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Originally Posted by Chrisksaint |
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False. Does Drew Brees make the offense run? Yes.However let me take you through a tour of their roster.
Marques Colston, Meachem, and Lance Moore all capable receivers at what they do featuring 1 potential pro bowler maybe even 2 depending how Meachem continues his devlopment. Jimmy Graham an athletic stud at TE with David Thomas also a very capable TE that can be used. Pierre Thomas can do it all at the RB position when healthy, Chris Ivory was a stud when healthy as well, so now add in Mark Ingram. Jahri Evans and Carl Nicks are prolly the top 2 guards in the NFL.
Defense isn't as great as the offense but it's getting there. Will Smith, Sedrick Ellis, Shaun Rogers, and now Cam Jordan on the D-line. Vilma the defensive leader at MLB, OLB spot is heh but they have some young guys who have been hurt early. Malcolm Jenkins really shined in his 1st year at FS, Porter/Greer are really solid at CB but I feel Greer did have a down year. Last years 1st pick Patrick Robinson was decent when thrown into the fire last year due to injuries.
To say the Saints is only as good as Brees is silly, the talent is there for Brees to have an off game and still win a game just won't be as pretty or easy. LAst year tho maybe cause with all the injuries to the team and even to Brees himself he was basically told to just go sling out there for 60 attempts in the Seattle game.
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I'm just comparing the team to the Falcons. If Matt Ryan goes down, I'm confident that a Chris Redman-led Falcons will still win games, even if it means relying a bit more on Michael Turner but, for the most part, the Falcons will still be the Falcons. If Drew Brees goes down, yikes.
Case in point, here's Brees' passing attempts each season since coming to New Orleans:
2006: 554
2007: 652
2008: 635
2009: 514
2010: 658
Those are an insane number of attempts (for comparison, Brady in 2007 only threw 578 passes and, until the 2010 season, Peyton Manning had never thrown more than 591 passes in a season in his career!)!
That tells me the Saints are committed to the pass in a way that no other NFL team is, that Brees is capable of being very efficient and productive in the face of so much volume, and that I doubt many other NFL QB's, let alone the Saints' backups, could step up to the plate if Brees goes down and not force the offense to radically change.
Could a different QB fill those shoes and with the players the Saints have, could they do well? Sure. But success in that case would be predicated on Sean Payton dramatically changing the gameplan.