Saints’ success remains tied to their elite passing attack

How Saints Can Exploit Their Rushing Success

They say a good running game opens up the passing game, and although that is likely backward, New Orleans can exploit their recent rushing success to move the ball through the air.

Given their recent rushing success, including this exceptional primetime performance, it is likely that opposing defenses will be more focused on defending the run against them. That means facing more stacked boxes.

Since box counts matter greatly when it comes to rushing production, it is likely the Saints won’t be able to run the ball effectively.

However, rushing production is far less efficient than passing the ball, so what if this prompts them to pass the ball more frequently. In fact, what if they understand what opposing defenses will fear against them, and specifically use that to their advantage.

This is what Sean Payton did when Taysom Hill was under center. Teams didn’t believe in Hill as a passer, and were more worried about his athleticism running the ball. So what did Payton do?

He leveraged that threat of him as a rusher by creating easy passing windows on early downs, which is a major reason why they were able to maintain offensive production with him at quarterback.

Should they adopt a similar strategy with Brees?

I think their offense could be much more consistent, and less prone to some of the duds they’ve had this year.