SaintsBro

Well...sorry for the tl;dr here, but I said this a day or two ago, buried at the end of a thread about Mark Ingram that was already kinda dying or dead horse, but it's kind of on the same subject as this really.

I have been watching how people this year are saying up in New England, there's this whole thing going on up there this year, like OMG THE PATRIOTS ARE SUDDENLY A RUNNING TEAM, LOOK AT THE PATRIOTS RUN THE BALL, JUST WHEN THE WHOLE LEAGUE GOES "PASS HAPPY" THE PATRIOTS START RUNNING THE ROCK AGAIN, THE GENIUS OF BELLICHICK, HE'S DONE IT AGAIN, etc. etc. Like this is a story line that is about to happen, or is happening.

Payton and Bellichick are extremely similar mentally, the whole chess match part of it, and they have the same approach to innovations in the game (for example, they seem to have simultaneously re-invented the concept of the freakishly tall and superhuman tight end, at almost the same exact moment). They think alike. And Bellichick is now running all over these defenses up East, that are coming to the game freaked out about stopping Brady and the Patriots passing attack, right now.

And I find myself wondering if Payton might have had something like that in mind, up his sleeve, when he re-upped Pierre's contract and brought Ingram and then Grubbs in. As an evolution to Payton's game, or the NEXT thing the Saints were gonna do, once Drew was locked in long-term and had broken every passing record in sight.

Figuring that once people (especially division teams) adjusted their defenses to our ABSURDLY PROLIFIC passing attack, I wonder if Payton was gonna hit them with the change up -- suddenly when the defenses in our division are literally being BUILT and coordinators being hired to stop our RIDONKULOUS passing game, the Saints would morph and become a power running team, heavy running, with the ever-present threat of burning you with the pass...as some other people have said in various "run the damn ball" threads, the Payton/Carmichael/Brees offense is almost TOO GOOD, and now we need to learn to burn more clock, to keep our perennially crappy defense OFF the field a little more....

But then I feel like maybe Payton didn't get to implement or finish this idea before he left, so he just sorta tabled the whole thing until next year. And now we're sort of stuck in this limbo, with (a) the weird 2 yard running play for Ingram that goes nowhere and doesn't work, and (b) what looks like the same exact offensive playbook from the record passing streak late last year. But this CAN'T be what Payton had in mind, can it?

I dunno, this is all just a pet theory of mine. But the Grubbs-for-Nicks thing really made me wonder. Because talking to some Baltimore fans I know, Grubbs was sort of known in Baltimore for opening gaping holes for Ray Rice, the team was riding Grubbs' run blocks all the way deep into the playoffs, year after year. You lose a great passing blocker to free agency and bring in a great running blocker in his place. Makes me wonder.