How the Saints use Taysom Hill and the ‘Weak F’ series to expand their run game

Sean Payton has used Taysom Hill as a force multiplier in the run game. Two plays against the Falcons showed how well the Saints are doing it.

It should come as no surprise that the Saints have seen their three highest single-game rushing totals of the season since Taysom Hill became Drew Brees’ injury replacement at quarterback. As Hill has the athleticism to create yardage in specific option packages, and he’s relatively undeveloped as a quarterback, it’s been Sean Payton’s job to win, regardless. With Hill at quarterback, the Saints rode the run game and their tremendous defense to wins over the Falcons, Broncos and Falcons again with Brees out of the picture. They ran for 166 yards to 210 passing yards against Atlanta in Week 11, they ran for 229 yards to 63 yards against Denver in Week 12, and they ran for 207 yards to 217 passing yards last Sunday against Atlanta as Payton gave Hill a bit more to handle in the passing game, but still led with the run.

Since Week 11, per Sports Info Solutions, the Saints have 56 carries on designed quarterback runs (design, sneak, draw) for 239 yards, 86 yards after contact, five touchdowns, three broken tackles, and 23 first downs. That puts them in the same realm as the Patriots, Ravens, and Cardinals — teams for whom the designed quarterback run is obviously a major part of the offensive design.

Moreover, Hill’s presence has allowed Payton and his players to expand the run game in a larger sense. Adam Ney, sports photographer for New Orleans’ WWL-TV, put together this outstanding audio/video piece in which Payton explained how, against the Falcons last Sunday, one six-yard Hill keeper in the first half led to an 11-yard rushing touchdown by running back Alvin Kamara in the second half.

First, the keeper — “15 Weak F Keeper,” to be specific. The Saints have first-and-10 at the Atlanta 18-yard line with 2:00 minutes left in the first half. Here, receiver Tommylee Lewis runs pre-snap motion to give Hill a coverage indicator and set the defense on edge for a possible pass play. Tight end Josh Hill blocks the front side of the keeper from the back side. Then, the fake handoff to Kamara to get the interior defense to commit, and then, Hill takes off for the sideline.

“We run a certain run where the one player — the tight end — comes across the formation and blocks back, and then, the running back takes the handoff,” Payton said. “And in that game, we faked that run and had Taysom keep it. It was ’15 Weak F Keeper,’ and Taysom gained seven yards and ran around our right end. It was a positive play — a good run. It was a designed quarterback run the whole way, off of a run that we run — the ‘Weak F’ series.”

Then, the expansion of that concept, courtesy of Kamara.

“And so, at halftime, we were heading toward our locker room, and it was just in casual conversation. [Kamara] happened to be next to me, walking to the locker room, and I said, ‘What do you like in the second half?’ Just getting his gut [feelings] about a few different runs. And he said to me, ‘I really like that same play where we ran Taysom’s keeper, but we get the run off it.’

Here, with 9:07 left in the third quarter, and another first-and-10, you have the same motion from Lewis, the same tight end block from Josh Hill, the same mesh point for the defense to decipher, and in this example, linebacker Deion Jones bites hard on the Hill keeper fake, leaving the middle wide open for Kamara. Bonus points here to left guard Andrus Peat [No. 75] for shoving defensive tackle Grady Jarrett [No. 97] out of the gap, and out of the play. Not generally an easy thing to do when Jarrett is your opponent.

“So, there’s a motion element to it with Tommylee, and there’s a misdirection element, so it was really easy at halftime to say, ‘Hey, I want to come back to that formation we ran the keeper from. We’re coming off this Bunch [formation] Z Torch 15 Weak F — instead of calling it ‘Keeper,’ let’s just hand it off. So we did, and of course, the inside linebacker really fell out of the box, and it was as clean as run as we’ve had. So, [Kamara] got a kick out of that.  After he scored, he came over, and his smile wasn’t about that he scored, it was about that he kinda put the play in.”

All offensive play-designers have series of plays with different iterations within that multiplicity. The best play-designers are able to utilize those concepts ideally to their personnel as their personnel changes, and are also able to adapt on the fly to new and better information. This two-play sequence shows just how dialed-in Payton is in this capacity.