Why are the Saints so bad at running the football?

RadsRock said

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.

Click to expand...

2019 with Evans and NIcks up front we were good. Could move the pile.

After drew left, we were more consistent and better running the football. There was a very loooong drought in there before Kamara arrived when we were TERRIBLE up front. Always pushed back. Struggled to get a 3rd and 1.

It was so bad at one point Payton was running trick plays just to get a yard. There low point I recall was a game where Payton tried something like a TE reverse to Josh Hill to get a yard, and it failed.

A lot of it since Kamara arrived was just Payton being Payton and refusing to take what the defense offered, especially in key situations when a run was they right thing. One run vs the Rams in NFCCG on that critical series and maybe history is different.

But the run game for most of Brees career was neglected because that reflected the insitncts of the coach, and to the extent that lives on with Charmichael, we will still see similar outcomes.