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After more than a decade of tearing teams to shreds through the air, the New Orleans Saints made a stunning change this season to their offense: They grounded their arsenal. The 2017 Saints are the most dominant rushing team in football, comfortably leading the league in yards gained by running backs. So the obvious solution for the Carolina Panthers in Sunday’s wild-card game is to stack the box with too many defenders for the Saints offensive line to block.

But this won’t happen. And here’s what makes the New Orleans offense something that previously existed only in a defensive coordinator’s night terror: Drew Brees is still one of the NFL’s most effective passers, even when he’s leading the game’s best rushing attack. To put it another way, the Saints are winning because of their running game, and the Saints running game is winning because of Brees.



Despite racking up more than 2,000 rushing yards by mostly Mark Ingram (1,124) and Alvin Kamara (728), the running backs and the team’s offensive line rarely had to account for eight or more defenders near the line of scrimmage. Saints’ opponents have been unwilling to commit to stopping the run — which is what you generally do against great running teams. To measure this fairly across the league, we first need to get rid of all the obvious pass or run scenarios based on down and distance or game situation.1 Looking at what’s left, the Saints faced stacked fronts of eight or more defenders on just 37 of their 172 rushing plays, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group — a rate of 21.5 percent that’s 25th in the league. The average for all NFL teams is 28 percent.


https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...espn:nfl:teams

homerj07

And... that's why you pay Drew. NOT some free agent pickup.

hagan714

saints stop playing games on the OL and dumped Rob with his hair brain request for players. That sums it up IMO

Indirectly DA being a coach has to get some credit. He is getting the most out of what he has. He knows the big picture from being an ex head coach.

AlaskaSaints

Looking forward to Drew one day calling his own plays.

SaintFanInATLHELL

He's effectively doing that now. Brees, Carmichael and Payton sit down and game plan during the week. It has been noted that Brees often completes the end of Payton's play calls. In addition virtually every play is a run/pass combo with a check with me by Brees on the line. When he calls "Kill! Kill!" that is an audible to the other play

So while he's not actually calling the play, with the amount of input into the game plan, and the versatility to audible at the LOS, he may as well be.

SFIAH

AlaskaSaints

Not buying it. Too many 2nd and 8's on an obvious first-round run play up the middle.

44Champs

Drew still finished #4 in passing yards during the regular season withe 4,300+ yards. It's not like he's Brad Johnson or Trent Dilfer.

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