Sunday, our BUCS will be faced with some big challenges all over the field.

Among the biggest is covering the League’s top pass catcher last season in Michael Thomas.

Thomas has been a problem for the BUCS since his arrival in the NFC South in 2016. His 831 yards against Tampa is the most he’s gotten versus any other team so far. His 10.9 yards per target against the BUCS is the highest amongst the rest of his NFC South foes.

Thomas Bassinger of Football Outsiders mentioned on the latest podcast that Michael Thomas accounted for about 33% of the New Orleans offense.

He’s not exactly a deep ball guy either. He was targeted deep 22 times last season. For comparison, Mike Evans was targeted 42 times down field.

He’s a volume receiver. Meaning, he gets most of his yards due to the high number of pass attempts in his direction.

To combat Thomas, our BUCS will have Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting and Jamel Dean. All of which will likely be matched up against him multiple times throughout the game.

C-Murda

While it’s the most exciting for me, I expect to see Carlton Davis against Thomas the least.

New Orleans has a tendency to shift Thomas away from the CB1. He’s constantly being motions to the left side of the offensive line pre-snap or he goes into the slot depending on the defensive alignment. And the vast majority of those pass attempts his way are of the short variety.

Michael Thomas was targeted 172 times on short passes last season. 121 of those were deemed successful. But to the right side of the field, where Carlton Davis plays primarily, was where he was least successful catching 33 of 54 attempts. That 61% success rate is at least 12% lower than in any other direction targeted for Thomas.

Davis did well in the opportunities he did get going against Thomas. So, New Orleans favoring the the opposite side of the field shouldn’t be a surprise. Against New Orleans, Davis surrendered 72 yards and 1 TD in the 2 meetings last season. Davis only played 41% of the snaps in the Week 5 matchup due to being ejected for an illegal hit.

Carlton Davis gets a pass break up playing close up on Thomas.

I’m not expecting to see many of these attempts to the right side in Davis’ direction.

Damn near every chance they get, New Orleans is going to move Davis off of Thomas. Here, it’s by splitting Kamara out wide.

Unless Coach Bowles switches up the defensive scheming tendencies and allow Davis to follow Thomas (something I think he’s capable of doing), we can expect to see this type of trickery repeatedly on Sunday.

The long drag route is a favorite in the New Orleans playbook for Thomas.

Davis can expect to see this more than a few times Sunday. But they tend to run it from the left more often.

It’s an all day affair on the drag routes.

S-M-B

Sean Murphy-Bunting was in coverage against Thomas when Davis went out during the Week 5 game last season. He took over Davis’ right side duties and got lined up against Thomas.

Remember, Murphy-Bunting starts out as the CB2 in this defense. He can see himself against Thomas early and often. SMB got to experience facing Thomas on the outside and in the slot which is something no one else on the roster has done yet. While brief, his experience should help him out tremendously Sunday.

I fully expect Murphy-Bunting to see the majority of his time against Thomas to be in the slot come Sunday. New Orleans loves to move Thomas to the slot to match against smaller CBs or LBs. Among the three CBs likely to see the most action, against SMB is where Thomas has the size advantage. I think they’ll find that advantage won’t be as big as it was last season though as Murphy-Bunting bulked up around 10lbs this summer.

With a full season under his belt and an offseason that saw him close the gap on the physical advantage, SMB should be up to the task of facing Thomas anywhere on the field.

Last year, Thomas could bully the smaller Muprhy-Bunting due to size.

Not expecting to see the same Sunday.

Again, you can see the physical mismatch and the experience level at play here.

SMB improved in the last 5 games last season and going up against a QB and WR combo similar to that of Brees and Thomas in Brady and Evans/Godwin all summer should be advantageous for him.

POTENTIAL X-FACTOR

As mentioned earlier, New Orleans favored targeting Thomas to the left side of the field. And they like to hit him with short passes. Thomas caught 58 balls on 79 short attempts to that side of the field.

Last season, that side was occupied by someone either smaller or significantly slower than Thomas.

This year….no so much.

Jamel Dean may be X-Factor in this game for the secondary. At 6’1, he’s far bigger than Vernon Hargreaves who tried to cover Thomas last season. And he’s a lil’ bit faster than Murphy-Bunting.

For some strange reason that just never fully got explained, he didn’t play against the Saints at all last season. So, the inexperience against Thomas may be of concern for a few. But, like Davis and Murphy-Bunting, his practicing against Evans, Godwin and even Justin Watson should be of great help in this matchup.

Dean has a good mix of what Carlton Davis and Muprhy-Bunting bring to the table.

He’s got the size and coverage skills of Davis. And he’s got the speed of SMB.

Dean allowed a 47.8% catch rate last season and a passer rating of just 76.5. Not bad at all given that he was a rookie and didn’t get injected into the rotation until halfway thru the season

It’s gonna be interesting to see how New Orleans tries to attack the left side of the field with Thomas if/when Dean is on the field seeing as there’s no obvious mismatch like there was the last two meetings.

New Orleans will constantly go for the physical mismatch. Against Dean, there’s not one present.

This is just bullying.

But this advantage is no more with the 6’1, 206lb Jamel Dean on the left side of the field.

Again…he’s just too big and too fast for Hargreaves. Not likely to be the case for Jamel Dean.

Of course, coverage skill matters most.

And, of course, another drag route crossing the middle of the field. The speed factor here can’t be ignored.

Thomas caught 30 of the 39 pass attempts over the short middle of the field last season. The long drag routes are a staple of his presence on the field.

Dean should be far more suited to keep up with Thomas from the left side of the field than previous defenders that held that spot.

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