Steelers-Saints Preview

Here's the thing...

I know the Saints are a good team. I am aware of the fact that they have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. I know that they won the Super Bowl last year. I know that they are well-coached and have a ton of veteran leadership.

I also know that they lost last week. To Cleveland. To Cleveland. At home. I know that they're currently 4-3, but the only good team they've played thus far is Atlanta and they lost to Atlanta. Sure, they beat the 4-2 Buccaneers, but so did the Steelers. The Steelers also beat Atlanta.

Their other three wins are against Minnesota (bad), San Francisco (really bad), and Carolina (super bad), and those were all close games against teams that range from bad to super bad. They also lost to Steelers West (also bad) by ten points. I believe that I mentioned that they lost to Cleveland at home by 13.

I know that the Steelers are banged up on defense, but I will take a banged up Steeler defense over a completely healthy Cleveland defense every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I believe that the Saints are struggling for two reasons:

1. They really, really miss their running game with Pierre Thomas and Reggie Bush being hurt.
2. They kinda got lucky on defense last year.

For number one, the New Orleans offense has a lot more exotic looks and formations than the Steelers offense, but it's basically the same idea: Establish the run and get chunks of yards off of play action. The issue there -- as Steeler fans discovered last season -- is that defenses don't care about play action and you don't get those chunks of yards if you can't run the ball. You may be able to force some chunks of yards to happen through persistence, but you'll also have a lot of turnovers and incompletions mixed in with the success. That's where the Saints are right now.

The Steelers were able to overcome that in 2008 with an outstanding defense and were able to keep the damage to a minimum with a defense that played hard for the first 50 minutes or so in 2009. The issue with the Saints this season is that their defense isn't as good in 2010 -- or as lucky -- as they were in 2009.

The New Orleans defense recorded a ton of turnovers in 2009 and either scored on defense or set their offense up to score. The thing about turnovers is that you can force them, but a lot of it is just how the ball bounces or how dumb the guy with the ball feels like being. Saints defensive coordinator likes to blitz a lot. Then blitz some more. Then mix in some blitzes when he's done blitzing just to mix things up.

Sometimes, you blitz a quarterback and he does something dumb or you get a sack. Sometimes, you blitz a quarterback and he makes a big play. That's the contract you enter into when Gregg Williams is your defensive coordinator.

That contract paid off big time last season, as quarterbacks decided to be dumb more than they decided to make a big play. Sometimes, the ball tipped off a receiver's hand because the quarterback rushed the throw. Most times, that tipped ball went to a New Orleans defender. That's not happening us much this year and the defense is suffering.

The best way to pressure Ben Roethlisberger is to pressure him up the middle and contain the edges. When he is faced with this situation, sometimes he'll take a sack. Sometimes he'll do something really dumb (like against Miami last week). Sometimes he'll bust out of a tackle and make a big play. I just think he makes more big plays than he takes sacks and makes dumb mistakes on Sunday night. Blitzing is a high risk, high reward proposition. The Saints reaped the rewards in 2009 and they're realizing the risks this season.

With Corey Ivy and Ladell Betts at tailback and a high risk defense, I just don't think New Orleans has what it takes to beat the Steelers.

Vegas agrees. The line opened with the Saints favored by 3 or 4. There must have been a ton of action for the Steelers, because the line is now Pittsburgh by 1. I think the Steelers cover easily.

The only thing that worries me is that I'm not worried.

Prediction: Steelers 28, Saints 17

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