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During a radio interview following the trade of Jimmy Graham, New Orleans Saints General manager Mickey Loomis said something that might have been telling.

While the rest of the world was busy wondering how the Saints were going to move the ball and score touchdowns and make their red-zone trips count without Graham, Loomis was busy shrugging off those concerns.

“Drew (Brees) has a way of throwing a lot of these guys open,” Loomis said.

It seem like forever ago that this offense operated without Graham on the roster, but there were four seasons when coach Sean Payton was designing offenses for Brees before the tight end was pulled out of the third round of the 2010 draft.

The Saints managed just fine. In fact, it could be argued New Orleans featured the best offense in the NFL from 2006-2010, finishing no lower than fifth in passing yards in any one season.


Read more: How losing Jimmy Graham might impact the Saints’ offense | Saints | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana

hagan714

That means guys like Brandin Cooks, Kenny Stills and Marques Colston will have to work harder to get open. They’ll see more safety help. Everything will be more difficult.

brace yourself the saints WR corp will be exposed for over hyped group they are. there is upside but they are not what the sports writer claim they are. run baby run. suck them safeties up and let Drew do what Drew does best: PLAY ACTION

solutions can be had in the draft. staying with the 13 pick
DeVante Parker - after Copper the next most polished WR in the draft

trade back a bit
Jaelen Strong - Outstanding feel on back shoulder throws

do not be surprised to see this addressed early in the draft

TE replacement? i do not see it till day three? but Drew will be able to step up in the pocket have a coffee and look over the field. something he has not had in what 2 or 3 years now

thanks Jimmy but protecting Drew and a running game out weighs all that you have to offer from this point on. best of luck

"We may have lost the game, but you'll be hurting tomorrow." Doug Atkins

dizzle88

Our WR's will have to step up no doubt

I think signing someone like CJ spiller as a sproles type back would add another dimension to our offense

New England originally showed the league how to shut down Jimmy Graham with Aqib Talib.

I'm not worried, I loved the trade at the time and I still love it now, we could do with another WR with that being said.

Mardigras9

Brandon Cooks anyone?

burningmetal

I'm not a fortune teller, but just on my gut feeling I don't see our receivers having a more difficult time getting open with the absence of Graham.

Rather than what some people are saying, that the wr's will see more attention thus forcing us to run more, I think without Jimmy, Drew will (at least I hope) go back to spreading the ball around more like he used to. You ever wondered how we were able to keep that same core of receivers around for what felt like about 15 years in this age of free agency? I'm thinking it's because other teams weren't convinced that they could succeed outside of our offense, so we didn't have to break the bank to keep them around.

And as we all remember, even without a Jimmy Graham type of attention magnet running in the middle of the field, we succeeded because we had a lot of quality, even if not star caliber, players who were unselfish and smart enough to fit perfectly into the system and our QB wasn't afraid to throw to any of them. It worked.

With Jimmy around, it always felt like drew was determined to get him "involved" instead of just playing in the flow of the game, and finding the open man.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

lee909

Made a trade in my salary cap dynasty league a few days back(pre FA) and traded Witten for Kenny Stills. Witten was costing me $44($1000 cap on a 50+man roster IDP) and Stills is $10. That could be a great move now

Rsanders24

While I agree that our WR's might still be able to get open...I still question Brees arm strength and deep accuracy at times. You can say what you want but even without pressure it was questionable at times and those windows to fit the ball in are going to be smaller for sure...

saintsfan1976

Defenses gave Drew fits by dropping 8 in coverage.

The majority of his INT's came with only 4 rushers.

Fix the O line. Run the ball effectively. Add 2 seconds for the WR's to get open and we'll be saying "Jimmy who?"

Rsanders24

I thought we ran the ball effectively last year...hence the Ingram love. We will never have a running game that scares any team into loading the box. We don't have a break away RB either. The test will be the o line and Brees ability to get the ball down the field accurately. That was a big part of our offensive success for 06-10.

darstep

Brees is fine when his feet are planted.
No one has to guess where Brees will be: 7 deep, dead center.
Someone said it earlier, our middle did not hold up, hence, pocket troubles.
Brees still threw for almost 5,000...AGAIN.
If we firm up the pocket, he's +5,000 again.
If Ingram maintains his 4.3 then that's just gravy.
What we go forward with won't be Jimmy Graham, but Payton will make it work.
Interchangeable TE's will just be 1 of the 5 options Brees will have on any given play.
If one TE emerges as a favorite, great.
Won't be Jimmy, but we will be OK.

**SaintSince67**