Perhaps the most anticipated game of Week 1 in the NFL season kicks off Sunday afternoon when Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (yes, it still feels weird to type that) travel to New Orleans to take on Drew Brees and the Saints.
Let’s dive into some of the schematic elements we can see from this game.
When the Saints have the football
Sean Payton is a master at play-calling. Watching how he strings together play designs, setting up a defense along the way, is like watching Picasso at work. This was on display back in Week 5 last season, when the Saints topped the Buccaneers 31-24. Brees was sidelined with a thumb injury, meaning Payton turned to Teddy Bridgewater in his place. But Bridgewater threw for 314 yards and four touchdowns in the victory, one of the five-straight wins the backup helped engineer for New Orleans.
We will look at four plays from that contest to get a feel for how a master play-caller like Payton sets up a defense.
Early in the game, the Saints face a 1st and 10 in their own territory. They’ll run the Yankee concept, a maximum-protection route design off a run fake that has two routes for the quarterback to choose from:
As Bridgwater comes out of the play-action fake, he has the deep post route working from left to right, and the crossing route from Michael Thomas coming from right to left. The Buccaneers run man coverage here, and with the defender playing underneath Thomas, Bridgewater drops in a touch throw over the defender’s head for the big completion:
Easy read, easy throw, easy catch, and the Saints are into Tampa Bay territory.
Then early in the second quarter, the Saints face a 1st and 10 just across the 50-yard line into Tampa Bay territory. Taysom Hill is now in the game at quarterback. The defense might be thinking run, so Payton turns to essentially the same design, albeit with his third-string quarterback:
Once more, Thomas is open underneath and Hill hits him for another solid gain and a fresh set of downs:
So now the real fun begins. Payton has shown the Buccaneers this element twice. Later in the second quarter facing a 1st and 10, New Orleans shows the Tampa Bay defense these crossers once more, but there is a twist:
The Saints run the deep crossers off of play-action, while the Buccaneers drop into zone coverage with three defenders deep. Only on this play, the crossers are the eye candy. Payton has called for a running back screen to Alvin Kamara off of this action. The Saints have the numbers advantage as Kamara catches this toss with a convoy of blockers in front of him, and he picks up another first down for New Orleans.
A few plays later, the final wrinkle off this Yankee concept:
This ends up a three-level flood concept, and tight end Josh Hill finds a ton of space as the middle element in the design.
Sean Payton is a master at stringing plays together, so when this game kicks off on Sunday, watch how he sets up the Tampa Bay defense through the game, and then hits them with something they might not be expecting.
When the Patriots…errr…Buccaneers have the football
The biggest thing to watch when Tampa Bay takes the field is this:
Will this look like a Bruce Arians offense, or a Josh McDaniels offense?
For years Arians, a disciple of the Coryell school of offensive philosophy, has coached the game his way. Known for his staple phrase “no risk it, no biscuit,” Arians thrives with quarterbacks who are willing to be aggressive, take chances with the football, and push the ball downfield.
It is almost why he seemed the perfect coach for Jameis Winston.
But Winston, a year after leading the league with 30 interceptions, is in New Orleans. Enter Tom Brady, a quarterback with enough Super Bowl rings to require two hands.
But during his time in the league, aggressive downfield throws have not been a staple of Brady’s. Sure, when the Patriots had Randy Moss they were willing to push the ball downfield, but Brady is known more for his penchant to get the ball out on time, in rhythm, and to attack the shallow and underneath areas of the field.
So how will the two styles mesh?
Beyond that, the move from Winston to Brady might simply cut down on the number of mistakes by the quarterback. Watching Winston in this offense last season, there were a number of moments when the ball simply did not get to where it needed to be, when it needed to be there. Take this interception:
Winston stares this down and the ball arrives much too late, giving the defender more than enough time to read his eyes, jump the route, and snare the interception. The timing is off, the throw is late, and the ball is intercepted.
Regardless of the scheme marriage between Brady and Arians, these are the kind of mistakes that Brady rarely makes. The ball comes out on time and in rhythm. For contrast, here is Brady throwing a similar route:
The ball comes out on time, in rhythm and gets there right when it needs to, before the defender arrives.
That change might be the biggest one of all for the Buccaneers in 2020. So as this game unfolds, watch the timing from the Tampa Bay offense, as it should be much improved with Brady at the helm.