Since Sean Payton has taken over as HC for the Saints (2006) and of course Drew Brees at QB, the Saints have never finished lower than 6th in total offensive yardage in any season (even during Payton’s suspension). This includes 4 1st place finishes. In that time, they’ve had exactly one 1,000 yard rusher (Duece McAllister in 2006 – 1047). If NFL historians are looking for a place/reason for why the bellcow NFL RB has gone the way of the do-do, you need look no further than New Orleans.
Payton has always preferred to divide his RB’s (even WR’s) situationally versus by workload. What many people forget is that Darren Sproles averaged only 7 touches/game his final three seasons in SD (153 receptions). Payton upped that to 9.5 largely by making Sproles a WR who took his formation from the RB position (232 receptions) and caught passes around the LOS. As it applies to this years group though, with Sproles gone to PHI, who takes over that role? That’s one question to be answered by the Saints offense. The other is how the Saints can revamp a WR corps that looked old last year. When New Orleans lost the Beast Quake Game in 2010…it was shocking. But last year, by scoring 15 points in SEA…it felt like this was an offense that could no longer count on being able to put up points against anyone. Their 414 points scored was low by their standards and while some of that was due to the fact that they had a legitimate defense that didn’t force them to always be putting up 30-35 points/game, I think last year was a year of transition for the Saints offense.
1) They brought back a clearly diminished Robert Meachem to log 401 snaps for them.
2) 5th round rookie Kenny Stills logged 708 snaps.
3) New starting LT, Charles Brown fared poorly in replacing Jermon Bushrod and talented but raw rookie Terron Armstead wasn’t quite ready for prime time. Brown was allowed to leave in FA.
4) Personal opinion: I thought Darren Sproles had lost a half a step.
5) Lastly…Sean Payton was re-acclimating himself to being an NFL HC.
I don’t know if there are a lot of people sleeping on the Saints because they are always seen as an offensive juggernaut. But I can see the type of F-U type season coming from them knowing that the Panthers may come back to the pack and the Falcons and Bucs have their own issues.
Drew Brees – In 2011, Brees broke the single season passing yardage mark. He did it against the Falcons in a game the Saints ultimately won 45-16. When it was 38-16, the Falcons on their own 33 went for a 4th & 1…the type of thing you do when you’re down by 22 with 5 minutes to go in the game. They didn’t get it and when the Saints took over, Brees went ¾ for 32 yards and got the record on a TD pass. It was an F-U move to division rival and one that if the Falcons wanted to return the F-U, they should have fought harder. The moral of the story is that I’ve always thought the Saints and Brees were at their best when they were playing F-U football. And last year, their defense started to play F-U football. And for as much as you can say a 5000/39 season was understated, I felt Brees was a little more stoppable that usual last year. You stop Brees and you stop the Saints.
In losses
61.8% Completion Rate
6.4 YPA
7/7 TD:INT ratio
If you look at Jimmy Graham’s splits in losses, you’ll also see a significantly diminished stat line for him too. But in short, outside of Graham…the Saints really struggled to find other consistent targets. Brees made the most of what he had, but by seasons end, he nor Payton had a real answer. If we are being fair, aside of Graham, Brees has never had elite talent to work with at the receiver position. Colston has been the best he’s had and he’s a great dependable big target who is more a product of Brees and the Saints system than an elite talent. But with Stills having another year to develop, the Saints appear to like Nick Toon as a guy who can make a bit of a jump this year and their excitement about Brandin Cooks immediate impact seems genuine, I am very bullish on Brees having one of his best seasons ever, perhaps the type to punctuate a Hall-of-Fame career.
Pierre Thomas - Very quietly, Thomas put up one of his best seasons as a pro last year. His 77 receptions were a career high and as the season wore on, it felt like Payton felt more comfortable with Thomas in the game than Sproles due in part to Thomas being able to provide a little bit of a physical presence in the run game too. In the seasons final 5 regular season games, Sproles only played 119 snaps (to Thomas’ 163). The issue for Thomas has always been durability and one of his heaviest workload seasons wound up costing the Saints as come playoff time, Thomas was sidelined. Thomas is a player whose best and most predictably available when you limit his touches to 9-10/game. He has value in that role and with the talent the Saints have at RB, they should be in a position to not overwork him as he becomes more of a passing down RB, jack-of-all trades type.
Mark Ingram/Khiry Robinson – Alright. No looking. What was Mark Ingram’s YPC last season?
I was shocked to learn that it was 4.9! So the interesting thing about this draft season is that while Khiry Robinson’s draft stock has skyrocketed (RB41) based off 13 playoff carries where no doubt, he looked like a bull in a china shop…Ingram, who finally started to look like the 1st round RB he was drafted to be last season, has cratered at RB54 behind Knile Davis and two guys with career threatening neck injuries (Ahmad Bradshaw and David Wilson). I know…nobody is ever falling for Ingram’s ‘boy who cried wolf’ pre-season hype again where he was invariably overdrafted because no one ever seemed to believe Sean Payton when he promised to get/give work to all his RB’s. Now I’m not saying jump on board the Ingram bandwagon. But I probably am saying WhyTF is there a Khiry Robinson one? Ingram finally showed that he could run hard and effectively at the NFL level. His PFF Elusive Rating was 79.4 (very good). A lot was made of the Saints decision to not pick up the final year on Ingram’s rookie contract, but given the fact that the Saints don’t use workhorse RB’s and RB’s aren’t worth the $5.2M it would have costs the Saints, this wasn’t a surprise. Especially given their current and future cap situation. Yes, Ingram’s workload was significantly less than in previous seasons. But at the end of the day, when I look at Robinson’s draft stock at the moment, it feels like people are making the same mistake with it they’ve made with Ingram’s the last 2 years. Ingram will be a useful piece for the Saints this year and I suspect Robinson will as well. Together, they’ll kill each others FF ceiling but since Ingram is being drafted sooooo low, it’s Ingram who is the much better value bet.
Jimmy Graham – The worst thing that happened to Graham last year was playing New England. In that game, Belichick stuck Aqib Talib on him and effectively shut him down. Through the seasons first five games, Graham’s per game averages were:
7.4 Receptions
118.6 Receiving Yards
1.2 TD’s.
Understanding he was dealing with a foot injury as well, the remainder of the season, Graham averaged:
4.5 Receptions
56.6 Receiving Yards
.9 TD’s
No doubt he was hobbled, but Belichick found a ***** in Graham’s armor IMO. It’s telling that in two games against SEA, a team known for its’ big DB’s and physical play, Graham put up a paltry 4/50/1 line. With that said, not every team has a Belichick or Talib or Richard Sherman/Kam Chancellor/Earl Thomas/Bobby Wagner/etc…by which to throttle Graham. The good news for Graham is that on the surface, it looks like a lot of the teams won’t have the resources by which to really stop him from being dominant. Now he and the Saints will run into some turbulence during the seasons 2nd half as their schedule gets tougher from a defenses faced perspective. But the comment I’ll make about Graham is that I think 2013 may have been his ceiling. Graham averaged 10.8 targets/game during that first 5 game stretch with a 68.5% catch rate. That’s a good catch rate for a TE, but for one averaging 16 YPR…? Wow! Those last 11 games? 7.6 targets with a 58.3% catch rate. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle as far as what to expect from Graham. That's not to say his overall production will take a hit. I just think that he'll be more consistent in getting to his final numbers which means that the HUGE games he had at the beginning of the season won't happen as much.
Marques Colston – Colston has become a very boring FF player. Noone ever seems terribly excited to draft him. For such an explosive offense, he has quite a few non-descript games. Never a speed merchant his diminishing speed makes him seem that much less exciting for FFers. His longest reception last year was 35 yards. And yet his final 8 games, he put up 48/601/4. His foot issues are chronic. Statements of feeling good only mean something for that day. But once he got over his knee/foot issues last year, he was the same dependable guy in the Saints offense where Drew Brees is noted for distributing the ball around to marginal resources liberally. If the Saints can truly establish Brandin Cooks during the early part of the season, Colston will make a nice living ably helping the Saints move the ball down the field and catching his share of TD’s which promise to be plentiful.
Brandin Cooks – Granted that if there’s a team a young WR wants to wind up with, it’s New Orleans. But Cooks really hit the jackpot because his skillset is exactly what the Saints are looking for to bolster their aerial attack. As I mentioned above, I thought Sproles lost half a step last year. What made him so dangerous in the past was his lightning quicks and it wasn’t that he was slow, but teams were better able to deal with what he did for the Saints last year than ever before. Part of that was because Sproles always caught his passes at the LOS. In 232 receptions with the Saints he had 57 non-YAC. That means he caught his passes an average of 8.8 inches away from the LOS. Cooks is going to help the Saints attack down the field. If defenses bring up another defender, Cooks can dart in those passing lanes or split the seam and help with the big play aspect of the Saints offense while allowing them to also be the beneficiary of a speed merchant type player. I’m not going to predict the moon for Cooks in terms of production. But in terms of offensive philosophy, this changes the Saints much more dramatically than you may realize. It will help open up the power run game if they hit on a few early plays to Cooks.
Kenny Stills – With the exception of Keenan Allen, it’s possible that Stills turned in the best rookie season for a WR in 2013. Not bad for the16th WR taken. Certainly he became the deep threat in the Saints attack (6 of his 32 receptions came when the ball traveled 20+ yards). Brees completed 27 of these passes in 2013 so to catch 22.2% of them (compared with 6.2% of Brees passes 20 yards or less) showed that Brees developed some early faith in him. With the Saints now having two sub 4.4 guys, it’s clear that Payton hopes to put defenses back on their heels a bit in having to deal with the Saints upgrade in speed what with the jettisoning of Sproles and Lance Moore. Whether Stills can develop some of the route running capabilities that would make him more effective in the short-to-intermediate game remains to be seen. Payton seemingly has liked to exploit the special talents of his players…sort of a good to great methodology versus trying to get them to concentrate on developing more well-rounded skillsets. If that’s the case, Stills will have his consistency greatly limited but could showcase some hue outbursts here and there.
Predictions:
Brees – 442 Completions 661 Attempts 5360 Passing Yards 43 TD’s 13 INT’s; 29 Rushes 41 Rushing yards 1 TD.
Thomas – 93 Rushes 387 Rushing Yards 2 TD’s; 89 Receptions 606 Receiving Yards 3 TD’s
Ingram - 161 Rushes 711 Rushing Yards, 7 TD’s. 10 Receptions 45 Receiving Yards
Robinson – 152 Rushes 693 Rushing Yard 5 TD’s; 3 Receptions 8 Yards.
Graham – 92 Receptions 1296 Receiving Yards 12 TD’s
Colston – 87 Receptions 1110 Receiving Yards 8 TD’s
Cooks – 67 Receptions, 985 Receiving Yards 6 TD’s.
Stills – 42 Receptions, 743 Receiving Yards 7 TD’s.
Watson – 15 Receptions, 104 Receiving Yards, 4 TD’s.
Toon – 27 Receptions, 321 Receiving Yards, 3 TD’s.
