by Jeff Duncan
It didn’t take long for the Giants to realize they were in trouble that Sunday afternoon. After not allowing more than four plays on the opening drive of the first four games, they watched the Saints march 70 yards in 15 plays for a touchdown on their first possession. They followed that with touchdown drives of 80, 57, and 61 yards and finished the first half with 315 yards and a 34–17 lead. They scored touchdowns on five of six drives and it would have been a perfect six of six if not for a failed fourth-and-goal run from the Giants 1. At one point in the first half, Brees completed 15 consecutive passes.
It didn’t get any better for the Giants in the second half as Brees continued to strafe their secondary. As lopsided as the 48–27 final score was, it could have been worse if Payton hadn’t lifted Brees for the game’s final six minutes. Brees finished with 369 passing yards and four touchdowns on 23-of-30 passing. While targeting Brown and Thomas, he was 9-of-13 for 180 yards and four touchdowns. All nine of his completions against the duo resulted in first downs.
“I didn’t see this coming,” Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce said.
Few did. It’d been a decade since the Giants had allowed so many points. In the modern era, they’d never allowed a quarterback to post a passer efficiency rating as high as Brees’ 156.8. After allowing just six passes of 20 or more yards to their first five opponents combined, the Giants allowed seven to the Saints, plus another 19- and 18-yarder.
“It got to the point where it was almost comical,” Giants defensive end Justin Tuck said. “We couldn’t do nothing to stop them.”
Payton’s game plan was masterful. The Saints moved the pocket, used an extra offensive tackle at times to provide extra protection against the Giants’ vaunted front four, and ran passing plays out of the formations that they had previously used for the run. They put the overaggressive Brown on a string and kept the Giants defensive line off-balance with play-action passes. In 33 pass plays, the Giants failed to sack Brees and managed to hit him only twice.
“I liked what [Payton] did from a design standpoint to create windows in the Giants defense, and very subtle things he did with his offensive line,” said Fox Sports analyst Daryl “Moose” Johnston after reviewing the game. “He knew what the defensive principles of the Giants were, and he used that against them. Some of those plays were fun to watch. I just don’t know how you win in a situation like that, because the Giants were doing what they were supposed to do, but it was what Sean Payton expected them to do.”
Six weeks later, Brees and Payton produced an even greater display of offensive brilliance.
The 2009 New England Patriots were not a vintage Bill Belichick–coached team, but they still entered the game ranked second in the NFL in pass defense and scoring defense, allowing just 16 points a game. They had outscored their first 10 opponents by an average of 12.6 points a game, the second-highest margin in the league. And the game was viewed as a showdown between two of the league’s best teams, the 7–3 Patriots against the 10–0 Saints. But the Patriots did not know what was in store for them against an unbeaten Saints team primed to prove its bona fides on the Monday Night Football stage.
From the opening kickoff, the Saints relentlessly attacked the Patriots defense in every manner and from every angle. They scored on long, methodical drives and a 75-yard strike. They scored on long sluggo seam routes, screen passes, and a dump to their third tight end, Darnell Dinkins.
Brees threw touchdown passes to five different receivers and led the Saints to scores on seven of their first nine series. He finished with 371 yards on 18-of-23 passing.
The Saints averaged a franchise-record 9.6 yards per play, and it would have been higher had they not called off the dogs on their final series. The beating was so bad Belichick removed Tom Brady from the game with 5:00 left in regulation.
“[The Saints] were better than we were in every phase of the game,” Belichick said. “I don’t know how to put it any other way. They were better coached, and they played better on offense and defense.”
The Saints used a heavy dose of two-tight-end sets to give Brees extra protection, and Payton and Brees targeted overmatched Patriots cornerbacks Leigh Bodden and Jonathan Wilhite throughout the game with their trio of receivers: Marques Colston, Devery Henderson, and Robert Meachem. Brees was pressured just twice in 23 passing attempts and the receiver combined to catch 12 of 16 targeted passes for 306 yards and three touchdowns.
The offensive onslaught was so devastating, ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski said during the broadcast, “I’m running out of words and phrases to praise this offense. I’m speechless, there are so many wonderful things they are doing.”
The Saints had gains of 75, 68, 38, and 33 yards against a defense that had allowed one pass play of 40 or more yards to its first 10 opponents combined. Their average of 9.6 yards per play remains the second-highest yards-per-play average ever recorded against a Belichick-coached team. It’s also the only time one of his teams has allowed five touchdown passes in a game. The Saints’ 480 total yards remain the third most yielded by the Patriots under Belichick and the highest total since 2001.
“We were able to accomplish something offensively that was pretty special,” Brees said.
Statistically, it was the finest passing performance of Brees’ career and one of the best in league history. He compiled a club-record 158.3 passer efficiency rating, the highest the system allows and one of only 21 “perfect” passer ratings ever recorded at the time. His 16.1 yards per pass attempt was a team record and is still considered one of the great statistical achievements in NFL history. It had only been done a handful of times in modern NFL history and never against a defense with the reputation of the Patriots.
“Quarterbacks simply do not average 16 yards per attempt in today’s NFL,” said Kerry J. Byrne of analytics site ColdHardFootballFacts.com. “It hadn’t happened in 34 years. It doesn’t happen on the big stage of Monday Night Football. It doesn’t happen against [Bill] Belichick. It doesn’t happen against the mighty New England victory machine. It doesn’t happen for an 11–0 team that has never won a Super Bowl. But it all came together for Drew Brees Monday night in the single greatest regular-season passing performance in modern NFL history.”
Chase Daniel still vividly remembers the locked-in look in Brees’ eyes during the commute to the game that night from the team hotel.
“You could just tell from his mindset that it was going to be a really good game for him,” Daniel said. “Brunell knew it, too. He said before the game, ‘Hey, watch this. Watch what’s going to happen.’ And then early on, we were getting chunk plays and every read, every throw from Drew was just so accurate. I remember watching from the sideline that night and thinking, that’s one of the coolest passing displays I’ve ever seen.”
12. Calling the Shots
When the Saints entered the final days of game-planning for their 2020 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, one issue stuck in Sean Payton’s craw: Do we have enough explosive plays in the plan?
So late on the Thursday night before the game, the offensive staff designed a pass to produce a potential chunk play against the Vikings defense.
This was a common practice for Payton and his offensive staff. Over the years, they’ve installed countless special plays in the final days of game-planning. What made this one uncommon was who it targeted: Deonte Harris, a seldom-used rookie receiver from Assumption College.
Few people outside of New Orleans had heard of Harris, but the Saints coaches were enamored with the dimuntive speedster’s big-play potential. His role had gradually expanded in the offense as the season progressed. And now, in the biggest game of the year, they wanted to call his number in a matchup against Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes. On the surface, this would appear to be a mismatch. Rhodes was a three-time Pro Bowler; Harris an undrafted free agent who made his living as a return specialist. But the Saints knew the 6’1”,
218-pound Rhodes struggled to cover faster receivers, especially ones like Harris who were quick in and out of their cuts. If the Saints could get the shifty 5’7” Harris one-on-one against Rhodes, they liked their chances of making a big play.
But to get Harris one-on-one, they would need to address Minnesota’s safeties. Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris were both excellent in coverage. Smith was a perennial Pro Bowler, and Harris was enjoying a career year with an NFL-best six interceptions.
To address the safety issue, Payton designed the play with Hill at quarterback instead of Brees. There was a method to Payton’s madness. The threat of Hill as a runner forced teams to defend the Saints with an extra man in the box, usually a safety. This tactic would leave the defense with a single safety in center field. By aligning Harris on the same side of the field as star receiver Mike Thomas and running Thomas across the field on a corner route, Payton’s play design would put that safety in a quandary. He would have to choose between shadowing Thomas, the NFL’s leading receiver, or Harris, an unknown receiving commodity matched up with the Vikings’ Pro Bowl corner. Payton knew the answer. He also knew he would need to wait for the right time and situation to call the play—and he found it early in the second quarter as the Saints approached midfield.
Payton set up the play by calling for a Hill run on first down. His 11-yard gain had the Vikings on high alert. The trap was set. To enhance the ruse of a run option, backup offensive lineman Nick Eason was inserted into the lineup. The “heavy” personnel formation served the dual purpose of adding to the trickery while providing extra protection for Hill against the Vikings’ formidable pass rush. As Hill aligned in the shotgun, nine Vikings defenders were within five yards of the line of scrimmage, including Smith.
Hill’s play-action fake handoff to Kamara helped sell the run even further and lured the defense closer to the line of scrimmage. Hill then dropped back, looked at Thomas as he crossed the field on his corner route, and fired a bomb to Harris, who was streaking wide open down the middle of the field after beating Rhodes with a double move. Harris hauled in the bomb for a 50-yard gain. The Saints scored on the next to play to take a 10–3 lead.
“It took us a couple of reps in practice to get it down, but it worked almost perfectly,” Payton said.
It played out almost exactly the way Payton described it to Harris and Hill during the team’s installation of the play the previous Friday. Payton went into great detail, even identifying where Harris would eventually catch the ball.
“I told Deonte, you need to lean on Rhodes, exit door him and blow by him,” Payton said. “I envision this ball traveling in the air a long ways, so keep running. Your path is going right between the uprights. Taysom had to move off his spot so he underthrew it or it would have been a touchdown.”
The play was classic Payton. The biggest play in the game wasn’t Brees to Thomas. Instead, it was made by a third-string quarterback and a reserve first-year receiver, a pair of former undrafted free agents. And Payton called it in the playoffs against one of the best defenses in the NFL.
“What I like is Sean calls plays without a great deal of fear,” FOX Sports NFL analyst Troy Aikman said. “I think there’s a time when you have to be careful and all that, but for the most part he calls plays expecting his players to make plays. And they have a lot of weapons they can go to.”
Payton’s imaginative play-calling has been a staple of the Saints offense since he took the reins in 2006. He ceded play-calling duties to Carmichael in 2016 and 2011 after he injured his knee in a freak sideline incident. Otherwise, Payton has been the play-caller for the entire Brees run. While an army of young offensive-minded head coaches have entered the league in recent years, Payton, along with Andy Reid and Matt McCarthy, remains one of the longest- tenured and most respected head-coach play-callers in the business.
“I think [Payton] is certainly one of the best play-callers in the league, and he plays wide open,” said Steve Mariucci, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, who called plays throughout his coaching career and now serves as an NFL analyst for NFL Network. “I like that about him. Sometimes a head coach might play it a little closer to the vest, because he has to be more broad-minded, worrying about resting the defense or things like that. But Sean just keeps it wide open all the time, and I really like that.”
Like many teams, Payton scripts the first 15 plays as a way to feel out the defense. At times, he uses the early game plan to set a tone for his offensive unit by establishing the run or attacking a certain defender in coverage. The plan almost always includes a litany of formations and personnel groupings so Payton and the staff can gather information for future use.
“You want to have tempo in the first 15, and you want to be able to see what their adjustments are to certain formations and certain personnel groupings,” Payton said. “You want to see how they’re going to defense Alvin Kamara, and how they’re going to play certain guys. There’s a lot of information gained. All those things I think you look closely at in your early plays.”
This strategy is one of the reasons why the Saints have traditionally been slow starters offensively. During the Payton-Brees era, they have scored an average of 8.6 points in the second quarter of games compared to 5.6 points in the first quarter, when they are executing their feeling-out process.
Strief said he could only remember a handful of times an opponent threw something at the Saints that they had not prepared for. In those rare instances, it doesn’t take the Saints long to adjust. Payton, Brees, and the offensive coaching staff can quickly adapt, drawing on their years of collective experience and knowledge.
“Their in-game adjustments are impressive,” said Daniel, who was a Saints backup quarterback for four seasons (2010–12 and 2017). “It might take a drive for those guys to figure it out, where some teams it might take a quarter or two quarters. They’re very keen on knowing exactly how the defense is playing and then what to do from there.”
A famous example of Payton’s in-game adjustments came in the 2019 NFC Championship Game. The Saints were having success passing to Alvin Kamara on choice routes out of the backfield. Kamara was the leading receiver in the game with 11 catches for 96 yards. So Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips countered by having his defensive ends and outside linebackers hit Kamara as he leaked out of the backfield to disrupt the timing of the play.
The famous NOLA No-Call play highlighted a Payton counterpunch: he inserted receiver Tommylee Lewis into the game and had Kamara and Lewis change positions. Kamara aligned in the left slot at receiver and Lewis positioned himself in the backfield as a running back. The switch confused the Rams defense, and the Saints snapped the ball quickly to take advantage of it. Nickell Robey-Coleman was scrambling to recover when he infamously collided with Lewis in the right flat on the play.
Just like the Minnesota Miracle, what should have been a highlight moment of the Payton-Brees era turned into heartbreak. The blown call and the ensuing controversy it spurred overshadowed Payton’s brilliant maneuver. It became a footnote to history, one that likely will be forgotten with time.
“Sean sees things so fast,” Saints tight ends coach Dan Campbell said. “And we can make those adjustments, and Drew doesn’t even bat an eye. They’ve been together so long they know how each other thinks. There is a trust issue. Coach has a ton of trust in Drew. He knows Drew thinks the exact same way he does. He understands the situations of the game. That’s why there’s been this rapport between these two and this great working relationship.”
Payton uses highlighters and Sharpie markers to jot notes to himself on his laminated call sheet during the game. Sometimes, he’ll strike through a play because of injuries or personnel changes. Likewise, if an opponent loses a starting cornerback or safety to injury during the game, he might star a play and move it up on the call-sheet menu. If Brees has a hot hand, like he did the record-setting night he completed 29 of 30
passes against the Indianapolis Colts in 2019, he’ll emphasize the passing attack. If the offensive line is winning the point of attack in the trenches, he’ll lean into the running game.
“He’s always adjusting,” Lombardi said. “He does a great job of feeding guys that have the hot hand. And he’s got a great instinct for when to take shots and when to be aggressive. I can’t count the number of times when he’s made a call and I cringed in the [coaches’] box and it turns out successful.”
One of the reasons Payton’s call sheet is so voluminous is because he wants to have options in every specific game situation so he can adjust during a game. These potential adjustments are discussed during the offensive game-plan meetings leading up to the game.
“If [the opponent] starts playing us in a bunch of this [defense] then we have got this package of stuff we can get to,” Brees said. “You talk about these situations during the week, and obviously these are in his memory bank. So the minute he feels like this is the time, this is the situation, he is able to dial it up. We all know it is coming because we have talked about it, and so a lot of confidence comes with that.”
During the week of preparation, Payton consciously tries to include a play or two in the game plan that will highlight each of his skill position players. It’s his way of keeping defenses honest and keeping his players invested in the weekly game plan. Circumstances might prevent him from calling the play during the game, but he wants his players to feel included in the mission.
“It brings a little juice to the install [process],” Payton said. “It’s important that there’s a player’s jersey number and name [each week], like that play is kind of your play. There’s some ownership to it. And it creates some excitement and confidence when it works.”