SmashMouth

One of the strange ironies of this bizarre 2017 season is that the Saints look like one of the best teams in the league in a year in which Drew Brees is shouldering less of the workload than ever before. New Orleans scored 47 points during Sunday's blowout win in Buffalo, and Brees threw for just 184 yards without any passing touchdowns, instead chipping in with an almost sheepish scramble for a score. In each of the Saints' two 40-plus point outbursts against the Bills and Lions, Brees has failed to make it to 200 yards passing.

The Saints have certainly been more balanced, and while some of that is by virtue of running to eat up the clock while ahead in the fourth quarter, New Orleans has also genuinely run the ball more frequently in closer situations. My favorite measure of what a team wants to do on offense is looking at its run-pass choices on first-and-10 while the game is within 14 points. Over the previous three seasons, the Saints ran the ball 46.4 percent of the time on those first-and-10 plays, which was 30th in the league in run percentage. This year, though, the Saints are at 54.8 percent, which is 13th. Their first-half run percentage is up from 36.8 percent to 42.8 percent. It's not solely the six-minute drill.

When Brees does throw, the Saints are making it as easy as possible. The future Hall of Famer is being pressured on just 16.2 percent of his dropbacks, the lowest rate of his career. On Sunday, the Bills bothered him only 11.5 percent of the time, with Brees routinely having time to cycle through his reads and scramble before finding an open receiver.

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