How The Saints Offense Operated The Best It Has This Season

Updated: Feb 1

Sunday’s game vs the Vikings showed us that this offense can show life and can operate the way it’s meant to operate. A game managing offense with a game managing quarterback. Taking what the defense gives you. That’s Saints football. It was a promising game from Andy Dalton but it wasn’t enough to say he should start over Jameis Winston moving forward.

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The Andy Dalton Led Offense

Andy Dalton did a good job operating the Saints’ offense the way it’s supposed to operate. The foundation of this offense since 2017 has been to run the ball to set up play-action passes and screens. That’s exactly what this offense did with Andy Dalton at the helm.

We saw the Saints execute the best drive of the season against the Vikings. It quite literally looked like the closest thing we’ve seen to a Drew Brees-Sean Payton touchdown drive since January 17th, 2021. The drive never reached a third down. The drive contained a good mix of an effective run game (which averaged 6.3 yards per run) and short to intermediate passes. The efficient run game set up the play-action pass to Tre’Quan Smith for 17 yards and a tight end screen to set up first and goal. The drive was perfect. Most importantly there were no flags.

Before the play above the Saints had run the ball four times. This was the second passing play, but you can see the influence the run game had on the linebacker reads as he takes a few steps forward initialing reading the play as a run. The previous runs most likely influenced the Vikings’ decision to play cover one man with five players on the line. Pete Carmichael calls a man-beater play and if Dalton has a stronger arm, he has a touchdown to Marquez Callaway.

While that drive represented how the Saints’ offense should look, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its issues with Andy Dalton at quarterback. The miscues from Dalton go deeper than the fumble before halftime. There were a few times when the pass was off target and the receiver became the defensive back to prevent the interception. On the two-point conversion, Dalton almost missed Jarvis Landry wide-open but was able to find him. Another similar scenario was the play before Wil Lutz’ ‘s missed field goal. Olave was wide open for what looked like forever. If Dalton connects on that play to Olave, Lutz kicks a 42-yard field goal and the team could be at 2-2.

These were some flaws in Andy Dalton’s game. There wasn’t a lot of them because it felt like the Saints were being super cautious to start the game. Once they let Andy Dalton loose, it allowed the offense to open up more. The veteran quarterback made the throws he had to make when it mattered. If he read man defense he took the matchup that favored the receiver or the man-beating route. If the Vikings showed zone he found the soft spot and found the opening.

An example of one of these reads took place when the Saints found themselves in a first and long situation after a penalty. The Vikings ran cover two zones and Dalton found Juwan Johnson for 16 yards. The play call was close to four verticals and was a very similar play call to a play the Saints ran during their comeback against Atlanta against a very similar coverage.

The same read took place the next drive. New Orleans found themselves down three trying to get into field goal range in 24 seconds with no timeouts, only needing roughly 33 yards. Given the situation, the Saints ran all-go routes against another cover-two zone coverage from the Vikings. Rookie Wide Receiver Chris Olave found a soft spot in the coverage in the middle of the field as the Vikings two safeties gravitated towards the outside receivers to prevent a clock stoppage. This throw is a perfect example of a veteran quarterback making a veteran play. Reading the coverage and finding the open spot in the zone to give his team a chance to tie the game.

There is no doubt that Sunday’s performance from Andy Dalton was the best performance from a Saints quarterback this season. That doesn’t mean the talent of Jameis Winston’s arm wasn’t missed at times. Dalton missed some throws that with a stronger arm it results in a touchdown. Those are throws that Jameis Winston probably makes and give the Saints an additional touchdown. Both throws were short to Chris Olave. A receiver with who Jameis Winston had a lot of chemistry within the team’s Week Three loss to the Panthers.

Overall though I’m knit picking at some of the errors from Andy Dalton. The game he put together was good enough to win the game, but the turnovers and mistakes were ultimately the downfall of the team’s loss.

Ruiz Improving

Going into the 2022 season there were a lot of questions about Cesar Ruiz. It felt like this would be his final chance to prove his worth. With his first full offseason including OTA’s, Mini Camp, and Training Camp the improvement shows on film. That’s why this week, Ruiz was one of the three players trending up. His former teammate and all-pro left tackle Terron Armstead is taking notice as well of the improvements Ruiz has made.

This becoming a weekly tweet!! 🥹🙌🏾 — T. Stead 🎤🎧 (@T_Armstead72) October 3, 2022

To give you another idea as to how well Ruiz has played, he’s only given up two pressures this season. Both came in week one. Those two pressures are the least amount on the team. A lot of this improvement can be traced back to the full offseason. But the addition of Jahri Evans to the coaching staff has defiantly played a huge role for Ruiz. We see his hand placement and footwork be a stronghold of his game this year and that’s something Evans talked about whenever Ruiz’s name came up.

Through four weeks, here's how the Saints OL stacks up in pressures allowed (per @PFF) – Ryan Ramczyk: 8 – Andrus Peat: 6 – James Hurst: 5 – Calvin Throckmorton: 4 – Erik McCoy: 3 – Cesar Ruiz: 2 (both in Week 1) Do with that information what you will. — Jeff Nowak (@Jeff_Nowak) October 5, 2022

Week to week this year we’ve seen a ton of growth from the third-year offensive guard. The 2020 first-round pick has done an excellent job picking up stunts, blitzes, and getting to the second level in the run game. In this next clip, you’ll see Ruiz do an excellent job of helping out on a double team and then excel to the second level creating a huge gap for Mark Ingram to run through.

The final play we’ll look at is impressive and one I thought would be perfect to end the article on. Ruiz is one-on-one the whole play and finishes the play like a server at IHOP. With a pancake.

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How The Saints Offense Operated The Best It Has This Season

The Andy Dalton Led Offense

Ruiz Improving

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