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Winners:
Christian Kirk: After missing a few games, Kirk was one of the lone bright spots in a struggling passing attack. In addition to the biggest rushing gain on the day, Kirk showed a connection with Kyler Murray on the scramble drills, being there for the QB as pressure disrupted the pocket.
Charles Clay: The other bright spot in the passing attack, Clay hauled in all 3 of his targets to lead the team with 88 receiving yards. Including a 47 yard gain for the biggest play of the day.
Zane Gonzalez: The only Redbird to score on the day, Gonzalez hit all 3 of his field goals, including a big 50 yard kick.
Losers:
The Defense: There were lots of individual struggles but I’ll just save you some time. Just about the entire unit was bad. Zone, man, press, off... it didn’t matter. The unit was picked apart by a QB with a bad throwing hand that was down his starting RB and TE. The linebackers and safeties especially were liabilities, a big problem given some of the bigger investments among those units.
The unit didn’t fare much better on the ground, whether getting blown off the ball or washed out by blocks, despite the aforementioned Alvin Kamara being out for the day the Saints ran for a total of 137 yards.
The Offensive Line: Like the defense, I could go into individual struggles **cough**theOTs**cough**, but I’ll just keep it to the entire group. After a good showing the past couple weeks, the line again struggled in both phases of the game, generating no room for RB Chase Edmonds and allowing 3 sacks on the day. That number could have been larger had Murray not scrambled away from pressures.
Chase Edmonds: No, the young RB isn’t a loser per se, but this is a big loss for an offense going into a short week already down it’s starting RB and struggling to find other weapons to utilize.
Steve Keim: It’s never a good thing when you run into a team (playoff caliber or not) and you’re completely outmatched at nearly every position on the board. This is a team that continues to have talent deficiencies and no depth to speak of. Yes, there’s some youth and inexperience to account for, but this team has a long way to go in a short amount of time before it can capitalize on a rookie QB contract and hang with the upper echelon of the NFL. Oh, and a deceiving cap space that’ll disappear quicker than you think.