The New Orleans Saints did just enough to come away with a 20-12 win over the visiting Chicago Bears Sunday, propelling themselves to the top of the NFC South. A fourth-quarter touchdown from Chicago running back Tarik Cohen brought the Bears within five points late in the contest, but rookie quarterback Mitch Trubisky and company failed to build on the momentum.
While fellow Bears running back Jordan Howard continued to impress on the ground, Trubisky struggled to get anything going through the air. He completed just 13-of-32 passes for 164 yards and one interception.
The Saints’ dynamic duo in the backfield, veteran Mark Ingram and rookie Alvin Kamara, put on a show in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The two combined for 175 total yards and two touchdowns on 35 touches.
New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees controlled the game with yet another mistake-free, consistent passing performance. He completed 23-of-28 passes for 299 yards against the Bears’ stingy secondary. With that, we give you our PFF exclusive takeaways from the contest for each team.
Top 5 Grades:
CB Ken Crawley, 87.9 overall grade
CB Marshon Lattimore, 85.8 overall grade
DI David Onyemata, 85.5 overall grade
DI Sheldon Rankins, 84.6 overall grade
LB A.J. Klein, 82.4 overall grade
Performances of Note:
QB Drew Brees, 80.0 overall grade
Brees only threw the ball 10 or more yards down the field six times against the Bears but he ran a master-class in executing a short-yardage passing attack, completing 19 of 21 passes that traveled fewer than 10 yards in the air (with one of those incompletions being a ball that was batted down at the line of scrimmage). Brees threw 25 of his 28 attempts without pressure in his face, he completed 21 of those passes with an average of 12.0 yards per attempt. This was an efficient afternoon for the veteran QB.
WR Michael Thomas, 80.8 overall grade
Thomas hauled in seven of eight targets and caught at least one pass while matched up against six different Bears defenders. Brees had a 106.8 passer rating when targeting the second-year receiver and four of his seven receptions resulted in a Saints first down.
CB Marshon Lattimore, 85.8 overall grade
A year ago the Saints defense looked lost and completely outmatched every game. Enter rookie first-round pick Lattimore and 2017 is a completely new story. Grading as the No. 1 CB in the NFL, Lattimore did nothing but improve upon that as Trubisky mostly avoided the shutdown corner except on two passes. The first of those two passes was batted away and the second was the game-clinching interception. One blemish on the game was missing a tackle on a QB scramble.
DI Sheldon Rankins, 84.6 overall grade
Another reason for the Saints defensive transformation is 2016 first-rounder Rankings playing up to his draft status. Playing 50 of the defenses 67 snaps, Rankins was a force on the interior and took advantage of the Bears offensive line injuries as he racked up five pressures including one QB hit. While recording just one tackle, Rankins was a solid contributor, forcing cuts and clogging running lanes.
Top 5 Grades:
S Adrian Amos, 85.9 overall grade
LB Danny Trevathan, 85.3 overall grade
S Eddie Jackson, 81.2 overall grade
DI Mitch Unrein, 79.4 overall grade
WR Tre McBride, 78.9 overall grade
Performances of Note:
QB Mitch Trubisky, 61.5 overall grade
With the Bears down early by multiple scores, Trubisky wasn't given the luxury of completing fewer than 10 passes in a victory and had to dropback 37 times against a vastly improved Saints defense. His best throw of the day was to Zach Miller on a corner route that Miller was unable to hold onto due to what is likely a season-ending injury. Trubisky faced pressure on almost half of his dropbacks and struggled mightily, completing just five of 15 attempts for 31 yards and an interception. The formula for the Bears to win is to have their top-five defense hold serve and Trubisky manage the game, and neither happened Sunday.
RG Tom Compton, 27.7 overall grade
The Bears offense struggled as a whole outside of a couple of nice Jordan Howard runs and the offensive line shoulders a lot of the blame. Devastated by injury to starters Kyle Long and Cody Whitehair, Compton stepped in at RG for Long and was roughed up by defensive tackles Sheldon Rankins and David Onyemata. While not giving up a sack, Compton surrendered one QB hit and three hurries while struggling in the run game as well.
S Adrian Amos, 85.9 overall grade
Amos allowed two catches into his coverage against New Orleans but the longest went for 0 yards while the other went for negative yards. He tallied one additional stop on the afternoon and made one of the biggest plays of the day, stripping Mark Ingram and recovering the fumble to give the Bears an opportunity to take the lead late in the fourth quarter.
LB Danny Trevathan, 85.3 overall grade
Trevathan had a solid, well-rounded game, scoring good grades in both run defense and pass coverage in Week 8. His 10 total solo tackles were double anyone else on Chicago's defense and six of them were stops, he also didn't miss a tackle for the fifth time this year.
PFF Game Ball: Marshon Lattimore, CB
*Grades are subject to change upon review
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