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Rams43
Here’s bayouram...
The Saints defense have rarely been challenged in the run game all season. I am not suggesting that their run defense is not good, but it would be interesting to see what happens if they're challenged vs the run an entire game against a strong running team. Particularly a team that is dangerous passing the ball. After reviewing their box score for every game this season, excluding the last regular season game, I found that only once this year did a running back have 20 or more carries vs them (Zeke had 23 for a 3.3 average). Also, rarely did a running back have 15+ carries against them. Only 2 backs had greater than 5 yards per carry against them, and I am going to exclude 1 of them because it appears that a lot of Mixon's yards for the Bengals came against the Saints 2nd team defense. Todd Gurley averaged 5.2 yards on 13 carries. I get a feeling if we challenge them on the ground even if we don't have early success, we will POUND them.
The key: they're 2nd in the league in yards per carry. That's not just some random stat.
And they have been challenged. Looking at ypc, they played 4 top 10 teams, one twice. That's not just 4 top 10, it;s 3 of the top 5 (again one twice). The top 5 teams were Baltimore, Rams, and Carolina. Dallas is 10th. The result was a combined 133 carries for 477 yards and therefore just under 3.6 a carry.
Maybe if the Rams had run Gurley more...but then they got behind, right?
And maybe they can run on them. They ran on Dallas when they weren't supposed to be able to.
BUT if they do, it does not mean that prior to that game, the Saints run D had never been challenged. Yeah it has been.
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