Saints LB Kikaha Tries to Shake Off Jitters Against Patriots
As the New Orleans Saints head into their second preseason game against the defending Super Bowl champs, the New England Patriots, there will be plenty of evaluations going on in many areas.
One of course being the whopping sixteen penalties the team garnered last week against the Baltimore Ravens but there is another area that needed vast improvement which is the pass rush.
The Saints barely made the Ravens quarterbacks uncomfortable in the pocket which lead to an easy opening drive for Baltimore and caused many Saints fans to mutter, “Here we go again.”
According to ProFootballFocus.com, the Saints ranked third from last in preseason games so far in the pass rush category just above the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams.
Aug 13, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (5) throws the ball in front of New Orleans Saints outside linebacker Hau
One defender that was tasked with helping bring some much needed heat along the front seven, linebacker Hau’oli Kikaha, didn’t have that impressive of a rookie debut.
Mind you he wasn’t completely terrible, but a lot of the hype leading up to the game was that the second round pick would surely get at least one sack during the game.
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But out of the 24 plays Kikaha was involved in, only six of those were where he was rushing the passer and the majority(13) of his snaps were involved against the run.
PFF graded Kikaha at -1.7 overall with the only other linebacker coming close to being that was David Hawthorne(-1.6) who ended up playing eight more snaps.
There were times during the game that Kikaha looked like he was going to make a play but seemed to hesitate for a second.
Following the game in an interview with NewOrleansSaints.com’s Sean Kelly, Kikaha was asked when the game started to slow down and he said, “I don’t know that it slowed down at all.”
He followed that with saying, “It (the game) was a bit faster than I anticipated…game speed is totally different.”
Jan 2, 2015; Tempe, AZ, USA; Washington Huskies linebacker Hau
For a player that garnered over thirty sacks in college, with most of those in just two years at Washington, the linebacker who played like his long mane of hair was on fire looked anything like that last Thursday.
Of course as any rookie, some adjust to the game speed faster than others and tossing all the hype aside, Kikaha is no different.
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The jitters that he experienced against the Ravens should be something that he can shake as the Patriots come to town this Saturday.
It also probably helped that the Saints practiced against their upcoming opponent for the last few days at The Greenbriar with live reps as compared to simply preparing off of old game film.
Kikaha did allude that the reason for the speed being a bit intense was the fact that although you get to practice against a quality offense like the Saints have in practice, it’s a bit different than facing someone else.
As the preseason rolls on, Kikaha should hopefully settle into his role on the defense and the game will begin to slow down for him.
The one trait that the Saints drafted him for was not just his speed, but his confidence at overcoming obstacles no matter the size…..
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