by Jeff Duncan
Like everything else, the emphasis on route technique and alignment has evolved over time as Brees and Payton have fine-tuned the scheme. In time, receivers are cross-trained at different positions. The Saints’ best offenses have traditionally been the ones with the most experienced receivers. During the Super Bowl run, Colston, Henderson, Meachem, and Moore were interchangeable in the scheme, giving the offensive staff myriad options in the game plan. This flexibility allowed the coaching staff to move the receivers around like chess pieces in the offensive formation and target favorable matchups against defensive backs. One of the reasons Thomas has emerged as one of the NFL’s most dominant receivers is because of his ability to line up anywhere in the formation on a given play.
“It’s gone from very simple to much more advanced, to where maybe back in ’06 it was, as a receiver you were either plus two [yards from the tackle], outside edge, or inside edge, right?,” Brees said. “And now we’ve got all kinds of different splits, according to the route, according to the formation, according to who we’re playing. If a team does a good job of reading these splits, we’re going to change it up. It’s why we spend so much time in what we do. It’s why I have the guys come out with me in July in San Diego. It’s why we spend so much time after practice, every practice.”
For the receivers, mastering the nuances of the scheme can be a daunting task. The ones who earn the trust of Brees and Payton eventually receive more playing time and, in turn, more opportunities to shine. The standouts like Colston, Graham, and Thomas become so in tune with Brees they’re allowed to improvise on routes.
“There’s rules guys and guidelines guys,” Lombardi said. “Certain guys are told, here are the rules to this route and you follow them. And then all of a sudden, he does something off script and it works and we say, all right, maybe you’re a guidelines guy. You understand the guidelines of this route and maybe you can get away with fudging it a little. They have that feel, and that their feel matches Drew’s feel. So once they become synchronized with Drew, then all of a sudden they’re allowed to do that.”
These nuances can take years to master. Receivers, tight ends, and backs in the Saints system don’t necessarily need to be football geniuses, but they need to be students of the game and diligent in their study habits. It’s why smart, reliable role players like Moore, Snead, Carr, and Josh Hill have carved out productive careers in New Orleans after being bypassed in the NFL Draft. Players who regularly misalign, run the wrong route, or aren’t willing to put in the extra reps with Brees don’t last long in New Orleans.
“The receivers in this offense are asked to learn so much,” said Strief, now the play-by-play announcer for the Saints radio broadcast team. “Lance Moore used to always say it’s so different than anywhere else he played. The wide receivers here have to understand that, ‘Hey, in this route concept, I’m the spacing guy. I’m the guy that’s here to space, so that I understand now when he changes the route for the guy outside of me, so too does my spacing. I’m spacing a different thing.’ That’s the kind of minutia they have to know and deal with. They have this system that they work within, and yet the combinations within it are endless.”
This high standard prevents the Saints from pursuing certain receivers during the draft and free agency. Saints scouts place a heavy emphasis on intelligence, football IQ, and mental toughness at all positions, but especially at receiver. A Saints receiver has to have sure hands and the athletic ability to beat NFL defensive backs, but he also must be willing and able to handle the heavy mental workload the Saints system requires.
“Coach Payton has such a clear vision for what he’s looking for in players,” Joe Brady said. “He finds players that understand their roles and are accountable. If you look at the wide receivers, the tight ends, and the running backs in New Orleans, Drew wants accountable players that he knows, when I throw that ball he’s going to be where he needs to be.
“When you’re game-planning and you’re watching Coach Payton, Pete [Carmichael], and Joe [Lombardi] put together these plays, it’s fascinating how they find ways to put their players where they know this is what this guy does best, let’s get him on this spot in this play. It’s one of the biggest reasons why the system has been so successful for so many years. Coach Payton and the staff are going to put their players in positions to be successful.”
17. “Who Throws That Ball?”
Over the years, Payton has devised a personal system to attribute the success of offensive plays. He’ll ask his staff, “Was that play or player?” Sometimes a play succeeds solely because of a player’s individual effort, skill set, or talent. Payton attributes such plays to the player’s ability rather than the play’s design. Marshawn Lynch’s famous Beast Mode run, for example, had little to do with scheme and everything to do with Lynch’s strength, vision, and will. When Mike Thomas overpowers a defensive back for a competitive catch in tight coverage, technique, film study, and coverage concepts are rendered irrelevant. It’s why many successful NFL play-callers say they often “think players, not plays” when faced with a clutch down-and-distance situation.
The unique part of the Payton-Brees partnership is they manage to produce both—play and player. As one of the most creative play designers in NFL history, Payton will often produce plays journeyman quarterbacks could execute successfully. Those are the ones he jokingly says his son Connor could make. Then there are other times where Brees’ brilliance as a quarterback makes it happen—when player, not play, is the reason the Saints offense hums. It is this potent combination that has made the Payton-Brees combination the most prolific duo in NFL history.
As great as Brees is in the mental side of the sport, he wouldn’t be one of the game’s all-time great passers if he weren’t blessed with extraordinary ability. Analysts and journalists focus so much on his extraordinary intelligence and preparation habits that his natural, God-given talent often gets shortchanged. Simply put, Brees is one of the best pure passers to ever play the game.
While arm strength has never been a hallmark of Brees’ game, his is more than strong enough to deliver every throw necessary at the NFL level. And Brees has learned to compensate by anticipating defensive coverages and delivering his passes earlier, especially on deep routes.
“I tell young quarterbacks, ‘If you want to learn how to throw deep balls, study Drew Brees,’” said former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann, who has worked for more than two decades as an NFL analyst at ESPN and NFL Network. “He puts great trajectory on the ball, and he gives the guys a chance to be able to run to it. He doesn’t have a rocket arm but his anticipation, his timing, the way he delivers the ball with trajectory, the velocity, it’s just amazing. I think Drew should be every guy’s 6-foot-tall hero.”
Since joining forces with Payton, he has established a new standard in completion percentage for quarterbacks. His 67.6 percent career completion rate is the highest in NFL history, and he owns five of the six best single-season completion percentages in league annals.
Saints coaches attribute Brees’ historic accuracy to his unusually large hands and his flawless mechanics. His hand width of 10.25 inches ranked among the top 11 percent of quarterbacks at the NFL combine, while his 6’0” height ranked among the bottom 8 percent. His hand width spans nearly an inch wider than Tom Brady’s (9.3), who stands four inches taller. Because of his large grip, Brees can control the ball and deliver it with maximum rotation. It’s one of the reasons why he excelled in the windy, cold conditions of West Lafayette, Indiana, as a college star at Purdue University.
“He can spin that ball,” former Saints linebackers coach Mike Nolan said. “For a relatively little guy, he has really big hands. Those things are difference makers.”
Brees was an accurate quarterback in high school, college, and early in his pro career with the Chargers. But he’s taken his accuracy rate to a different level since working with Tom House, his throwing coac
h and performance specialist. Thanks to years of work with House, Brees has become an expert on biomechanics and can go into great detail on the “kinetic chain” of a throwing delivery: the transfer of energy from his feet to his hips, shoulders, and ultimately the index finger in his throwing hand as he unloads the ball. House and his staff are so technical with their scientific research they can identify the mechanical flaw behind every poor throw. Their research shows that a single inch of a quarterback’s head movement at the time of delivery can mean the difference of a foot of ball placement on his passes.
“Drew was always accurate,” House said. “But now we can identify what goes into command for a pitcher or accuracy for a quarterback. We can tell you, when you miss right or left [on a pass], 99 percent of the time it’s your front side causing the issue. And when you miss high or low, 99 percent of the time it’s because of a posture change, a shoulder turn or head move. Every one inch of inappropriate head movement costs you two inches of release. Two inches at the release point can mean a foot [of ball placement] to the receiver. Each inch can mean the difference between a catch and run, a 50-50 ball or an interception. We’re giving Drew the ‘why’ to go with the ‘what.’”
In April 2009, the ESPN show Sport Science tried to gauge Brees’ accuracy. The show’s hosts had Brees throw footballs at an archery target 20 yards away and compared his accuracy to Olympic archers. Brees astounded the producers by hitting the 4-inch bullseye on 10 out of 10 throws. The secret to his accuracy was his consistent mechanics. Amazingly, Brees threw each of his passes with the same 6-degree launch angle, 600-revolutions-per-minute spin rate, and 52 mph launch speed.
It’s no surprise Brees was the only quarterback to rank in the top five of all three pass depths—short, intermediate, and deep—of Pro Football Focus’ advanced accuracy metrics in 2018, when its analysts introduced a new charting formula for quarterbacks. Brees ranked second on one- to nine-yard passes with an accurate ball placement of 73.8 percent. His 65.1 percent accuracy rate on intermediate throws of 10 to 19 yards led all quarterbacks. And he ranked fifth on deep throws of 20-plus yards with a 48.9 percent accuracy rate.
“Drew has an accuracy that is just uncanny,” former Saints backup quarterback Luke McCown said. “You could put every quarterback in the league on the same field and tell them to throw all of the same routes, and you’re just going to notice something different about the way Drew places the football, when and where. It’s just different. The hand of God reached down and touched Drew and said, ‘You’re going to be the most accurate guy to ever throw a football.’”
McCown tells the story of a practice throw Brees made during McCown’s first season in New Orleans in 2013. Brees had pressure in his face and made a throw on a seam route to Jimmy Graham while falling backward and bracing himself against the rush with his left arm.
“You couldn’t have paused time and stood everybody in the same spot and walked the football downfield 22 yards and placed it any better with your hand than he did where he threw it,” McCown said. “Joe Lombardi and Pete Carmichael and myself just looked at each other like, ‘Did you just see that? Holy cow, did that throw really just happen?’”
It’s not the first throw that became legendary around the Saints facility. In 2008, Brees made a throw that Saints coaches still talk about, and it illustrates another of his rare quarterbacking gifts: anticipation.
In a game against the San Diego Chargers at Wembley Stadium in London, England, Brees completed a 15-yard pass to tight end Billy Graham in the fourth quarter. The pass seemed routine enough at the time. It converted a late third-and-5 play and helped the Saints hold off a late rally by the Chargers, but there was nothing particularly spectacular about the pass—until the coaches watched the video from the end zone view and were able to see it from Brees’ perspective.
On the play, running back Pierre Thomas ran a shallow crossing route out of the backfield, cutting from left to right. A couple yards behind him, receiver Robert Meachem ran another crossing route from right to left, creating a scissors action for the Chargers defensive coverage. Miller, aligned to the left side of the formation, ran a 12-yard in cut to the right about 10 yards behind them. From behind, the field was a maze of crisscrossing chaos. As Brees completed his three-step drop and climbed the pocket to avoid the pass rush to his right, four Chargers defenders converged downfield in man-to-man coverage, stacked one by one between the hash marks, right where Miller’s route was taking him.
“It should have looked like a stop sign to the quarterback,” Lombardi said. “It’s just a cluster of defenders.”
But as Brees cocked his right arm and uncorked a spiral downfield, something magical happened: the Chargers defense parted like the Red Sea, each defender vacating the middle of the field to follow his man in coverage. Brees’ pass spiraled into the void, hitting a wide-open Miller in stride at the 30-yard line for a 15-yard gain and first down.
In the film room, the Saints coaches were stupefied. Not just that Brees completed the pass, but that he had the anticipation and audacity to attempt it in the first place.
“Who throws that ball?!” offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael asked incredulously. “There’s no way you throw that ball. What QB would throw that ball?!”
Lombardi and Carmichael had worked with some elite quarterbacks over the years, guys like Doug Flutie, Michael Vick, Tim Couch, and Tim Rattay. They’d never seen anyone throw a pass like that.
“It’s a great find,” Lombardi said. “He’s got a broad focus. He sees more. His lens is wide. He sees everything, and he processes it so quick. It’s something different.”
It wasn’t the first time the Saints coaches had seen Brees do something extraordinary. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But it quickly became the stuff of legend among the offensive coaches. They would routinely show it to incoming Saints quarterbacks for amusement.
“It’s pretty funny when you watch it,” Lombardi said. “Everyone [on defense] was right over the ball and the ball is in his hand, and then they just all disappear, and the ball is completed. The anticipation is uncanny.”
Brees’ passing exploits have become legendary around the Saints complex. Almost every player and coach who has played with him has a favorite pass they can cite off the top of their head.
For Taysom Hill, it was a pass Brees threw to Ted Ginn against the Green Bay Packers during Hill’s rookie season in 2017. As Hill and fellow backup quarterback Chase Daniel watched the play unfold from the sideline, they were convinced Brees’ vision was blocked by the wall of linemen in front of him and that he simply threw the ball blindly to an open spot in the coverage. They were right. The trust and confidence Brees had in Ginn to be exactly where he was supposed to be on the pass route paid off. Brees’ blind pass hit Ginn right between the numbers, and the veteran speedster streaked through the Packers secondary for a 47-yard gain to set up a go-ahead field goal in the third quarter of a 26–17 Saints win.
“I just felt it,” Brees said later. “I knew what coverage they were in and could see the flat defender to that side of the field go with Brandon Coleman so I just kind of knew where to go with the pass.”
Another throw Hill still talks about is one Brees made to Ginn against the Carolina Panthers in Week 3 of the wideout’s rookie season. The play occurred early in the third quarter with the Saints leading 17–7. The play was designed to go to Mike Thomas, who was being covered by linebacker Shaq Thompson in the left slot. Brees set up the play by looking right toward tight end Coby Fleener, who ran a stick route outside the numbers along the far sideline. This drew safety Mike Adams out of his position in the middle of the field. Brees then turned back to the left to look for Thomas on his wheel route. But the Panthers were ready for it. They had cleverly disguised their coverage and rolled free safety Kurt Coleman over the top of Thomas, trying to lure Brees to target the obvious mismatch. This left Ginn one-on-one on his post route dow
n the left seam against cornerback James Bradberry, the Panthers’ best cover man. Ginn beat Bradberry with an inside release and Brees, after seeing his first and second reads double-covered, uncorked a perfect bomb that led Ginn away from the fast-closing Adams. Ginn adjusted to the pass in midair and caught the ball at the goal line while falling backward in the end zone as Bradberry and Adams crashed over him.
“This ball is placed so perfectly behind the defensive back,” Fox Sports color analyst Ronde Barber said during the broadcast of the game. “The placement on that ball was absolutely sublime.”
As the play unfolded, Hill said he assumed Brees would go to his checkdown option when he saw the Panthers coverage technique. But Brees surprised him.
“Chase and I just looked at each other on the sideline and thought, ‘How did he find him?’” Hill said. “That’s Drew.”
Dome-ination:
2013 Dallas Cowboys
Before Sean Payton took the job in New Orleans, the Saints had struggled mightily against the Dallas Cowboys. In 21 meetings with America’s Team, the Saints had managed just seven wins. But Payton reversed those fortunes quickly, posting wins in three of four contests against the Cowboys.
When Dallas visited New Orleans in Week 10 of the 2013 season, it was 5–4 and desperate for a marquee win. But the Cowboys’ banged-up defense had allowed four quarterbacks to pass for more than 400 yards against them in the first nine weeks and entered the game ranked 31st in total defense, surrendering 419.1 yards a game. And they were no match for the Saints, who did just about whatever they wanted in a 49–17 rout on Sunday Night Football.
The Saints scored touchdowns on seven of their first nine series and averaged 9.1 yards per play. Six of the Saints’ touchdown drives covered 75 or more yards. They gained an NFL-record 40 first downs and amassed a franchise-record 625 yards of total offense, the most ever allowed by a Cowboys defense. In fact, it was the most yards an NFL team had produced in a regulation game in more than three decades and remains the fourth most yards gained in a game since the league merger.
