Both the New Orleans Saints’ and Indianapolis Colts’ defenses believe that pressure on the quarterback is the key to success. Both defenses are also led by terrific defensive ends, the Colts’ Dwight Freeney and the Saints’ Will Smith, in their quest to put opposing gunslingers onto their backs.

Judging which team will bring the most effective defensive line and linebackers into the Super Bowl will go a long way in deciding the your best Super Bowl XLIV 2010 Betting angle.

The front seven unit will not only need pressure the quarterback but also stop the opposing team’s running game. This group of defensive linemen and linebackers will also be looked at to force turnovers and make big plays on third downs.

The biggest question to answer will be, is there one front seven unit that is so significantly better than the other that it will change the outcome of your Super Bowl betting selection?

I’ll try to answer those questions.

Super Bowl: Defensive Lines & Linebackers

New Orleans Saints: Front Seven

The most important stat in regards to a team’s front seven is sacks. It tells us that a team can get to the quarterback and that they can put the quarterback onto the ground. However, pressuring the quarterback without sacks can be just as important. Defensive end Will Smith for New Orleans Saints had 13 sacks during the regular season. A lot of that had to do with the fact that teams found it difficult to double-team Smith because on the other end was Charles Grant. Grant was hurt in the Saints’ final regular season game against the Carolina Panthers. He has since been placed on injured reserve.


Without Grant at the other end, Smith’s effectiveness during the playoffs has waned. He’s been double-teamed often and has found it difficult to get to the quarterback. Knowing this, the Saints’ coaching staff used stunts with their interior linemen and their safeties and linebackers off of the edge in order to get to Brett Favre in the NFC Championship game. Favre did a good job escaping sacks but he did end up hurrying a couple of throws that led to two interceptions.

Favre’s two interceptions were a key reason the Saints won the game. The Vikings were in a position to score both times before Favre tossed the picks. The Saints are +6 in the turnover department this post-season. As important as it is to sack the quarterback, New Orleans’ game plan, since Grant went down, has been to force quarterbacks into making bad decisions. It worked like a charm in the NFC Championship Game.

Causing a quarterback to make bad decisions with pressure, however, isn’t the only skill that the Saints’ front seven has. The Saints’ starting linebackers, Scott Shanle, Scott Fujita and Jonathan Vilma, are exceptionally fast. This is especially true in regards to Jonathan Vilma who often times will cover either the opposing team’s best running back out of the backfield or the opposing team’s tight end. This is a significant point to make as the Colts, no doubt, will be looking to free up Dallas Clark down the middle.

How will Vilma do covering Clark? It all depends on Vilma’s reaction to the play-action fake. Because the Saints’ rush defense is terrible, Vilma often times will bite on the play-action fake. The Saints have allowed 266 yards to be rushed against them in the post-season. Wouldn’t you bite on the fake in the Super Bowl if you were Jonathan Vilma? Luckily for Vilma and New Orleans, the Colts are ranked 31st in the league in rushing. The Saints may try to stop the Colts rush without bringing up a safety. That could be a gamble that could lead to disaster depending on how the Colts react to it.
Indianapolis Colts: Front Seven
The Colts’ front seven is led by defensive end Dwight Freeney. Freeney had 13 ½ sacks during the regular season. He hasn’t recorded a sack during the post-season, but that could be because like Smith with the Saints, Freeney has been facing double-teams.
Unlike the Saints, however, the Indianapolis Colts have a guy on the other end in Gary Brackett who can pick up the slack. Brackett only has a single sack during the post-season but he does have 13 combined total tackles. That’s one of the reasons the Colts have only allowed 173 rushing yards against them. Brackett, along with outside linebacker Clint Sessions and fellow D-lineman Daniel Muir, have combined for 36 tackles in 2 games. That’s more than a quarter of all of the Colts’ tackles in the post-season.
But there is a flip side to the Colts’ terrific ability to stop the run. With Brackett, Sessions and Muir concentrating on stopping the run, teams have been able to pass against them. The Colts’ have allowed 485 passing yards against them in the post-season and a 7.4 average. That’s significantly lower than what the Saints allowed but the Saints played against Kurt Warner and Brett Favre while the Colts played against Mark Sanchez and Baltimore’s Joe Flacco.
Why is that significant? Because the Colts are only +3 in the turnover department and would be +1 if two turnovers that the Ravens had caused hadn’t been wiped out because of penalties. The lack of turnovers and the fact that the Colts front seven has produced only 1 sack in the post-season means that they didn’t pressure the quarterback very well in their two playoff victories.
Edge: New Orleans Saints
The Saints may give up a lot of yards but they make up for it by causing turnovers. It’s a gambling philosophy that has worked well for them so far in the playoffs. The Colts didn’t sack or pressure Flacco or Sanchez all that well. Now their front seven must face Drew Brees and the Saints while the Saints’ front seven has every right to feel confident based on the fact that the Ravens caused Peyton Manning to toss 1 legitimate interception and 2 that were overturned.
Significant Enough Edge to Warrant a Wager? Maybe, the key is to predict whether or not the Saints’ gambling philosophy with their linebackers and defensive line will cause turnovers. If sports gamblers believe that it will, then, absolutely the Saints’ deserve to be bet at +5 ½ but if not, then it makes sense to look for more significant differences between these two teams before making a wager.

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