Payton and Brees, стр. 50
“He is a tremendous foot athlete,” former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer said. “He extends plays, but he extends them in the pocket. He’s not a spin out of tackles, scramble, run around type guy. He has subtle little movements, bounce around, make guys miss in the pocket, went a little bit to his left and threw an accurate ball.”
Brees’ movement skills in the pocket are a big reason he’s taken fewer than 1.5 sacks per game during his NFL career, well below the league average.
“He’s more athletic than people think,” Carmichael said. “What you see with him moving in the pocket is athletic. Plus, he’s very aware. He knows when he’s short in protection and what he has to do, whether it’s get the ball out quickly or climb the pocket. He has great awareness.”
Brees uses his athleticism in many ways, but primarily to avoid sacks and buy time in the pocket to extend plays. Staying “on schedule” during an offensive possession is one of his great strengths as a quarterback. He prides himself on avoiding negative plays and has focused on that aspect of quarterback play in recent years. It goes back to Parcells’ Commandments of Quarterback play. VII: Throwing the ball away is a good play. Sacks, interceptions, and fumbles are bad plays. Protect against those. And like so many things Brees does, it doesn’t show up in box score.
“I’ve always had a goal that I want to continue to get better each and every year,” Brees said. “Sometimes you can’t always measure that. But the thing that’s tough about our position is there’s—if a guy breaks free, and I scramble and throw the ball away and avoid a sack, well, how does that show up on the stat sheet? It shows up 0-for-1 as an incomplete pass, so that could be deemed as a bad thing. But, in fact, that was a good thing. You avoided a negative play. You threw the ball away. You gave your friends a chance to be in a better situation, so there are certain things that stats don’t always show in terms of your true production.”
Because he stands only 6´0˝ tall, Brees often can’t see over his taller teammates on the offensive line. He has learned to adapt. He scans the field through windows between players and has learned to anticipate and gauge the speed and location of his receivers the same way you would see a car driving along the street through the windows at your office.
“I stood there behind the Saints on the field for three days at training camp asking myself, ‘How does this guy do this?’” Jon Gruden said of his time visiting Saints training camp as an NFL analyst for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. “I stand back there. I can’t see two feet beyond the line of scrimmage. He can throw sidearm. He can throw off his back foot. He can reset [his feet] and throw—and when the ball comes out of his hand it is quick. He is a way better athlete than people realize. He is a phenomenal, gifted, talented athlete.”
16. Trust and Confidence
If you asked Drew Brees how he has the fearlessness to throw blindly to players he can’t see, his answer would be simple: trust and confidence. Brees repeats the phrase often. The trust and confidence Brees has nurtured in the system have been two of the biggest keys to the New Orleans Saints’ offensive success in the Payton-Brees era.
Because the scheme relies so much on timing and Brees’ historic accuracy, every detail of the passing attack—alignment, motion, formation, and personnel grouping—is evaluated, tested, and considered before being included in the game plan. This places the onus on the Saints receivers to be precise in their alignments and routes so Brees can pull the trigger with confidence when the bullets are flying. Payton calls it “painting the picture for the quarterback,” and the Saints are uncompromising in the standards they set for their receivers and other skill players.
“When I drop back to pass, I have this vision according to the coverage on where everybody’s supposed to be,” Brees said. “In many cases, as a quarterback, you have to throw the ball with trust and anticipation to spots based upon coverage and what it looks like and anticipate the guys are going to be there.”
To that end, a poster hangs in the team’s wide receivers meeting room that reads: You must be a detailed player at a detailed position. At perhaps no other position other than quarterback in the Saints offense is attention to detail as important as it is at wide receiver.
Emmanuel Butler learned the importance of attention to detail early in his Saints tenure. During a team drill at a minicamp practice in June 2019, the rookie wide receiver broke the huddle and aligned in his split to the right of the formation, inside the numbers. Except he wasn’t three yards inside the numbers, as he was supposed to be. He was two and a half yards inside the numbers.
Payton immediately stopped practice, strutted to Butler’s spot, pulled his visor from his head, and tossed it on to the ground.
“This is where I want you,” Payton barked, pointing at his visor. “This is where you’re supposed to be.”
The dressing-down was an eye-opener for Butler. Details were important at Northern Arizona University, where Butler played his college ball. But players could get away with an inexact alignment or pass route here or there. He quickly learned that wouldn’t fly with the Saints.
“In the NFL, it’s not happening,” Butler said. “If you’re too short, it’s a pick or it’s an incomplete pass. If you’re not where you’re supposed to be, then something’s getting thrown off, something’s going bad. The details of the game are so important. Drew, Sean, and my receivers coaches have taught me that.”
A meager half yard can change the outcome