NFL: Steelers, Titans, Saints and Falcons: How could this happen?

It’s Championship Week! On Sunday the Super Bowl participants (both Conference Championship Games live with language selection on DAZN) will be played – which also means: For four more teams the season has ended since Sunday evening. These four teams are the New Orleans Saints, whose hearts were broken in Minnesota, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Atlanta Falcons and the Tennessee Titans. SPOX scrutinizes the four Divisional Round losers.

Disclaimer: As in the previous season, SPOX is conducting an error analysis of the teams that have been eliminated from the play-off race, either directly or numerically – including a look into the future.

Part I: Bears, Broncos, Texans, Buccaneers, Colts, 49ers, Giants and Browns

Part II: Packers, Redskins, Cardinals, Jets and Bengals

Part III: Dolphins, Raiders, Cowboys and Lions

Part IV: The Wildcard Losers: Bills, Panthers, Rams and Chiefs

The Season 2017

The start of the season screamed:”The Saints as you know them once again”. New Orleans was taken apart by Sam Bradford in Minnesota for the opening match, followed by a 20:36 home gossip against the fierce Patriots after their opening defeat. But whoever thought that New Orleans would once again go through the season without a noteworthy defence was quickly mistaken.

As early as Week 3, the Saints set an exclamation point with their 34:13 victory in Carolina, followed by the shut-out win over the Dolphins in London. New Orleans, which became ever clearer during the course of the year, had caught a spectacular rookie class: Cornerback Marshon Lattimore gave the defense a completely new face, Running Back Alvin Kamara managed this feat offensively. In short, the aggressive man-coverage concepts worked defensively and aggressively, the Saints became the best screen team in the league.

Also Ryan Ramczyk and Marcus Williams (excluding the last play in Minnesota) had strong rookie years, New Orleans got off to a good start: After the Week 2 bankruptcy eight wins in a row and in close division duels at the end the Saints won the NFC-south title – albeit with the help of the Falcons in Week 17. So it came to the home game in the Wildcard round against the Panthers, against a brilliantly laid out Cam Newton there was the victory in a heartbeat final.

This prepared the stage for a historic divisional duel with the Vikings: Minnesota first controlled the match and led 17-0 before Drew Brees burned down a fireworks display in the second half. It went back and forth, New Orleans seemed like the sure winner – but the still incredible touchdown by Stefon Diggs sent Minnesota into the Championship Game and New Orleans into the off-season.

What are the problems?

How bitter can such a promising season end? Saints fans now have several months to deal with this issue. New Orleans had the best quarterback, the best offensive line and the best running back duo of the NFC playoffs as well as a top receiver in Michael Thomas and with Lattimore one of the best cornerbacks in the league this season.

In short: The Saints had a very good chance to win the second Super Bowl title of the Brees-Payton era. The high quality of the rookie class and the fact that Brees can still play at a high level and the pillars of the offensive line are nowhere to go in 2018 (Armstead and Ramczyk have contracts until 2022, Unger and Peat until 2020), gives the Saints an excellent basis.

New Orleans should take care of more pass rush help for Cam Jordan, after Alex Okafor’s injury there was a gap. The Saints, however, would go into the season in 2018 as a Super Bowl contender with the squad as it stands today.

What happens now?

The top manpower that needs to be cleared up now is Drew Brees. He has already said that he wants to “stay as long as they want me to stay” – and it would be a big surprise if the Big Easy Brees and Head Coach Sean Payton would not have one last try at the big time.

At the same time, however, Brees’ contract situation is not that easy: his current contract expires, but he is still on the books for 18 million dollars in 2018 due to the reallocation of funds. Supposedly, the Saints will continue to redistribute money with a new contract, but sooner or later the Saints will end up in New Orleans for Brees and he will nevertheless put a heavy burden on the salary cap. 2018, however, is not yet the year for that.

In Louisiana, for example, not much will change in terms of personnel, as the majority of the scaffolding is for the 2018 squad. In New Orleans, it will take them a few days and probably weeks to process the still unbelievable bankruptcy in Minnesota. Then this team will be in the best position to reach big goals again in 2018.

The 2017 season of the Falcons could be summed up under two headings: massive teaser and unnecessary setbacks. The former because Atlanta kept flashing his enormous potential – on both sides of the ball. The 34:31 victory in Seattle is just as memorable as the decisive 22:10 win over the Panthers in the regular season finale, with which the current NFC champ was only able to win his playoff ticket.

At the same time, however, Atlanta also showed his different face. At the 7:23 in New England about the same as a week later with a narrow 25:20 victory over the jets. Also the successful start with three victories in the first three games was not very convincing, Atlanta won in Chicago only because the Bears blew the possible touchdown to the last-minute equalization and in Week 3 against the Lions it was enough for a dramatic victory, because Detroit’s game winner was whistled back after review and the 10-second runoff had ended the clock.

But Atlantas Defense was getting more and more in shape and the Falcons seemed to show perfect timing: After the dominant success over the Panthers – for which the division victory was still a matter of division victory – the Falcons in the Wildcard round also smothered the highly acclaimed Rams Offense and beat L. A. The Falcons in the Wildcard round. impressively away with 26:13. The defence was not the main problem in the divisional round either, Atlanta scored 15 points in Philadelphia against Nick Foles. But only ten of their own points ended the season with the Falcons coming to an end.

This leads to “unnecessary setbacks”. The Falcons had a great offense under Kyle Shanahan in the 2016 season, which led Atlanta to the Super Bowl and there almost to the triumph. Shanahan shot up to become the best play-caller and offense designer in the NFL, after his offense in Atlanta the year before had big problems, mainly because quarterback Matt Ryan needed time to get used to it.

Shanahan then became head coach in San Francisco and Steve Sarkisian replaced him in Atlanta. And that, to put it bluntly, was a failure in 2017. The Falcons not only plunged from the top-scoring open 33.8 points per match in 2016 to 15th place (22.1 points per match), it was above all the road to frustration in the fan camp.

The play-action game, which shone under Shanahan, was reduced, the running backs were almost absurdly ignored in the passing game for much of the season and the play-calling, especially in the Red Zone, was a huge problem not only against the Eagles on Saturday evening. It was foreseeable that the offense would generally take some steps back. The way but so not necessary.

First of all – nothing. Probably anyway. NFL network insider Ian Rapoport announced on Tuesday that Sarkisian “will continue to be responsible for the offense in Atlanta in 2018 with the full backing of coach Dan Quinn”.

This paves the way for a relatively uneventful off-season in Georgia: No top performer has an expiring contract, although the deals of Matt Ryan, Jake Matthews and Grady Jarrett will end in 2019 and negotiations will get underway here.

Atlanta’s squad is still one of the best and most complete in the NFL. Individual reinforcements – such as the guard position and rotation players for the defensive line – will make this team even better. However, the focus here is on coaching for 2018, especially for others. Because the player material in Atlanta is that of a Super Bowl contender.

Page 1: The NFC – the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons

Page 2: The AFC – the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tennessee Titans