Payton and Brees, стр. 39
“Sean loves that because he’s such a football nerd,” Saints wide receiver Austin Carr told NBC Sports’ Peter King in 2018. “He’s the football equivalent of a coder.”
Carr is a role player in the Saints offense. His main role is blocking in the running game, which explains why he caught a total of 10 passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns in the 21 games he played during his first three seasons. But that didn’t stop Payton from calling his number for a couple of touchdowns in the 2018 season. Both scores exemplified Payton’s ingenious play-calling.
Because Carr is an excellent blocker, the Saints use him on many running plays, both to give Mike Thomas a breather and to take advantage of Carr’s physicality on the perimeter. Entering the Saints’ Week 12 game against the Atlanta Falcons, Payton noticed on film that teams were overplaying the run when Carr entered the game, essentially ignoring him as a receiver. So he installed a play against the Falcons on Thanksgiving night to take advantage of it.
Payton planned to use the play in the red zone, so when the Saints approached the Falcons 20-yard line late in the first half, he set the hook. Carr was inserted into the lineup on a second-and-5 play and the Saints ran the ball with Mark Ingram.
When they reached the red zone two plays later, they used the same formation and personnel grouping, but this time, Carr slipped off his block and popped free into the right flat. Brees hit him for an easy 12-yard touchdown. No Falcons defender was within 10 yards of Carr. Another touchdown pass that Connor Payton could have thrown.
“That score was set up with the previous four or five weeks of play-calling,” Carr said. “We had run that play tons of times with the same personnel grouping. If you ask someone a question and you know what answer they’re going to give you, then you already have your response, right? That’s why he’s special as a play-caller.”
Intel also contributed to Carr’s score. The Saints took advantage of inexperienced Falcons safety Sharrod Neasman on the play. Neasman was a former undrafted rookie free agent who was thrust into a starting role because of injuries to Keanu Neal and Ricardo Neal earlier in the season. The Saints were familiar with Neasman from the time they had him in training camp earlier that season and knew some of his tendencies. Later in the Thanksgiving night game, Brees picked on Neasman again, hitting Arnold in single coverage against him for a 25-yard touchdown pass.
The aggressive way Payton targeted defensive weaknesses reminded former Saints wide receiver Devery Henderson of how Nick Saban would attack offenses during his coaching tenure at LSU.
“Sean Payton is a great play-caller and he sees the game through the eyes of a quarterback,” Gannon said. “He likes to keep his foot on the throttle and continue to keep the pressure on the defense throughout the course of the game.”
The former quarterback in Payton understands and appreciates the competitive mindset of his players. He knows the best way to keep his skill players invested in the plan is to get them the ball. And as the play-caller, he tries to call the number of as many players as possible early during a game.
Consequently, the Saints have rarely had players publicly complain about their usage or number of targets. The notable exception was Brandin Cooks, who openly expressed his frustrations about not being targeted enough in 2016. Not surprisingly, the Saints traded Cooks to the New England Patriots a year later.
“What’s remarkable is how well Sean and Drew can manage those personalities through the game plan by putting them in situations where they can be successful,” McCown said. “When you’re shuffling personnel as much as Sean does, the genius of organizing a game plan that balances the goal of helping the team win and attacking the defense while also managing personalities and making everybody happy is beyond impressive. The amount of time that both of them put into the offensive game plan and managing people and scheming to get the ball to guys early in the game and keep them involved for that offense that really take their offensive genius to another level.”
Brees makes a conscious effort to keep everyone involved. He regularly completes at least one pass to every skill position player on the active roster in a game. He rarely plays a game when he doesn’t at least target every offensive weapon at his disposal.
In 2018, Drew Brees set an NFL record by throwing touchdown passes to 15 different players including the regular season and postseason. Of those 15 players, nine were former undrafted free agents: Arnold, Carr, Kirkwood, Lewis, Meredith, Garrett Griffin, Zach Line, and both Hills, Josh and Taysom. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team has had nine undrafted players catch touchdown passes since the draft came into existence in 1936.
“I think that’s what makes Drew so great, is it doesn’t matter who you are or where you went to school or if you’re a first-round pick or undrafted. If you get open, he’s gonna get you the ball,” Griffin said.
Griffin is a perfect example of Brees and Payton’s “if-you’re-open” passing philosophy. The tight end from Air Force spent the entire 2018 regular season on the practice squad and was activated for the playoffs. The five-yard touchdown pass he caught from Brees in the NFC Championship Game remains the only touchdown catch of his career.
“If you look over the course of the [2018] season, some of the guys who have had touchdowns, it’s like people had never even heard of them before,” Griffin said. “I think that’s what kind of makes Drew special.”
This share-the-wealth approach by