Why are the Saints so bad at running the football?
Other than a few seasons sprinkled in here and there the Payton scheme has never been great at running the ball. Inconsistent at best and just bad at worst.
I can't agree with this. "Never great" OK. And of course with Drew under center we were always pass first.
But when we ran, it was generally effective. With defenses focused on pass, guys like PT, Sproles, Chris Ivory, First Time Ingram, AK, etc got yardage.
I went back as far as 09 and never in that span were we this bad. Twice we were at 3.8 ypc, but those were outliers. Best was 2011 (Ingram, Thomas, Sproles, and a little bit of Ivory) at 4.9 YPC, good for 4th in the league. Median team YPC for 09-22 is 4.3, which would have us at a respectable #10 this year.
Never great... But used to be effective.