by Jeff Duncan
“The plays that we’re running here, the system that we’re running here, the vision, the type of players that we’re trying to recruit here, it’s all things that I took from New Orleans,” Brady said before the 2019 season.
That’s why Brady had LSU quarterback Jow Burrow watch film of Brees and the Saints offense throughout the 2019 offseason to become better acquainted with the game plan. And when he worked with running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, he showed him tape of Alvin Kamara. The LSU receivers watched cut-ups of Lance Moore and Devery Henderson.
“I hear myself out on the practice field with all the coaching points that I heard instilled in me in those two years there, the ways to try to motivate the guys, or trying to paint the picture to the guys that I learned from Coach [Payton],” Brady said. “The system isn’t broke, and it’s been working for so long at the NFL level that it’s exciting to me to be able to take Coach Payton’s system and bring it to the college level.”
When veteran passing game coordinator Jerry Sullivan retired from the LSU staff in 2019, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron targeted Brady, who had impressed the Tigers staff during a presentation he made with Carmichael the previous summer. It was essentially a one-man search. Orgeron served as the defensive line coach on Payton’s staff in 2008 and had always wanted to adopt his offensive scheme as a head coach. He hired Brady to install the Saints’ state-of-the-art passing attack and overhaul LSU’s antiquated offensive approach.
Almost overnight, LSU’s offense transformed from jugger-not to juggernaut. The Tigers vaulted from 69th nationally in total offense to first; from 65th in pass efficiency to second; from 67th in passing offense to second; and from 38th in scoring offense to first. And with Brady’s guidance, Burrow went from a preseason third-team All-SEC selection to the Heisman Trophy winner.
Brady’s astonishing work during his one season as LSU’s passing game coordinator might be the best greatest validation yet of Payton’s offensive system.
“He was in our meetings every day,” Brees said of Brady. “We had a great rapport, and he did a great job for us. I felt like he had a great understanding of the Xs and Os of what we were doing but also just his background with a lot of the RPOs, the stuff that you see in LSU’s offense. That’s a real prevalent part of what a lot of teams do. You’ve got to have a smart, athletic quarterback that can execute those things and know when to give, know when to keep, know when to find open receivers, and obviously Joe Burrow [did] an excellent job of executing that offense.”
Payton called LSU’s season “historic” and said he “absolutely” could see the Saints’ offensive influence when he watched the Tigers operate. Sometimes, he joked that he would see Saints plays appear in the LSU offense “a week or two after one of our games.”
Payton’s fingerprints were all over the LSU offense. The Tigers operated almost exclusively out of three- and four-receiver sets, and Brady empowered Burrow to make pre-snap reads and checks at the line of scrimmage. In addition to his No. 9 jersey number, Burrow was Brees-like in his execution. He completed 76.3 percent of his passes and threw touchdown passes to eight different receivers. Running backs combined to catch 80 passes. Tight end Thaddeus Moss caught more passes (47) than his predecessor, Foster Moreau, did the previous two seasons combined.
“When I watch the LSU offense, it is a heavily schemed pro-style route tree that resembles the New Orleans Saints—in terms of how they put defensive coverages and defensive players in conflict,” former NFL safety Matt Bowen told ESPN when asked to compare the LSU and Saints offenses. “And what that requires is for an elite-level quarterback to go through pro progressions, to find the voids in zone coverage and to find the matchups that are created within this offense.
“You can watch those route concepts, there’s a bunch of high-lows, there’s a bunch of flood, there’s a bunch of three-level stuff. It is leveled reads for the quarterback that require him to process information quickly, to throw on time and to anticipate where the windows are gonna be. You don’t see that a lot in college.”
With the heady Burrow at the controls, LSU rewrote the program, Southeastern Conference, and NCAA record books. Burrow was the first quarterback in SEC history to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in a season. His 5,671 passing yards and 60 touchdown passes shattered the league’s single-season records. LSU also became the first school since 2010 to have a 5,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard rusher, and two 1,000-yard receivers on the same team. All this at a school that failed to rank in the top 100 nationally in passing offense from 2014 to 2016 and had had only one quarterback (JaMarcus Russell, 2007) taken in the first three rounds of the previous 29 NFL Drafts.
“That’s basically what we do,” Burrow said of the Saints offense. “We do a lot of the same stuff with Coach Joe coming from [New Orleans]. It’s getting five guys on a route every play and making them defend every single person. Anybody can get the ball on any play. We’re not designing plays to go to this one guy. We have progression reads that everyone can get the ball on, so you have to be on your toes as a defense and really understand who has each individual player, otherwise we’ll beat you, or I’ll find a guy, and that’s what makes it so difficult to defend. You’ve got to find your guy, and we make it difficult to do it and change up people’s eyes with motions and moving different guys around from the slot to the backfield to outside. We do a really good job of finding matchups that are favorable for us.”
After LSU’s historic season, Brady cashed in. He won the Broyles Award, given annually to the top assistant coach in college football, and was hired by Matt Rhule to be the offensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers, making him, at 30, the youngest offensive coordinator in the NFL.
LSU isn’t the only school enjoying success with the Saints offense. The Ball State Cardinals, coached by former Saints scout and quarterback coach Mike Neu, led the Mid-American Conference and ranked among the national leaders in total and scoring offense in 2019. Ball State’s average of 463.0 yards and 34.8 points per game were the second highest in school history and ranked 15th and 18th among NCAA FBS teams. Like the Saints and LSU, the Cardinals also boast a healthy balance between the run and pass. Ball State averaged 243.6 passing yards and 219.4 rushing yards a game.
“It’s the Saints system,” Neu said. “Everything we do is based on what I brought with me from New Orleans. We don’t see as many exotic coverages and pressure packages as you do in the NFL. And we have reduced the terminology because we’re a no-huddle operation so we have to signal our plays. So there’s not as many tags. But the passing concepts would be exactly the same [as the Saints].”
Neu said he studies the film from every Saints game each season. Every Monday during the 2019 season, he and the offensive staff would watch cut-up tape of specific passing concepts from the Saints, LSU, and his own team, then compare how each team executed the same play.
“LSU didn’t have any snaps under center, but the passing game concepts were the same ones I teach my offense here,” Neu said. “It was awesome to see how they used their weapons, how they sprinkled the infield, as I like to say. It’s the same stuff we do. The Saints have been on top offensively throughout Drew and Sean’s time in New Orleans, and LSU just had the best season in college football history. I made time every week to study those two offenses. It’s another way to solidify how awesome the offense is to our players.”
The infield sprinkling required more time to take hold at Ball State than it did at LSU. Neu’s first three seasons were marred by injuries and the growing pains of rebuilding a program that has not won a bowl game in its 45-year history. But things started to come together offensively for the Cardinals in Neu’s fourth season. Quarterback Drew Plitt passed for nearly 3,000 yards and backs Caleb Huntley and Walter Fletcher combined to rush for 2,001 yards. Five receivers had multiple touchdown receptions and produced between 300 and 700 receiving yards. Offensive lineman Danny Pinter was selected by the India
napolis Colts in the fifth round of the 2020 NFL Draft, and Plitt received an invitation to the prestigious Manning Passing Academy, which was canceled in June because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m proud that we ranked No. 1 [in the MAC] in scoring offense and total offense,” said Neu, who quarterbacked Ball State for three seasons and was the 1993 MAC Offensive Player of the Year. “I wish we would have done better record-wise up to this point, but I’m excited about this being our window of opportunity.”
Neu’s ties to New Orleans run deep. Loomis hired him to coach the New Orleans VooDoo of the Arena Football League from 2004 to 2008. He then took a job on the Saints scouting staff for the next three seasons before moving across town to Tulane University as the quarterbacks coach on former Saints receivers coach Curtis Johnson’s staff. He returned to the Saints as the quarterbacks coach in 2014 and 2015 when Joe Lombardi left the staff to become the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions.
Neu uses his ties to Brees, Payton, and the Saints offense as a recruiting pitch when meeting with prospects. He shows game film of Brees’ footwork and fundamentals to quarterback recruits and will use highlights of the Saints passing attack to illustrate to receivers how they’ll project to the Ball State attack. Neu even signed his own version of Taysom Hill to the Ball State roster in 2020. Ryan Lezon was a three-sport star at Indianapolis Southport High School but will play tight end and H-back in college. Neu envisions a Hill-like, Swiss Army knife role for the 6΄2˝, 210-pound Lezon at Ball State.
“My work with the Saints is the best selling point ever,” Neu said of his two-year experience as the Saints quarterbacks coach. “I always want to make Mickey [Loomis] and Sean [Payton] proud that I have taken an offensive page from the Saints. What’s unbelievable about the offense is that every player on the field has a chance to make a play on every single play. It’s lasted so long because of the thought, preparation, and detail that goes into it. I just have a strong conviction that this is the best offense there is.”
It would be hard to argue with Neu’s proclamation after seeing the impact the Saints offense had on college football in 2019. The Saints’ influence is unmistakable and indelible. Thanks to the successful work of Brady and Neu, Payton’s offensive system has taken root and blossomed outside of New Orleans. And for the first time, Payton’s coaching tree has branches in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Muncie, Indiana.
27. The Payton-Brees Legacy
In December 2019, the NFL unveiled its NFL 100 All-Time Team, a roster of 100 all-star players and 10 coaches to commemorate the league’s 100th season. The blue-ribbon committee of 26 coaches, executives, former players, and media members selected 10 quarterbacks for the squad: Sammy Baugh, John Elway, Brett Favre, Otto Graham, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Roger Staubach, and Johnny Unitas.
There were plenty of snubs from the list, but none bigger than Brees. The league’s all-time leading rusher (Emmitt Smith), receiver (Jerry Rice), and scorer (Adam Vinatieri) made the team. But the NFL’s all-time leading passer did not. It was the latest snub for the Saints quarterback, who, despite all of his wins, accolades, and accomplishments, might go down in history as the NFL’s most underrated superstar.
Brees is widely considered the best player to never win the NFL’s Most Valuable Player Award, having finished second a mind-boggling four times. Each time he was victimized by poor timing, beaten out by a peer who produced a historic season.
In 2006, LaDainian Tomlinson won the award after leading the league in yards from scrimmage with 2,323 yards and setting NFL season records for rushing touchdowns (28) and points scored (186), the latter of which had stood for 46 years. Both of those marks are still NFL records.
In 2009, Brees led the Saints to a 13–0 start, making them just the seventh team in NFL history to go unbeaten in their first 13 games, but was one-upped by Peyton Manning, who led the Indianapolis Colts to a 14–0 start, just the third team in league annals to enjoy just a spectacular start.
In 2011, Brees had the best statistical season of his career, passing for an NFL-record 5,476 passing yards, 46 touchdowns, and a then NFL-record 71.2 completion percentage. But Aaron Rodgers won MVP after producing the greatest passing season in NFL history, throwing 45 touchdowns and only six interceptions while posting a league-record 122.5 passer rating.
In 2018, Brees led the league in completion percentage (74.4), passer efficiency rating (115.7), game-winning drives (seven), and fourth-quarter comebacks (six) but was beaten out by Mahomes, who became the second quarterback in NFL history to throw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in a season.
The MVP award remains the lone missing honor in Brees’ otherwise illustrious résumé. He has won nearly every other major individual honor in his distinguished career: 13 Pro Bowl invitations, two NFL Offensive Player of the Year awards, and the Super Bowl XLIV MVP award. He was the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2004, the Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2006, the Bert Bell Award winner in 2009, and Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year in 2010.
“As crazy as it sounds, I think Drew is one of the most underrated quarterbacks ever,” said Taysom Hill, who spent time with Rodgers in Green Bay before joining the Saints in 2017. “What he has done week in, week out, year in, year out, is really, really special. I don’t think he gets as much credit as he deserves.”
Statistically, Brees is peerless. He has more passing yards, touchdowns, and completions than any quarterback in NFL history, the first and only quarterback to simultaneously hold those three milestones since Baugh (1937–52). Brees was the fastest quarterback ever to reach the 50,000-, 60,000-, and 70,000-yard thresholds. He’s the all-time leader in completion percentage, and he has the most consecutive seasons of both 4,000 and 5,000 passing yards and most consecutive seasons with both at least 20 and 30 touchdown passes. In the history of the NFL, there have been 12 seasons where a quarterback has topped 5,000 passing yards. Brees owns five of them.
“Yes, Super Bowls and wins matter, but when you break down the quarterback position, the No. 1 job is to throw the football to a receiver in the right spot at the right time that gives the receiver the best chance to advance the ball for the offense,” Luke McCown said. “And nobody’s done that single thing better than Drew Brees in all of football.”
Before joining Payton’s staff as linebackers coach from 2017 to 2019, Mike Nolan spent most of his first three decades in the NFL as a defensive coordinator, preparing game plans to try to slow down the league’s top quarterbacks. In Nolan’s mind, two quarterbacks stand above the rest: Brady and Brees.
“Drew has got to be listed with the all-time greats, if not the guy,” said Nolan, who coached on the Denver Broncos staff in 1987 and 1988 when future Hall of Famer John Elway was the quarterback and is now the defensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys. “And I’m not just saying it because I [was] a Saint. I think he would compete with Tom Brady in the discussion as the best ever. I love [Peyton] Manning to death, but Manning never really was the problem that Tom and Drew have been from a [defensive] coordinator’s standpoint. He was great. He was a 9 on the problem scale of 10. Drew and Tom, those guys were 10s.”
Optics are part of the problem for Brees. His teammates and coaches say he executes so efficiently, he makes the job of playing NFL quarterback look easy. His greatness is more nuanced than that of big-armed peers like Favre, Marino, or Patrick Mahomes. In that way, Brees is like the NFL’s version of Greg Maddux. He’s a superstar without superpowers, a 6’0” Everyman, who succeeds by “painting the black” in his passes rather than blowing away opponents with his overpowering fastball. To fully appreciate Brees’ genius requires a sophisticated football mind.
“When you watch Aaron Rodgers run around the backfield for 25 seconds and throw a 70-yard pass across his body on the money for a touchdown, that play is easy for the casual fan to appreciate,” Zach Strief said. “There’s a wow factor. That kind of pla
y has more impact on your opinion of that player than any amount of flawlessly executed passes in an offense in rhythm over the course of four quarters. Drew throws 35 passes in a game and all 35 of them are within two feet of where they were intended to be. You will walk away from that game going, ‘Man, that guy is efficient.’ But you don’t necessarily walk away going, ‘That guy is a freak of nature.’ Now in reality, he is absolutely a freak of nature. But the flash is not there for him.”
Consequently, Brees’ game doesn’t make great creative currency for social media. GIFs and memes of his highlights rarely go viral. In a day and age where sizzle often trumps substance, the subtlety of Brees’ talent can be grossly underappreciated. But among quarterbacks, Brees is not just respected. He is revered.
“He’s clearly the best quarterback I’ve been around,” said Brunell, who played behind Favre in Green Bay to start his career. “He’s the most professional guy I’ve been around, too. He does everything very, very well. It’s not just one aspect of being a quarterback. He’s good at everything: the locker room, off-the-field, his study habits, his work ethic, his family, the media. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In a way, Brees’ partnership with Payton might have hurt his case in some corners. Because of Payton’s play-calling aptitude, Brees often is labeled as a “system quarterback” by detractors. It’s a tag that’s hounded him throughout his playing career, from Westlake High School to Purdue to the NFL. The fact that the Saints went 5–0 without Brees during the 2019 season was not lost on his skeptics. Of course, the same could be said of the New England Patriots, who went 11–5 in 2008 without Tom Brady.