New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi joined Voice of the Saints Mike Hoss and Saints legend Bobby Hebert on the Saints Coaches Show on WWL on Monday, Dec. 30 to talk about the loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, the injury status of quarterback Derek Carr and running back Alvin Kamara, the final game of the season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and more.
Here are the top five takeaway's from Rizzi's appearance:
1. Derek Carr and Alvin Kamara still fighting to return
The Saints have not ruled out a return for two key pieces for Week 18. Kamara is attempting to work his way back from a groin injury he sustained catching a touchdown in the game against the Washington Commanders in Week 15. The Saints all-time leading rusher is just 50 yards away from his first 1,000-yard rushing season.
"I had Alvin in my office today, this guy wants to play," Rizzi said. "I can't speak on contract bonuses and all that. I have absolutely no idea and I'm not lying when I say that if he's got an incentive, I don't know about it, but I know this guy. Alvin has been unbelievable since he's been hurt. He's been wanting to get back. He wants to finish the season. He does everything he possibly can from a rehab standpoint to get back. We're not just going to throw him out there just to have him go out there and get 50 more yards. That's not going to be the case. If he can play, he can be effective, then certainly we want to be out there, because he's a game-changer."
Carr, meanwhile, is trying to work his way back from a hand injury he suffered attempting to dive for a first down in the Saints game against the New York Giants in Week 14.
"As far as Derek goes, Derek tried to simulate what a game would look like last week with his left hand," Rizzi said. "It didn't go great from a grip strength standpoint on that left hand. That was the middle of last week. And we're thinking about doing that one more time here to see if there's any possibility that he could do that. But, the same thing, we're not going to put him out there in harm's way. If he's not able to function at a high level, we're not going to throw him back out there."
Rizzi also addressed why he is giving the two the opportunity to play if they can get healthy despite the Saints no longer having a chance at a playoff berth.
"I know there's probably some fans out there, why the heck would you play Alvin Kamara? Why the heck would you play Derek Carr? These guys want to play and it's my job to respect their wishes. Both these guys are captains, are leaders. They've been unbelievable for our locker room. And the fact of the matter is you know, we're 5-5 this year with Derek Carr as our starting quarterback. We're 0-5 without him and that's just it. We can slice and dice however many ways we want, the bottom line is we've won five games with Derek at quarterback. We've lost five and three of those five games that we lost were by three points or less, because he gives us the best chance to win."
2. Tale of two halves for Spencer Rattler
Quarterback Spencer Rattler started the fifth game of his career against the Raiders. The rookie got off to an efficient start with 11 completions on 13 attempts for 146 yards and a touchdown in the first half. The second half would be a different story as he would finish the game with 20 completions on 36 attempts for 218 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions, also adding three rushes for 46 yards.
"You look at his first half statistically and he actually played a really clean half," Rizzi said. "I think he had one throw away on purpose, another drop and so that's just 13 throws in the in the first half and you look at the second half, I think on the day we had seven or eight balls that were dropped that need to get caught. We had a couple of pass-protection breakdowns where he actually made some plays with his feet. So, I've been asked a couple times about evaluating his overall performance yesterday. It's a little bit of an incomplete because it's a little bit unfair to judge him in some aspects because he was kind of had to move on the run and then he delivered some balls that should have been caught.
"Now, he certainly had about three to five throws in the game that we pointed out today in front of the team that he's got to make in some big situations. There's a play there to Dante Pettis at the end of the game there's another one to Juwan on a third down where they're open, he's got to make the throw. But he did have some big time throws, I mean he had a big time throw to Kevin Austin Jr. before the half when we get a field goal there. I thought he handled himself really good in the two-minute drill at the end of the first half there. But again, it goes back to not really giving him as much help. So, it's the negative plays. It's the interceptions you throw. He throws a high ball there to (Cedrick Wilson Jr.) where it gets tipped up in the air and then he throws one into double coverage later in the game there. And then another one that their linebacker (Robert) Spillane drops. And we got to get rid of those three to five throws a game that are negative because there really are some things that he's done well."
3. Third down woes
The Saints third-down offense once again proved to be a struggle as the team would only convert one of the 10 third downs it attempted against the Raiders.
"It's the one thing here in the last few weeks, particularly after Derek got hurt. You mentioned it hasn't been great all year, but we were starting to trend in the right direction for the first few weeks after I took over," Rizzi said. "And then these last few weeks, not so much. I think one of the biggest reasons that our offensive third-down numbers haven't been as good as we need them to be, is we're not getting ourselves into third down efficiently, a third down and mediums. Our third down efficiency has been lousy because our first and second down efficiency has been lousy in terms of down and distance. And so, these third and mediums, third and longs, they're hard to get in this league."
The Saints rank 26th in the NFL in third down efficiency on offense converting 36% of their attempts and rank 18th in the category on defense, surrendering conversions on 39.4% of opponents' attempts.
"We've got to make those numbers come back up north for sure, get them back to respectable numbers," Rizzi said. "If I had to take one stat from the game yesterday and say it was a stat of the game it was third down. I mean the Raiders were 10 of 18, whatever that is 56%. And we were one of 10 and we were zero for nine before we were one for 10. So that was the number one stat of the game. We couldn't sustain drives and then we couldn't get ourselves off the field and get our offense back on the field. And that's been the case really here the last two weeks. So we got to get back to doing a better job in that area. I completely agree with you, and I think that'll be a huge part of this game this Sunday."
The Buccaneers boast the most efficient offense in the league on third downs, converting 50% of their attempts while their defense ranks 15th on third down allowing opponents to convert 39.1% of the time.
4. Untimely penalties
A key factor in that loss to the Raiders was penalties with the Saints committing 10 penalties for a loss of 85 yards, several of them coming at important moments. One such play was the first penalty on an offsides by defensive end Carl Granderson extending the first drive for the Raiders on what could have been a three-and-out for the Saints.
"We actually watched that sequence, actually watched a bunch of those sequences, in the team meeting this morning, the play, the penalty that you are referring to on Carl where he jumped in the neutral zone and then we get the sack," Rizzi said. "Subsequently after that they had the ball for seven and a half minutes and 14 more plays. And so, that's a half of a quarter. And yeah, it certainly affected the rest of the game. And then we did it to ourselves again offensively on our first drive. We had the ball at the plus 37-yard line. We're going to go for it on fourth-and-five and we jump offsides. ... We got to punt. Those are those are self-inflicted and there's no two ways around it. I mean, it is what it is. It's something we got to be better at. It's two weeks in a row. We've cost ourselves a little bit defensively. We jump in the neutral zone on some hard counts. ... It completely affects the rest of the game, no doubt. We had two plays offensively that got down inside the five. In fact, I think (Juwan Johnson's) might have been a touchdown when you look back at it, the one he rolled into the end zone. And both of those plays get called back for penalties. So yeah, just they were killers. There's no escaping it."
5. On to Tampa Bay
Their opponent in Week 18 will be motivated as a win for the Buccaneers will secure an NFC South title and lock in a spot in the postseason while a loss to the Saints would open the door for the Atlanta Falcons to claim the division with a win. Rizzi embraced the opportunity to take on a team with something to play for in the Saints final game.
"As far as Tampa Bay goes, I said to the team this morning, I actually love the fact that they're playing to get in to the playoffs," Rizzi said. "I don't want to go down to play a team that's sitting their quarterback or the star players or whatever. I want our team to be challenged. We got a lot of young guys right now that we're still trying to evaluate. We got a lot of professionals in the building that want to finish the season strong, and we got a lot of guys that are pissed off about how the last two weeks have gonet, and so they want to go out there and they want to they want to put better football on tape, and that's really the bottom line."
Check out the game action photos from the New Orleans Saints game against the Las Vegas Raiders for Week 17 of the 2024 NFL Season on Dec. 29, 2024 at Caesars Superdome.