Bo Davis set the bar at 3.2 yards per carry, and the Saints’ defensive tackles have spent most of the season nowhere near it.
That target would put New Orleans at the top of the league against the run, and Davis has been pushing that standard with his group all season. But heading into Sunday’s matchup with the Cleveland Browns, the Saints are allowing 4.8 yards per carry, which ranks seventh-worst in the NFL. The interior of the defense has been a major reason why.
The problems started early and haven’t let up. Bryan Bresee, the best player on the Saints’ defensive interior, went down with a season-ending ACL injury on the first day of training camp.
The two other projected starters beside him have also fallen short of expectations. Davon Godchaux has seen his snaps shrink sharply from a year ago, and Nathan Shepherd has missed the last three games - the first two because of illness and the most recent one as an inactive even though he was medically cleared.
That has left New Orleans leaning on a different mix. Over the last three games, the Saints’ snap leaders at defensive tackle have been Colby Wooden, Khristian Boyd and Vernon Broughton. Notably absent from that group is Christen Miller, the Saints’ second-round pick, who has played only 32% of the snaps in that stretch.
“We’re trying to find the right combination of players,” defensive coordinator Brandon Staley said. “I think that’s a spot where there’s going to be a lot of competition in the second half of the season.”
Staley was quick to point out that run defense is a full-team job, but he also made clear where it begins. The Saints, he said, build their run defense “inside out,” and that puts the tackles in the spotlight.
“That group is going to have to lead the way,” he said.
The challenge hasn’t exactly been soft. New Orleans has already run into some of the league’s best backs, including Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs, Baltimore’s Derrick Henry, Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson and Pittsburgh’s Jaylen Warren.
Henry was the one exception, held to 68 yards on 16 carries. The others all topped 100 yards.
Davis’ 3.2-yard benchmark has only been reached once if you isolate running backs, and that came in a Week 5 win over the New York Giants. Even then, the Giants still finished at 4.2 yards per carry because J.J. McCarthy and Darnell Mooney ripped off big gains.
During the bye week, Staley looked back at the run defense and called it “inconsistent but not far off.” His message was simple: the Saints need to turn those 4- and 5-yard runs into 1- and 2-yard gains, or better yet, tackles for loss.
“We have to establish ourselves as run defenders first,” Cam Jordan said. “These third-and-shorts are cool, but that’s not winning football. Winning football is third-and-7, third-and-8 … and we can get off the field.”
Staley also laid out what he wants from a defensive tackle in his system. First comes versatility, the ability to handle different fronts and formations.
Then comes the run-stuffing piece, with interior pass rush as a bonus - though, as he noted, that kind of player is usually found in the first round. The third trait is lateral quickness, or how fast a player can get into space.
“It's not an easy position to play and it's a very hard position to transfer to the NFL from college,” Staley said. “Some guys can hit it right away and you can find some examples, but much more often there's a learning curve.”
The Saints have certainly felt that learning curve. Wooden, now second on the team among defensive tackles in snaps, wasn’t even on the roster until Aug. 31, when New Orleans claimed him off waivers after league-wide cuts. The Saints liked that he started 16 games for Green Bay last season and have been encouraged by how quickly he settled in.
Wooden said the move caught him off guard. He had not expected to be cut by the Indianapolis Colts after the Packers traded him months earlier.
Still, he’s here now, and he knows what the job is. Wooden said the group has to take stopping the run “personally,” and when Davis’ 3.2-yard standard came up, he pushed the idea even further.
“Shoot, I don’t want ‘em to get nothing,” Wooden said.
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