Article Underhill: The Saints are always looking for 'inspiration' for new plays, and they aren't afraid to steal what they like (1 Viewer)

[Andrus]

By Nick Underhill | The Advocate

The Saints are thieves.

They love to watch other football games and borrow ideas. Everyone is involved. Coach Sean Payton likes cutups of all the scoring plays every week, which often sparks ideas. There is the film the team is exposed to during a given week while scouting an upcoming opponent, which can often lend to new wrinkles. Sometimes those plays end up sticking around. And then, of course, there is just the stuff people see while watching games.

That’s one of the reasons Drew Brees likes watching football games. College, pro, whatever it might be, every game offers an opportunity to see something new that might work for the Saints. He isn’t shy about sharing what he’s seeing to offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael and quarterbacks coach Joe Lombardi.

“They will be game-plan meetings during the week, and I will be sitting watching a college football game, a Thursday night game, or some other game and something will pop up on the screen,” Brees said. “The team will run a play, and I will pause, rewind, and bring my phone out to record.” ...

Full Story - The Advocate

 

[mdharper]

Funny. I enjoyed this article. It didn't really say much we don't already know on some level, but it feels good to be affirmed that we're not stagnant and don't really like being imitated.

 

[bobad]

I've seen teams have success using many plays to keep defenses off balance. I've also seen teams with a very small repertoire of plays destroy defenses. When plays work, you can fake them and do something else. Really, it's more about players and execution. The old Packers would run the "student body right", and dare you to stop it. Even when defenses knew it was coming, the RB's and blocking were so good, it was still successful. The old Redskins ran the counter trey over and over, but had it so perfected it was seldom stopped. And NOTHING slows down the pass rush like a good running game. If a team has the personnel to play Marty Ball, they're fools if they don't play it.