Why Saints’ Sean Payton Gives Life to a Dead Position

In a Week 14 meeting against the Dallas Cowboys in 2006, the New Orleans Saints were at the height of their powers with the offensive mind of head coach Sean Payton.

Drew Brees was a known commodity in San Diego a few years before landing in New Orleans, but he had never quite aired it out this good. This wasn’t even the same Saints team as a year ago that was the doormat to the rest of the league. This team would ride a meteoric rise to power all the way to the NFC Championship game in one of the most drastic team turnarounds in NFL history.

Against the Cowboys, the Saints found themselves on their second prime-time game of the year on Sunday Night Football, their first being the Superdome’s reopening on Monday Night Football against the Atlanta Falcons, a game you may remember.

But that was Week 3, by then the season was young and nobody knew what to make of these young Saints. By Week 14, they had been established as an offensive juggernaut because of their field general QB and mad scientist head coach Sean Payton.

This, in many ways, was the coming out party to the Sean Payton era. The Saints have historically played very well in prime-time games under Payton, but this was the first time people outside of New Orleans were getting to see him break out the toys.

In the second quarter, the Saints found themselves just outside the Cowboys end zone down 7. In a run formation, Brees turned around and quickly handed the ball off to the fullback Mike Karney who plunged his way into the teeth of a surprised defense and in for the score.

Payton had performed a miracle. He had turned water into wine, Mike Karney into touchdowns, and seemingly brought the fullback back to life.

The audience loved it, and for good reason. The fullback had become a bit of a novelty in the NFL of 2006, and come off as an ancient relic a decade later. Most teams don’t even carry a fullback on the roster, and the well-known ones are often only known because they’re viable in the passing game (not typically what a fullback is known for) or because they’re funny looking and are known to bust a move after a score.

Even in 2006, it got a laugh from the audience. “Good for that guy! Now he can tell his kids he scored an NFL touchdown!”

But then, it happened again.

Karney found pay dirt yet again, catching a 3-yard pass from Brees.  It had been a while since the fullback stole the spotlight, and when Karney scored for a second time, people went nuts. “This guy is having the best day of his life!”

But then, it happened again.

And the novelty gave way to feelings of “Huh. So this Sean Payton is like, an offensive genius?”

Payton had performed a miracle. He had turned water into wine, Mike Karney into touchdowns, and seemingly brought the fullback back to life.

The Mike Karney hype train was short-lived. He scored only seven career touchdowns in his entire career, three of which coming in that game against the Cowboys. And such began the decade-long trend of Sean Payton easily replacing players and having countless players come out of nowhere to steal the show. But Payton was not done using the fullback, which would become a staple of his offense to this day.

It’s really no surprise that the fullback is nearly extinct.  The passing game has never been more important and seen at such high volumes, with more 4,000-yard passers than ever before, and that number on the rise.  As such, it has become increasingly discouraged to run the ball as a primary means of movement, and using an inferior athlete to help out in the running game feels backwards when it telegraphs the offense and often doesn’t really help on a per-carry basis.

Running the ball seems like a bunch of linemen slamming into each other and the running back doing the rest to the untrained eye, but so much goes into every running play.  Having yet another player whose assignment adapts with the defense does within seconds of the ball snapping can make things muddled. Couple this with the fact that a lot of teams run out of the shotgun, pistol, or single-back formations due to flexibility, and it becomes cumbersome to even carry one on the roster.

Going even further still, recent breakthroughs and discovery in the treatment of head injuries has made the position as undesirable as ever. Today, we know that even the occasional ‘thwack’ to the back of the head can prove damaging, so the prospect of repeatedly slamming ones self head on into a defender with no concrete plan in place is less than appealing for all parties involved. They say it takes a special type of person to play fullback, and with the collective sobering of athletes everywhere, those people are getting harder and harder to find.

Gone are the days of Mike Alstott and Lorenzo Neal. The fullbacks of today are stuck between a primitive era of football and one that is trying to adapt to a changing landscape and failing. We’re even years remove from guys like Vontae Leach. Remember him?

So why in this day and age has Sean Payton, a confirmed offensive genius and progressive coach, become so fixated on this position?

There have been many under the Payton regime. Austin Johnson held down the job for the last few years. The team tried to upgrade the position by getting Erik Lorig, who was supposed to be more involved in the passing game, but nothing really worked for him. Fans will always fondly remember Jed “the sled” Collins for being probably the best all around fullback the Saints have had.

Collins caught four touchdowns in three years in New Orleans and rushed for three more. Fantasy football owners of Mark Ingram bemoaned the decision to hand it off to Collins on the goal line. A fantasy player’s nightmare, but it made great sense from a football perspective. Still, Collins never became an offensive mainstay, never topping 14 receptions in an entire season.

So, again: What’s the point?

By carrying a fullback that only sees time as a part-time player, it’s taking away a spot from another defensive back that tend to drop like flies or maybe a player that can add value in the return game.

To find an answer, it’s a safe bet to look at the usage of the fullbacks the Saints have had.

Remember earlier the nugget that Jed Collins never had more than 14 receptions in a season? First-team All-Pro Mike Tolbert, who has a reputation as a multi-faceted talent, had 18 in 2015. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the Saints’ fullbacks outpace the rest of the league in terms of targets and receptions.

But still, that offensive production only amounts to about two touchdowns a year and never more than 100 yards.

But then, what about the actual blocking, the original design of the fullback? Therein must be the value, opening up holes for running backs.

The truth is a bit muddled. When the Saints had Jed Collins from 2011 through 2013 (I use Collins as the standard because Erik Lorig never amounted to anything and Austin Johnson has been too hobbled and platooned with Lorig to get an accurate assessment) they placed 4th, 13th, and 26th in yards per carry as a team. And that 2011 number is largely inflated due to the absolutely legendary year by Darren Sproles, who maintained a very nice 6.9 yards per carry. 4th in the league is tough to maintain but with Ingram growing as a player, it shouldn’t have had the drop-off it did.

It should be noted that in 2012 and 2013 (Data not available for 2011) Collins played 29 percent and 39 percent of the total offensive snaps respectively.  So, the year Collins played the most, the Saints rushed the least efficiently purely by the numbers. The eye test doesn’t do a whole lot to fight this point, as Collins wasn’t very impressive or notable on a lot of big runs.

So, if carrying a fullback hasn’t paid off in the passing numbers, and the rushing game has almost suffered as a result of using one, then what could possibly be the allure?

The theory I have subscribed to is simply this: Sean Payton likes his options.

Payton has made a living off making use of every roster spot.  Even those buried on the depth chart can be penciled in for a score or two each and every year. Whether you’re David Thomas or David Patten, the Saints offense has made brief stars out of scrubs and frustrated fantasy football fanatics by taking away red zone scores.

Having a fullback for those show-stopping fullback dives is worth the roster spot for Payton to have in his back pocket. Even if it’s for a single drive or series where the fullback is wide open in the flat for a first down, it makes sense over using a running back who gets limited carries or a wide receiver who hasn’t mastered the offense.

Payton also has a long-standing history of something working in a game and never wanting to go away from that.  Any fan who has put their head in their hands because the running back screen no longer caught teams off guard or saw that the Saints kept trying to make Travaris Cadet happen when it so clearly was not going to happen.

There’s some criticism that comes with using this philosophy.  Having a fullback on the field telegraphs the offenses intention, making it harder to catch a defense off guard and trying to fool the defense is hard because fullbacks are typically less athletic than running backs and asking them to get open against so many freak athletes near the line of scrimmage is a tall order. Plus factoring the injury risk of simply being a fullback, it’s easy to weigh the options and come away seeing the fullback as not worth it.

The Saints signed John Kuhn last week in the wake of an injury to Austin Johnson. Kuhn has made a name for himself as a fan favorite in Green Bay and is a two-time Super Bowl champion.  Kuhn is 33 years old and will be 34 at the start of the season, so his market for an aging fullback in 2016 was a bit small.

However, what Kuhn lacks up for in an athletic prime to smash the life out of against lineman, he more than makes up for in football IQ (He’s more than once been referred to as one of the smartest guys on the field by his coaches), tenacity, and lunch pails.

Having a guy who has won multiple championships in the trenches can be invaluable. There’s no two ways about it, even at 34 years old, Kuhn is by far the best fullback of the Payton era. If the position is ever going to flourish, 2016 is the year to do it.

So the next time the Saints fail to convert by drawing up a third down play for the fullback and you wonder why they even bother, remember the time Mike Karney scored three touchdowns and stole all of our hearts.