The New Orleans Saints may have beaten the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, but they lost ground in nearly every national NFL power ranking. Here’s what’s being said nationwide:
USA Today’s power rankings knocked the Saints for letting the Browns play them so closely, with a drop to 12 from 9 in last week’s list:
They were fortunate to avert another 0-2 start by splitting homestand, but must endure playing five of next seven away from Superdome.
The 80 panelists for ESPN’s power rankings have the Saints holding tight at 9, making note of wide receiver Michael Thomas’ historic pace of pass-catching:
Michael Thomas has 28 catches, the most through the first two games in team history. The previous high for the Saints in the first two tilts was 18, by Tony Galbreath in 1978, Darren Sproles in 2012 and Jimmy Graham in 2014 — Vince Masi
New Orleans continues to slide in SB Nation’s power rankings, dropping from 11 to 14 despite winning their game, which is odd. On NFL.com’s power rankings, the Saints stayed the course at 12.
Welp, Dennis Allen’s defense came up big when it had to … Cam Jordan said his crew was going to play a heckuva lot better in Week 2 than in Week 1, when Ryan Fitzpatrick zapped them into submission. The big play came on a Marcus Williams pick late in the fourth quarter, which went down as the Saints’ first takeaway of the season. On the ensuing drive, Alvin Kamara converted a third-and-short after a Browns timeout, after failing on second-and-short. Before the Kamara conversion, Sean Payton wanted to run a read option with Taysom Hill, but Cleveland DC Gregg Williams called timeout to adjust his forces. So what’s the point of this mid-Power Rankings diatribe? If suspended RB Mark Ingram had been available, the entire offense would have looked, felt and called plays differently, especially in these situations. But who cares when you have Michael Thomas, right?
So the groupthink on the Saints is not great! They’re seen right now as a team on the fringe of the elite, maybe not even a top 10 squad leaguewide. With a huge divisional game against the Atlanta Falcons looming on Sunday, Sept. 23, New Orleans needs to play some complimentary football and get a winning record.