Drew Brees needs WRs to use Week 2 as springboard

Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints were unable to prevail in Week 1 against the Arizona Cardinals, losing 31-19 against an offense that was ticking and picked apart an injured Saints secondary that might even lose free safety Rafael Bush– Jairus Byrd‘s injury replacement- for the season, as Bush tore his pectoral, according to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Meanwhile, the Cardinals defense suffocated the Saints new-look pass-catchers, particularly in the red zone where the Saints went 1-for-4, thus making their red zone execution sans Jimmy Graham a huge talking point.

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Last season, the Saints biggest issue on offense was poor protection, but the offensive line took full advantage of a weak Cardinals pass rush. They were somehow able to neutralize Calais Campbell, and nobody else caused them any sort of trouble. But despite that, Brees could only complete 62.5% of his passes on Sunday and didn’t throw five completions to a single wide receivers. The Cardinals elite secondary played the Saints perfectly, forcing Brees to spend most of his time dumping it off to Mark Ingram and Khiry Robinson with CJ Spiller out with an injury.

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Ingram looks like an excellent pass-catching back, and he proved that his preseason numbers and “three-down back” talk were legit by catching eight passes for 98 yards. I didn’t think Robinson would be able to make such an impact in the passing game, but color me impressed with his solid 5/41 line.

However, I was less than impressed by the Saints wide receiver corps, because aside from a nice play to secure six points from potential breakout star Brandon Coleman, this entire unit was rendered ineffective. I get that the Cardinals have an elite secondary, but they completely took away the deep ball, forcing Brees to go 3-8 on deep passes, as per Pro-Football Reference.

Brandin Cooks is the lifeblood of this offensive attack has a guy who can rack up receptions, make things happen with the ball in his hands, and consistently find space. He didn’t do any of those things, catching just four passes for 49 yards on eight targets against the Cardinals on-point pass defense.

Marques Colston looked every bit as ineffective as he did in the 2014 season, adding three receptions for just 29 yards on a whopping seven targets. And Coleman’s touchdown reception could barely hide the fact that he needed seven targets to reach 41 receiving yards.

If you combine Cooks’s, Colston’s, and Coleman’s numbers, Drew Brees completed just 50% of his passes on 22 targets to his top three receivers, averaging a paltry 5.41 yards per attempt to that surprisingly weak trio. Thanks to the work in the screen game and a 63-yard play from the rising Willie Snead, Brees managed to average a quality 7.4 yards per attempt.

It’s hard to fault Brees for what happened yesterday, because he pretty much carried the offense on his own with 355 passing yards. The running game was thoroughly disappointing all around, because while the Saints two backs did some damage through the air with a combined 13 receptions, the Saints as a whole put up just 2.7 yards per carry.

But the real focus is on the Saints passing attack, which has to be much stronger going forward with all of the question marks in the secondary. The good news for the Saints is that the NFC South rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers are next on the schedule, and that is a Week 2 matchup that this team needs to shred.

We all saw how easily Marcus Mariota torched the Bucs defense yesterday, and those guys didn’t even have an answer for seemingly improved second-year Washington Huskies product and Tennessee Titans starting running back Bishop Sankey. That bodes well for Ingram, Robinson, and, assuming he does indeed return, Spiller, but the matchup next week benefits Brees and the passing attack the most.

Everybody has come to expect weekly excellence from Brees, and I don’t anticipate him faltering, especially if the offensive line can continue to look solid. What Brees needs from his young receivers is a confidence boost, because they have the talent and the opportunity to see their skill-sets taken advantage of by a star quarterback.

They just need to use next week’s game against Tampa Bay as a springboard, playing at a high level so that they can have the confidence going forward to make plays for Brees. As we saw yesterday, the Saints receivers cannot afford to be taken out of the game, and with Colston declining to the point where his role is specific, young, explosive players like Cooks and Coleman need to show that defenses cannot neutralize them as easily. If they can become more consistent and play up to their potential, then the Saints offense should be scary again; facing the Cardinals isn’t an easy first test.

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