The Taysom Hill Era Is Now in Effect

There’s no going back for Sean Payton now. You may not see the effects immediately, but with one play call Payton announced to the NFL that Taysom Hill is his new quarterback.

The Saints were down 27–20 with less than a minute to play in a thrilling Monday Night Football matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers. Drew Brees had driven the offense down to the Chargers 9 yard line, and a crucial 3rd and 4 was up next. The ensuing play call came in and Brees slowly started jogging to the bench. From the sidelines Brees watched as Taysom Hill faked a handoff to Alvin Kamara, rolled to his right, and quickly scanned the field for open receivers before finally tucking the ball and sprinting untouched into the endzone.

Fast forward to overtime. The Saints get the kickoff and Drew Brees is methodically dinking and dunking the offense down the field once again. Another key 3rd down arrives and Brees is taking the snap for this one. From the Chargers 18 yard line Brees and the offense have a chance to keep the drive alive and ice the game. The result of the play was an incomplete pass, leaving the fate of the game in the hands of the New Orleans defense.

Fortunately for Brees and the Saints, a field goal would be enough to seal the victory as the New Orleans defense was able to stop Mike Williams and the Chargers offense just shy of the first down marker on the final play of the night. If things had wound up differently and the Chargers were able to pull off the upset, talk surrounding Sean Payton’s quarterback rotation may have gotten a bit louder this week.

For the time being those comments will remain thoughts or whispers, and Payton will continue to slowly unveil his new quarterback week by week. Soon enough Hill’s presence will become synonymous with pivotal moments for the Saints offense, and before long the rest of the world will see what Sean Payton already has — this roster is built to win a Super Bowl in 2020, and the best chance for them to do so is with Taysom Hill under center.

It’s easy to nitpick any two plays from a game for the purpose of creating a story, but at the end of the day it was the decision to put Hill in the game on that 3rd and 4 that said far more than the result of the play. Taking a future Hall of Fame QB out during one of the most critical points in a game is something coaches in the NFL simply do not do. It wasn’t a full fledged benching, but the message sent was the same. When Payton and the Saints needed a play in crunch time they went to Hill and he delivered.

Drew Brees’ struggles this year have been well documented. He’s refusing (maybe unable to?) push the ball down field and it’s putting a major ceiling on what should be one of the league’s best offensive attacks. You saw it in this game when the Chargers were daring Brees to beat them over the top. The Saints were struggling to generate any offense in the first half, and Brees seemed content dumping the ball off to Kamara (in his defense, not a bad strategy), and peppering Emmanuel Sanders with underneath targets. As the game neared halftime the Saints were down 13–3 and were in desperate need of some momentum. After checking the ball down all game Brees needed to take a shot to try and generate a spark. The big play happened… but it was the Chargers who were the beneficiary. As soon as Brees tried pushing the ball down the field he was intercepted by Nasir Adderley who proceeded to return the ball all the way down to the Saints 1 yard line. The Chargers were quickly able to capitalize and take a commanding 20–3 lead.

Yes, the media (and I) have been hard on Drew Brees this year, and yes he did lead this offense to another 27 points and a victory after the aforementioned interception. However these points and this victory came against a Chargers team that has consistently fallen apart in the second half of games this year. Last week they blew a 17 point lead to Tom Brady and the Bucs, and in week 2 they blew an 11 point lead to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. Collapsing in the second half seems to be LA’s signature move in 2020, and if Brees and the Saints want to have a chance at victory against some of the league’s tougher opponents, they’re going to have to do it in spite of Drew Brees, not because of him.

This New Orleans roster is built to win now. They have playmakers in every single position group, and offensively they should take a step forward with the return of Michael Thomas. When you have Thomas (arguably the league’s best receiver) and Kamara (arguably the league’s best running back), plus a solid offensive line and great supplementary weapons in Emmanuel Sanders, Latavius Murray, Jared Cook, and others, you should possess one of the league’s scariest offenses. So far this year the Saints rank 15th in yards per game, and seem to leave yards and points on the field in every game they play.

When you look across the league, mobile quarterbacks are becoming the norm. Lamar Jackson set the world on fire in his MVP campaign last year, Josh Allen, Russell Wilson, and Patrick Mahomes are leading candidates for that recognition this year, and Cam Newton and the Patriots are running an offense unlike anything we’ve seen in the NFL. This year Newton has run the ball an astounding 35 times in the 3 games he’s played (Newton missed week 4 due to COVID), and the league has taken notice. Josh McDaniels and Bill Belicheck, two of the brightest minds in the NFL, are notorious for adapting to their players strengths and so far this year they’ve come up with creative ways to feature Cam as both a runner and a passer and the result has been one of the leagues most high-powered offenses. You know Sean Payton is seeing what this Patriots team is doing and dreaming up ways to use Taysom Hill in similar fashion.

Another factor that makes what the Patriots are doing so impressive is the fact that they don’t exactly have a ton of weapons surrounding Newton. His best receiver is probably a declining Julian Edelman, and the running back position is a revolving door of mediocrity. Yet this lack of weapons hasn’t stopped Newton and the Patriots from being one of the most successful offenses in the league this year. If you look at the numbers in three games Newton has played, the Patriots offense would rank 4th in yards per game — sandwiching them between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. Not exactly bad company.

The New England offense has found this success through creative play calling and allowing Cam Newton to be Cam Newton. This offense has been consistently dialing up designed QB runs and read options to utilize Cam’s incredible athleticism, leaving opposing defenses scratching their heads trying to figure out how to stop him. This success on the ground has allowed the offense to create a devastating play action passing game that where Newton has flourished as a passer — consistently picking up chunk gains through the air to his uninspiring offensive weaponry. Creative coaching and a willingness to adapt have allowed Cam Newton to lead this Patriots offense with both his arm and his legs, and the result has been one of the most potent offensive attacks in the NFL.

Cam Newton and Taysom Hill are not at the same level of quarterback. It’s not even close. Cam Newton is a former MVP, and Taysom Hill is viewed by most as nothing more than (an expensive) gadget player. Yet their games have a similar style and pose a similar threat to opposing defenses. Both Newton and Hill are bigger quarterbacks with cannon arms who are capable of running the ball as effectively as some of the league’s top backs. They’re able to not only absorb contact from defenders with the ball in their hands, but deliver punishment as well. When Hill is in the game for New Orleans, the playbook looks awfully similar to what the Patriots are doing with Newton. You see QB powers, QB sweeps, play action deep shots, and more. Although Hill is no Newton, he’s enough of a threat as a runner and is more than capable of getting the ball into the hands of his superstar playmakers. Just as Hill is no Newton, Julian Edelman is no Michael Thomas, and *insert Patriots running back for the week here* is certainly no Alvin Kamara.

It’s a running joke in the NFL that “Michael Thomas only runs slants.” Somehow this is viewed as a knock on Thomas, but I think it’s a compliment. If a defense knows what you’re going to do and still can’t stop you, you’re an elite NFL player. When Thomas has a quarterback that can deliver the ball further than 5 yards past the line of scrimmage, his entire route tree will open up and he’ll put that much more pressure on opposing defenses. Meanwhile Alvin Kamara continues to be a cheat code out of the backfield as he leads the league in scrimmage yards per game. These two players are in their athletic primes and are more than capable of putting a team on their backs to lead a deep playoff run. The Saints are a smart enough organization to understand this, and are making adjustments to center their offense around these two players rather than a Hall of Famer under center like they’ve done in the past.

All credit is given to the Patriots creativity in coming up with an entirely new offense focused on Cam Newton’s strengths. Yet when Taysom Hill enters the game for New Orleans, viewers of the game think it’s simply to run a trick play that Payton has up his sleeve. Make no mistake though, Sean Payton and Taysom Hill have an entire offense together not just a few gimmicks. Sean Payton is one of the league’s brightest offensive minds, and he knows the advantages that come with having every player and every inch of the field pose a threat. Hill won’t come into the game and start dropping dimes at every level, but he can at least ensure that defenses need to account for more than they otherwise would with an aging Brees or similar pocket-passing quarterback. This is something Newton has forced opposing defenses to do throughout his career with great success, and although Hill will likely never be the talent that Newton is, he can pose a similar threat in this New Orleans offense. By putting Hill in the game, opposing defenses need to account for things that Drew Brees simply can not force them to cover. Defenses already have enough trouble containing Kamara and Thomas in the phone booth that is Drew Brees’ throwing radius, but with an arm that can cover an entire field and legs that can generate a first down in the blink of an eye, Taysom Hill can, and eventually will, take this offense to new heights.

This offseason the Saints gave Hill $16 million in guaranteed money. You don’t give a player that much money just to have them play a handful of snaps each game. Right now Hill is on the field for roughly a quarter of the Saints offensive snaps, and I have a feeling that number will continue to rise as the season progresses. Brees’ arm isn’t getting any younger, and New Orleans’ title window is right now. Taysom Hill is good news for Alvin Kamara, Michael Thomas, and the rest of the Saints offense. By unlocking every level of the field, Hill doesn’t need to play at a Hall of Fame level like Brees a few years back, he simply needs to be the 3rd (or maybe 4th or 5th) biggest threat on the offense to allow the rest of the team to make plays around him.

2020 is looking like one of the strangest years in NFL history, and it’s time for the Saints to embrace strangeness and use it as a weapon of their own. I have no idea what the transition to Hill at quarterback could look like, but luckily for the Saints the rest of the NFL has no idea either. Maybe Hill works his way towards taking the majority of snaps at QB, or maybe it’s closer to a 50/50 split with Brees in a true 2 quarterback system. Imagine being a defensive coordinator who planned all week for Drew Brees just to find out Taysom Hill is going to take 90% of the snaps and keep you off guard all game. Try and put yourselves in the shoes of a defensive coordinator in the playoffs making half time adjustments to stop Drew Brees, just to find out Hill takes every snap in the second half and the offense you just planned to stop no longer exists. The possibilities with Hill are endless, and Sean Payton is smart enough to make the most of those opportunities.

Although it’s tough to envision how the transition to Hill will shake out, one thing is clear — Drew Brees and his 41 year old arm have put a ceiling on this explosive Saints offense. Hill has the chance to remove that ceiling and give this team a chance come playoff time. The odds are slim, but when you have a chance in the NFL to roll the dice and make a run, you have to take that chance. It’s never fun watching a legend start to decline, but championship windows are short in the NFL and if the Saints want to capitalize on their window, they need to go all in on Taysom Hill.