap on the left side of the offense pulled.

But all this shows Brees above all that he has Thomas in a one-on-one matchup against Peters, without a deep safety for protection. That makes it clear to him where this ball should go.

Otherwise, the Saints went for the linebackers and safetys, and they did it very successfully. Mark Barron, the safety linebacker hybrid of the Rams, was caught twice by Thomas and allowed a big play by Ben Watson, Cory Littleton was beaten again and again by the backs and tight ends. A consequence of this tactic: Brees was flawless in the intermediate distance (+10 to +20 Yards – 7/7, 106 YDS, TD) and Underneath almost as well (14/18, 131 YDS, 2 TD).

The development of the Saints over the past weeks has been impressive. Anyone who has been following this column throughout the season knows how much I think of the Rams and Chief’s Open and that I have had the Patriots on my screen as title candidates since Week 1. These four teams also remain my picks for the respective Championship Games in the two Conferences, they seem to be the four clearly strongest teams of the NFC respectively the AFC.

But I’m so far away that I see the Saints as my current Super Bowl favourite. This team is simply spectacular and makes every week an incredible fun; New Orleans has the best QB-RB-WR trio in the NFL, Brees is the most accurate passer and Kamara the most dangerous running back in the league. And Thomas? Thomas is the best wide receiver of the NFL this season after 9 weeks.

If you combine that with perhaps the best offensive line of the NFL at the moment and the improvements in defense – which is always good for big play with its aggressiveness, and with this offense on the other side – then I can’t get past the Saints anymore.

But in the same breath I also say: if there is a rematch against the rams in the playoffs, it will be a football party that nobody should miss.

We’ve finally arrived in the second half of the season and that also means it’s time for some honest interim summaries. For the Bills, the Raiders, the Browns, the Giants, the 49ers, the Bucs and the Cardinals, there will be no playoff football this year.

But what we are currently seeing – and this is a difficult topic because there can be no clear parameters and no purely objective analysis – especially in Oakland, is another dimension. Since I have been dealing with the NFL, I am of the opinion that there is no Tanking in the NFL. Player careers are too short, contracts are guaranteed to a much too small extent and head coach opportunities are too rare for a team to throw away a season.

The Raiders are an absolute anomaly in this respect: they have a head coach in the first year of a ten-year contract, very young and still at the beginning of their development players in critical positions (both starting tackles, a starting cornerback and parts of the starting defensive line) and apart from that have their best remaining players from several position groups either removed (Cooper, Mack) or dismissed (Irvin). And you can see on the field how players lose faith.

In other words, Jon Gruden has no pressure whatsoever to win a lot of games this year or next year – and that’s exactly how he handles the squad. That’s his right and maybe in five years we will look back and all of us agree that the total rebuild of the raiders was the best possible step for the franchise.

However, it is not an easy and extremely risky path. First of all, draft-picks must sit within this construct – and this is anything but a self runner even with several first-round-picks over the next two years, as old-established Buccaneers-fans (or Browns-fans from previous years) can confirm, especially Gruden.

The franchise is also in the process of saying goodbye to Oakland in a very unpleasant way – in a sporty way that may ultimately play a role when it comes to the still unanswered question of where the Raiders will play in 2019. And – which finally brings us to the part that is difficult to analyze at the beginning – one must not ignore what such a drastic procedure can do for a coach and a team.

I had to think about this when Gruden, who was involved in the disastrous Niners game, emphasized how many players wanted to call him and play for the Raiders. But the truth is also: the players in the NFL naturally exchange ideas with each other, and how many positive things will they hear about Gruden and this raiders team? How many Free Agents will decide – if they have the choice – for the Raiders? We have seen these cases in Cleveland over and over again in recent years.

A season such as the Raiders currently have – and possibly for the next one or two years – is poison to the market value of players, and sporting success is not directly in sight either. These things can drastically delay the upheaval and hang on to a franchise for as long as an unpleasant odor.

The Raiders are an exciting case in terms of the aggressiveness with which they drive their upheaval, combined with the framework conditions. But you could also crash completely with it.

Page 1: The fantastic Saints Offense – and will the Raiders be the new Browns?

Page 2: Defense Problems, Rams, Packers, Koetter, Mayfield – Your Questions