The last time the New Orleans Saints made the playoffs was 2013. Not coincidentally, that was also the last time the Saints had any semblance of an offense-defense balance to their performance. From 2014 through last season, the Saints were the single most unbalanced team in the NFL.
New Orleans ranked seventh, seventh and sixth in offensive efficiency during those three seasons, per Football Outsiders' DVOA, while checking in 31st, 32nd and 31st in defensive efficiency. The relative differential between their rankings on each side of the ball was the second-largest in the NFL in 2014, largest in 2015, and second-largest again in 2016.
| YEAR | OFFENSE | DEFENSE | DIFF | DIFF (RK) |
| 2015 | 7 | 31 | 24 | 2 |
| 2016 | 7 | 32 | 25 | 1 |
| 2017 | 6 | 31 | 25 | 2 |
As we detailed this offseason, unbalanced teams like those Saints squads tend to find very little success.
Since the NFL expanded to 32 teams and slotted them into the current eight-division format back in 2002, there have been 17 occasions where a team finished in the top-10 in both scoring and offensive DVOA, as well as the bottom-10 in both points allowed and defensive DVOA. The combined record of those 17 teams was 139-132-1, and that's despite the fact that four of the 17 (2004 Packers, 2006 Colts, 2010 Colts, 2016 Falcons) managed to win double-digit games. The other 13 squads managed a combined record of just 96-111-1, dropping the overall winning percentage for the group from 0.513, or an 8.2 win average, to 0.464, or a 7.4 win average.
All four of those aforementioned teams that managed double-digit victories finished inside the top-six in scoring and offensive DVOA, and outside the bottom-three in points allowed and defensive DVOA. In other words, they had to have truly elite offenses and bad but not quite abominable defenses in order to experience success.
The 2014-16 Saints combined good but not quite elite offenses ranked in the back half of the top 10 with truly atrocious defenses ranked in the bottom two. In other words, their offense was just not quite good enough to overcome how much their defense set them back on a week-to-week basis. As a result, they finished with a 7-9 record in each of those three seasons.
Coming into this season, it was reasonable to expect more of the same out of the Saints. After all, they returned most of their offensive personnel, and they did not make very many high-profile additions to their defense. They drafted four defensive players, but two were defensive backs, a position at which players mostly tend to struggle as first-year players; and the other two were backup pass rushers. Their major signings were Alex Okafor, A.J. Klein ... and that's mostly it. They gave Nick Fairley a new contract, too, but a heart issue has prevented him from playing at all this season.
Through the first couple weeks of the season, it looked like the Saints were the same old Saints. New Orleans allowed 1,025 yards and 65 points to the Vikings and Patriots in Weeks 1 and 2, and could not score enough to keep up. Then a switch flipped. From Weeks 3-8, only the Broncos and Vikings have allowed fewer yards per game than the Saints, while only the Jaguars and Vikings allowed fewer yards per game. The Saints are the only NFL team ranked in the top five in both categories.
| RANK | YARDS | POINTS |
| 1 | DEN | JAX |
| 2 | MIN | MIN |
| 3 | NO | NO |
| 4 | CAR | PIT |
| 5 | MIA | LAC |
Of course, the operative question is not how good the New Orleans defense has been of late, but whether the improvement is sustainable. Can they carry the improved performance through the rest of the year and nab a playoff spot? That's a trickier question.
The Saints' improved performance on defense coincided with a very easy slate of opposing offenses. The Saints' last five games -- of which they won all five -- were played against the Panthers (23rd in offensive DVOA), Dolphins (31st), Lions (22nd), Packers (without Aaron Rodgers) and Bears (29th). The Saints held all of those teams but the Lions below their season average in points (and even that game comes with an asterisk due to all the defensive touchdowns), but not a single one of those teams represented a true test for a typical strong defense.
Whether or not the Saints will have success will depend on whether a few of the underlying reasons behind the overall improvement stick. Can the Saints keep averaging over three sacks a game? Not unless they find somebody other than Cameron Jordan to rush the passer, they can't. Jordan has 5.5 sacks this season, but Okafor is the only other player with more than two. Jordan also has twice as many pressures (27) over the last five games as Okafor, who is the next-closest Saints edge defender with 13. Sheldon Rankins has done well with 19 pressures on the inside, and if he keeps that up, it could help make up for the fact that nobody other than Jordan has been consistent affecting the quarterback from the perimeter.
If they don't keep up that type of pressure, it could affect the performance of the team's defensive backs who have been driving a lot of the Saints' defensive improvement. From Weeks 3-8 no cornerback in the NFL allowed a lower passer rating on throws in his direction than Saints rookie Marshon Lattimore, who held opposing passers to a truly disgusting 15.5 rating. He allowed just eight completions for 69 yards during that time, and he has two interceptions. Ken Crawley has been sparkling across from Lattimore, while Kenny Vaccaro sliding into the slot has done wonders for both his and the defense's effectiveness. Combined with the play of young safeties Marcus Williams and Vonn Bell, the secondary has suddenly gone from a glaring weakness to a resounding strength.
This seems like an obvious thing to say, but the rest of the season will tell us a whole lot more about whether the Saints defense is for real than the last five weeks have. Over their final nine games, the Saints play the Buccaneers (11th in offensive DVOA), Bills (18th), Washington (12th), the Rams (13th), Panthers (23rd) Falcons (7th), and Jets (26th), then the Falcons and Bucs again. Needless to say, Jameis Winston, Tyrod Taylor and Matt Ryan pose far bigger tests than Jay Cutler, Brett Hundley and Mitchell Trubisky did. The same can be said of LeSean McCoy, Todd Gurley and Devonta Freeman compared to Jonathan Stewart, Ameer Abdullah and Aaron Jones; and Mike Evans and Julio Jones compared to, say, Jarvis Landry and Golden Tate (and even Jordy Nelson and Davante Adams, with Hundley throwing to them rather than Rodgers).
If the Saints can keep this up, their first playoff berth in three years is well within their reach. If not, though, it's likely that they'll be sitting at home in January for the fourth year in a row.
