A Page From Sean Payton’s Playbook: Good Design, Better Execution
Super Bowl XLIV was an incredibly entertaining game between Peyton Manning’s Colts and Drew Brees’ Saints teams. Ultimately, it was New Orleans who prevailed, thanks to plays like this one.
New Orleans found themselves down 10–3 to the heavily-favored Colts, but they executed a great two-minute drill at the end of the first half to get into field goal range and narrow the lead to 10–6, building some great momentum going into the locker room at the half.
A successful play depends on a lot of things, from a great design on the chalkboard, to the actual execution, as well as proper fundamentals, and a good amount of football intelligence from the players involved.
So let’s look at a great example of all of those things working together on the biggest stage of them all.
The Play
Here’s the situation:
It may be 1st and 10, but with the time left on the clock this is a passing down, and both teams are treating it like on. New Orleans still has a timeout left, so they have the ability to use the whole field instead of picking their spots along the sideline.
Sean Payton’s team has struggled to move the football consistently against this Indianapolis defense, but they’ve managed to create a little bit of momentum, and don’t want to waste it right before the half.
We’ll take a look at the actual throw on the dig route in a moment, but first I want to talk about the concept developing to the other side of the field, and why I really like the design of the routes.
A Tight Split
The Will linebacker is aligned a bit deeper because of the tight split by the X receiver . He wants to be ready to come over the top of any X-Jet concept where New Orleans could send the back Reggie Bush in a rub route and work off of the inside release of the X.
The Sail Concept
The first place Brees looks is to the three receiver side of the formation. With Indy being such a heavy Cover 2 team, New Orleans is hoping to use clear out the deep left side with the skinny post and leave the corner route wide open once the cornerback to that side collapses on the flat route from tight end Jeremy Shockey.
(The skinny post doesn’t start to break to the middle of the field until a 20 yard depth, a little past the left border of this picture)
However, Indy is fully committed to shutting down the deep routes (at least to the strong side) and has called Tampa-2 coverage, meaning that middle linebacker Gary Brackett will drop to safety depth at the snap and try to take away any routes that aim to split the safeties.
As it happens, the Colts don’t bite on Shockey’s flat route underneath, and they successfully take away the sail combination, leaving Drew Brees to move to the next step in the progression. Before we get there, let’s talk about a detail that often gets overlooked: the significance of the outside receiver in 3×1 sets.
The Skinny Post Route and Why It Matters
The deep skinny post route by the #1 receiver is another example of how Sean Payton designs his passing game to get the maximum use out of his receivers.
A big part of preparing for 3×1 passing offenses is deciding how the defense will play the #1 receiver since in so many schemes, it’s actually very rare for the #1 receiver to get the football thrown his way.
There are two reasons for this:
- Clear Out Routes
- Distance of the Throw
Clear Out Routes
In the majority of passing schemes out of formations like these, the #1 receiver is the clear out man to create space to that side of the formation for the other two receivers to come into that area.
The receiver’s path usually takes him out of the quarterback’s progression, and as you may expect, defenses have caught on. It’s common for defenses to leave a defender on an island against that receiver, while the rest of the defense will run a standard coverage so that the clear out receiver won’t remove anyone else from the area besides the defender locked in on him.
So the benefits of the clear out route are limited a bit if the defense can put a defender on him, knowing that 99% of the time he won’t get the ball thrown his way. On the other hand, if you can still use the receiver to clear out a specific area, and then send him into the deep middle of the coverage to influence the safeties, you’re getting a lot more out of him than if he was just running straight down the sideline.
Distance of the Throw
There’s another reason why the #1 receiver in these types of formations are “sacrificed” as clear out routes, and it’s because of the distance of the throw, which translates to a longer amount of time where the ball is in the air, which means more time for defenders to react to the throw and either knock it down or intercept it.
This is especially true in college, but even at the pro level where, as we discussed recently, the offense has the ball in the middle of the field no matter what, it’s still a bit longer than most other short and intermediate throws.
Even coaches who love to throw the football on offense don’t like to keep the ball in the air longer than necessary, which is why most throws to the #1 receiver in that formation are either deep throws in the vertical passing game, where the receiver is separated from much of the defense and is usually only within reach of one or two defenders, or in the receiver screens that teams run using other receivers or even offensive linemen to create a path for him after the catch.
In both cases, the pass to that widest receiver is specially designed to keep the bulk of the defense away from him.
Eyes and Shoulders
Now we follow Drew Brees to the other side of the formation as he waits for the backside dig route to come open, but there’s a problem.
You’re always hearing analysts talk about quarterbacks looking off the receiver, and this play is a perfect example of how it works. Without Drew Brees’ ability to move defenders around like this, the play would’ve likely ended up with a short dump off to Reggie Bush or maybe even a sack.
Once Brees finishes scanning his left side and sees the concept covered, he flips to the opposite side of the field keeping his eyes downfield. Knowing that the route is timed to come open a bit later than the concept to his left side, he keeps his feet moving.
The problem is, the Will linebacker #55 Clint Session is sitting a little too close to the passing window for the dig route to come open. Ideally, the ball needs to be delivered right around the hash marks so it will fit between the safety and the Mike linebacker and Brees doesn’t get his receiver’s head knocked off as he’s reaching for the football.
So how do you move the linebacker out of the way?
As we talked about above, Clint Session is already wary of Reggie Bush making a play out of the backfield because of the tight split of the X receiver and the possibility of either a screen play or a two-man rub concept working off of the X.
So as Brees steps up, he uses a very subtle but effective move with his eyes and shoulders to influence Session to fly downhill after Bush, and in the process vacate his zone and open up space for the dig route behind him.
Take a close look at Brees and the way he uses his eyes and shoulders in the pictures below.
First, he looks as if he’s going to step up in the pocket, with all the pressure close by, and dump the pass off to Bush underneath. As a result, Session starts to step up in that direction in anticipation of the throw.
This opens up the throwing lane down the hash to the receiver coming in behind him, and Brees steps up and delivers the throw to the receiver.
Note that he aims the ball a little behind the receiver because he doesn’t want to take any chances with the Mike linebacker Gary Brackett in the area jumping in front of the ball to pick it off.
The receiver #19 Devery Henderson makes the grab that gets New Orleans to the edge of field goal range, and it’s his great hands combined with Drew Brees’ expert fundamentals and understanding of the defense that allows the Saints to drive down the field and kick a field goal going into the half.
If you like what you just read, please hit the ‘Recommend’ or ‘Share’ button below to make it easier for others to find this story.
