New Orleans Saints Versus the Carolina Panthers Game Preview

The New Orleans Saints, coming off their first loss of the season at home against the Falcons, will stay in the Superdome this coming Sunday to take on the Carolina Panthers.  The Panthers have not won a game this season. while the Saints are 2-1, coming off of a 27-24 loss, in overtime to the Atlanta Falcons.  

A meeting with the Panthers may be exactly what the Saints need.  The Saints have been playing decent football but not nearly as well as they did last season (despite having almost all of the same personnel on both sides of the ball). They need to get that rhythm back in order to start winning games in bigger and better ways.  Perhaps a game against the Panthers will help to cure their ills.

The following is an in depth game preview for the New Orleans Saints game against the Carolina Panthers this Sunday.

When the Saints Have The Ball

The Saints' passing game finally got things going last week, as quarterback Drew Brees had some nice deep passes and wide receiver Lance Moore had two scores.  The Saints will want to continue throwing the ball down the field against the Panthers and should be able to do this. 

Keep an eye on Moore and Devery Henderson in this game as they should be able to have a pretty good game against Carolina’s pass defense.

The Saints should also look to try to establish the run, which is something that other teams have managed to do against the Panthers.  Ball control offense is a big key to winning games, and the Saints didn’t do enough of that against the Falcons last week.  Lesson learned.  Now they just need to apply what they learned and control the ball and the clock.

The Panthers have had a difficult time putting pressure on the quarterback and are not covering receivers well in the secondary. The Saints passing game should be able to do some damage in that respect.  Look for the Saints to use a mix of both the run and the pass to keep the ball in their possession and not give the Panthers too many opportunities to score.

When the Panthers Have the Ball

Carolina used to have one of the best rushing offenses in the league a year ago, but this year they are averaging under 100 yards per game.  The Saints, who have been allowing well over 100 yards per game can’t afford to let the Panthers suddenly find their running game and control the ball enough to keep the Saints offense off the field.  The defense has to stop the run.

The Saints are catching the Panthers at the right time in the passing game.  They are switching quarterbacks (last week) from Matt Moore to rookie Jimmy Clausen, so there are bound to be some problems for the Panthers there. More importantly, there will be some opportunities for the Saints.  Hopefully they will be able to put some pressure on Clausen, force some mistakes, and take advantage of them.

The Saints' secondary, in particular, is a very opportunistic unit.  So far this season, they have racked up a total of three interceptions and two fumble recoveries, and their secondary is one of the best in the NFL.  If the Panthers put it in the air a lot, they aren’t going to have a lot of success against the Saints' secondary.

Analysis

The Saints need to gain a win in this one to come back with more confidence after their overtime loss to the Falcons.  A win against the Panthers will give them the boost they need to win some tough games coming up on their schedule.  

The passing game looked like it was finally back on track in their game last week so look for the Saints to keep that going and try to get a big lead.  If they can run, they will want to run the ball as much as they possibly can so that they don’t run into the same problem that they did last week with the Falcons and allow the Panthers to go on long and time consuming drives.  This is very important thing for the Saints to do.

Prediction

New Orleans knows that they have to win this game in order to keep pace with the Atlanta Falcons for the lead in the NFC South.  They will also want to go into this game and win so that they have momentum going forward and can keep pace with the Falcons for the lead in their division.

New Orleans 31 Carolina 13