Week 7, TNF Saints-Jaguars: Advanced Review

The Jags almost let the Saints back into the game, but the biggest plays went their way on the last two drives

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2023 & 2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

NO vs JAX

In a game of two halves, the Jaguars pull out the victory in New Orleans. Both teams struggled offensively overall, but the Jags went from a near 60% success rate in the first half to 33% in the second half. The Saints did the reverse, jumping from a below 30% success rate in the first half to 45% thereafter.

Overall, the Jags were the better team, but perhaps not by as much as primacy bias would lead you to believe. The Saints were incredibly bad at converting third downs, going 3-of-18, including 0-of-10 when needing five yards or more to convert. They weren’t much better on shorter conversions (3-of-8), which set up a ton of actual fourth down attempts, and even more they should have tried.

The Saints went 4-of-6 on fourth down, gaining 5.8 expected points (-20 EPA on third down), but they passed up another four opportunities to go-for-it when the decision was at least +1% in win probability. The numbers below don’t count the Jags fourth down fake as a “good” decision (+0.3% win probability decision) because their win probability was fairly higher going into the call, making it harder to gain more.

The memory that will stick in our minds is the Foster Moreau drop at the end of the game, though the reality is that the Saints had more work to do even if he caught the ball. It would have been an interesting decision for Dennis Allen on whether to go for two, with 25 seconds still left on the clock and the Jags with all their timeouts. I wouldn’t have been against it, as more than 30 seconds is around the tipping point for not giving the opponent further motivation to score on the next drive.

The most impactful play of the game in expected points added, unsurprisingly, was the tipped ball pick-6 for the Jags (6.4 EPA), while the late Chrisitan Kirk catch-and-run touchdown mattered most for win probability added (+33.2%). In a way, Kirk was making up for his earlier fumble, which had nearly the same expected points impact in the other direction. I don’t think I’ve seen a game before with this many fourth down tries on the most impactful plays (7).

Despite having two positive EPA rushing touchdowns early from Travis Etienne (+2.8 EPA), the Jags were awful overall in rushing efficiency. Especially killer were short yardage conversion attempts, with back-to-back failure on 3rd and 4th & 1 by Etienne near midfield in third quarter costing them 5.3 expected points. The Saints success rate running the ball also wasn’t good, but Alvin Kamara feasted value in the same high-leverage situations that felled the Jags rushing game, going 3-for-3 on 4th down designed runs.

What Trevor Lawrence did in the game that might go under-appreciated is play clean, taking zero sacks and not turning the ball over. He also had an outstanding game with strategic scrambles (+4.1 EPA), despite his knee injury. Lawrence was slightly inaccurate by the numbers (-3.8% CPOE) and didn’t push the ball down the field a whole lot, but his overall efficiency was a MVP-levels.

Derek Carr had a really tough game, not only due to the tipped pick-6 (-6.5 EPA), but a general inability to keep the ball moving on third downs, or better yet have successful down series before getting to third down. Excluding the interception, Carr’s pass attempts yielded -9.7 EPA, and his 5.9-yard aDOT reflects the lack of aggressiveness in the passing game. Even accounting for a couple bad drops and the tipped pick, Carr and the Saints passing offense was still relatively bad and generally struggled (38.7% success rate).