I’m gonna go with execution of the screen pass. It’s not being used as effectively this year as it has in the past and we dealing with roughly the same personnel. Get Reggie into open space. You’ve got two lightning quick WRs in Henderson and Meachem. Throw a quick one-step flare to one of them every so often. Send Bush deep on the same play, just to keep the defense on their toes. If he’s the uber effective decoy everyone seems to think he is, it should leave the flanker one-on-one in the flat. If not, hit Bush 20 yards upfield. It worked once against Detroit — after never having run such a downfield pattern in three years — haven’t seen it since. Reverses are ok, but why not avoid the potential loss of yardage on the arch around? When executed properly, WR screens are even more difficult to read and react to. Mismatches are what it’s all about and our guys can present them, be it on an OLB or an undersized/flatfooted CB. Keep them guessing. That’s not gadgetry, that’s just good clean unpredictability.

Penalties, Penalties, Penalties. The Saints have 26 offensive penalties for 216 yards (10th and 8th worst, respectively), and 30 defensive penalties for 262 yards (5th and 3rd). A number of those penalties have cost them points as well. So far, the team has been able to overcome that, but with teams like the Giants, Patriots, and who knows in the playoffs, it will cost a win.

The thing that kept me on the edge of my seat yesterday was the short yardage failures. Maybe Lynell Hamilton can be that 3rd down bowling ball we need. And Reggie’s ball control problems are becoming a bit of a frustration for everyone as well. You can bet a defense as good as the the Giants will be ripping at the ball whenever they can.

on short yardage, there’s a guy that caught my eye this past draft, Cedric Peerman out of Virginia, who’s currently on the Cleveland Browns practice squad. I was hoping the Saints would take a look at him. Seems like a hard runner and someone of very high character, based on this video.

Is that we could be getting Shockmeister more involved in the aerial attack.

It seems to me that he’s caught a couple passes early in the last few games, and I’ll think, “Yeah, Shockey’s gonna have a big game.” but then he gets nothing after that.

Now I know I’ve got no statistical evidence to support this, so I’ll look up some stuff tomorrow (when I’m still off work because of the H1N1 (aka swine flu) and see if this holds up to scrutiny.

i agree with everyone here… penalties aren’t killing us, yet… but they can..potentially. i hope we get penalties cleaned up. also the screen. i think reggie is most effective in the screen but i haven’t seen a lot of that this year. he’s also proving to be a decent runner between the tackles. someone mentioned this before, but it seems he gets 8-10 touches in the first half and then disappears in the second half. not sure what that’s about, but i think having reggie involved in the second half will also help. i’d really like to see pierre and reggie in the back at the same time. talk about mismatch. basically with both of those guys in the back, brees has an unlimited number of options he can run.

imagine a hurry up offense with bush, thomas, shockey, colston and henderson? run, screen, deep pass, short dumps… everything is available with that personel grouping.

anyway, great post!

I’d like to see a three back set, with PT, Bell, and Bush out back, Shockey and Colston or Wendys tight on the line. I think that could be useless, disastrous, or awesome. Leave Brees to make the option call before the snap, send a guy up the gut, on a wheel or flare, and on a toss, or have 2 stay back, one get out to the side, and Colston or Shockey run intermediate routes. Maybe throw in Evans for lead blocking sometimes. I don’t know, that’s a lot of potential talent and a psychotic offensive playcaller to toy with.

(perhaps Payton has decided for him) that struggling for 2-3 extra yards (unless it is for a first down situation) may not be quite as important as just making sure of the catch, not taking a beating early on in the season, and ball security. Being that he is our main threat as a TE pass catcher, and with Dinkins having been injured it is a little thin at TE, I think keeping Shockey healthy and preventing him from fumbling is more important than the 2-3 extra yards he may pick up on avaerage, unless, of course that means the difference between a first down or not.