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We're seeing it come to fruition in the real games. I think you're equally a clown." If you're like, "Oh, you're taking the victory lap." No, we're just talking about what we thought, and then we're seeing it play out in the games because, I mean, look, I did not expect the Saints to be the best offense in the NFL, but I definitely think I was higher on the Saints offense than most people out there this offseason because I thought a lot of what we've seen so far with this offense and Clint Coopeyak and the way he's calling it, the way he's structuring it would be benefits to basically every player in New Orleans. And I think we're seeing that happen before our very eyes. I mean, on Sunday, it's one thing when you tear up the Panthers in week one, okay? Right. Exactly. It's one thing when you do that. But man, when you go out against a defense that I thought played great football in week one in Mike Zimmer and the Dallas Cowboys, I think that's a totally different story. According to next year's stats, the Saints offense was mainly under center, 75% of their plays in week two. They use motion on 74% of its plays. 9.5 yards per play and 61.5% success rate when using motion. So far this year, James Co, Derek Carr has 51.2% of his dropbacks have come with play action. He was dead last in play action rate and the Saints were dead last in motion last year. This is a cataclysmic change. Maybe at some point, the events is catch up. Like I don't, Mike, maybe Mike Zimmer just didn't do his homework from week one. Maybe it just wasn't ready for everything that the Saints were going to throw at him. I don't know, but that's a pretty bad job by Mike Zimmer. And I tend to doubt that that's the case. Right. But 13.2 yards per attempt on play action according to pro football focus. That's number two among quarterbacks so far this year. Number one is actually your boy Sam Darnold. So shout out to you and talk about a big gap on that one. But yeah, man, Derek Carr has played really good football this year for the Saints in this, in the way this offense is constructed. And I think the reality is it's just such a big deal. It's such a big deal when you go from an offense that is so far out of line with the way offenses are structured and designed right now. And then you go to just a, you know, offense that's pushing all the right buttons, elevating the quarterback, elevating the offensive line, elevating the receivers who are already really good. This is what you get. These are the results that you see. There's so many things going on here because first of all, I think from a personnel standpoint, it's not as if the Saints did a lot this offseason to change their personnel. So there's really not a whole lot that you could point to and say, Oh, well, they, they added this guy or they added this. It's like, no, they didn't really touch their offense all that much. It's the same quarterback, it's the same group of receivers and all that kind of stuff. It's just so easy to point to the offensive coordinator. Right. I mean, sometimes it's a messy picture where the offensive coordinator comes in and maybe they've got, you know, a brand new offensive line or brand new patent, that's just not the case in New Orleans. It really comes down to Pete Carmichael, who by the way is back with Denver and look at Denver's offense right now, struggling a lot versus what we've got in New Orleans and New Orleans is absolutely revamped themselves. And it's great. I mean, Rashid Shahid, who, you know, we've talked about, he's a splash play guy, there's no question about it. I mean, my dude has only run 33 routes total through two games, 33 routes total. And he's ninth in the NFL in receiving yards, right? When targeted, he has a perfect passer rating, 158.3. He's catching 77.8% of the footballs thrown his way. This is absolutely outstanding. It's, it's, it's ridiculous. It is crazy what is going on. But again, you go back to unlocking these guys, you know, and I know a lobby hasn't had like, you know, a huge breakout game, but you could just, you could feel that comment. You can feel that coming. There's going to be a game where this guy's going to pop off for two touchdowns and 120 plus yards and just a bunch of receptions. You could just, you feel that coming with Chris Olave, but the fact that they've unlocked certain guys here and specifically Rashid Shahid, I think is just a huge testament to Clint Kubeack. Man, if I'm New Orleans, I'm trying to figure out a way. Like when the end of the year comes, especially because Clint Kubeack is the legacy kid, he's going to get a head coaching opportunity somewhere gone. You know, the head coach of the Bears by the end of the month. Why not? Why not? I don't know. You know what? We'll save this for the end of the year, but I'm just saying, if you're the Saints, right, and you've got Dennis Allen, or you could lose Clint Kubeack, what you doing, man? What you doing? Could you, would you, would you realistically say, Hey, Dennis, we got to make you the DC man and Clint Kubeack said, coach, brother, like, we just got to do this, you know, like, I don't know. I don't know. If I'm New Orleans, I'm not losing Clint. Don't you think they're like, there's a part of Dennis Allen, you know, because he's always so crusty and cantankerous and press conferences and like they ask him about AT Perry all the time. And he's like, yeah, he, he's a player who plays for us or like, yeah, Kendra Miller never plays for us. So what do you want me to say? Don't you think he almost would like rather go back to being a DC? If I was Dennis, I would think about it. Let me just put it that way. If they offer to be that, I'd be like, yeah, I might take that. But there was a situation. There was a situation where the Bucks, I think after like a nine and seven season, I believe, where the Bucks fired Lovey Smith to keep Derek Carter or Dirk Carter, because he had such a good year with James Winston or something like that. And it's like, well, we got a yeah, yeah, because it was James Winston's rookie season in 2015. And they fired, they fired Lovey Smith, right, to keep Dirk Carter because they were so which didn't work out, by the way. But they they were so worried about losing James Winston's office coordinator. So it's not something that's never been done before. Yeah, I could see it happening, man. Man, this is it's crazy. I found I found New Orleans. There's no way I want Clint Cleveland to be like leaving the building, dude. Period. Period. Yeah, and it's one thing if like, there were a couple of dorks who suggested this about like Bobby Sloak last year, like, oh, you can't lose buyers. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like let's slow down for a second. We've seen Domingo Ryan's do this one year and it's clear he has set the culture and the tone of that entire team. For sure. I just don't really buy the Dennis Allen's doing that. So I normally, normally I'd push back on this, but I think in this specific situation and we could be overreacting to two weeks, right? Like, let's see what happens when we get more games. But I do think I'm at least like, I'm at least willing to hear you out by the end of the year on that one. Yeah. I mean, and by the way, you know, the thing with the Houston situation, Domingo Ryan Sloak and all that stuff, again, you added a potentially generational style quarterback, you know, and like, and credit to get slow for unlocking that and unlocking Nico Collins and doing those things. That's awesome, man. For sure. He deserves credit on that. I'm just saying like, to say it's all slow when you added CJ Strauss seems a little seems a little off versus what we have in New Orleans. Like I said, they didn't really add all that much. It's Derek Carr, who we know is he's a known product in the NFL. Right. And again, this offense wasn't that good last year. So anyways, there you go. You know, I will say about Derek Carr, I'm not going to go crazy with my Derek Carr, you know, praise or anything like that. I think Derek Carr has been, I think he's been good so far this year. Obviously, he's been good that, you know, I think he's been really good. And I think that I think actually the reality is that, and this is something I'm like thinking about is that when like a guy like Derek Carr, who we've seen play above average football, when he has a season like he saw last year, it just should always immediately be like, well, let's just see him with an offense that's better designed. Like I wonder we can get it, you know, they're committed to him long term, that whole thing. But I just think like these guys that are in the Mayfield car zone, the Darnold zone, maybe although Darnold has been way worse than any of these guys, I still make sure in that. But Gino Smith or shoot, even even Jared Goff in a way, when we've seen them be like above average starting quarterbacks, I know I'm too quick to write off like, Oh yeah, but this guy or whatever, I'm just like trying to continually learn the lesson of like, let's and that was part of why the Saints like, I had some Saints optimism was, I'm honestly like some residual Baker Mayfield PTSD being way too low on Baker and having like no enthusiasm about the box offense prior, right, I think a lot of that was, I just wanted to be realistic about like, yeah, Derek cars like a punching bag, but he's, he is an above average starting quarterback. And when you give him a good picture, like the Clint Kubiak and the Saints are doing right now, he can get it done. And like he can feed productive receivers. And you know, that's the final point I want to make here is obviously ever she she heat is popping off. We had reception perception, lover she had a great profile last year. That was somebody I like drafting and fantasy this year. The whole deal, a very, very pro Chris bro pro or she had a podcast. Chris Olave, I get it. Why does he were 48 in fantasy right now? He has 92 yards on the season. He did nothing against Panthers in week one. He had 81 yards or whatever last week. By the way, if you're playing fantasy and you receive her clears 80 yards, you're not allowed to complain about it. Don't care where you drafted him. That's a totally pretty decent. How about being the Jamart chase people? Okay. 35 yards in week two could be worse. Travis Kelsey people. Oh my God. One catch. Jesus. But just want to hammer home to the people that if you're listening to this and you're worried about Chris Olave, it is James said it. And I just want to back it up. It is common baby. This is going to happen. I think Olave looked awesome in week two. Dude, they got him run after catch opportunities. Chris Olave hasn't had what have we talked about about Olave on this podcast since he's been drafted. No layup routes. No yards after catch opportunities. That's coming in this offense. We saw it in week two. I also think he's been playing a little with a little bit more edge, been playing a little bit more physical. And even like even in week one, I remember thinking this, this is a little more esoteric and stuff like that. I might have like a I might chart Chris Olave. I probably will because I'm just interested in getting this take on the website too. But there was a couple of plays in week one where you know, Chris Olave was kind of like, I don't even know what his deal was last year, right? He got like a resident. He had some like weird beef with car at times. It just felt very, you know, I think a lot of it is what we talked about with the Panthers. Sometimes you can't lie to the players. You can't, you can't be asked about what's going on on Sundays. And I think everybody in that Saints offense last year is like, this is bad. And like we're going nowhere with this. But like Olave in week one, even when he's got two catches for 11 yards, he was like constantly engaged with players. He was like dapping up their car. He was like getting excited for other guys. I just think that yeah, it's kind of like a bit of a slow take off here for Olave. But just want to hammer the point home for people that with this offense, with the way it's designed, it's coming for him. And I think he will have a really nice season. Man, what you just said there, I've talked about that a lot on various platforms. But on this podcast too, it's the numbers are the numbers. And I get it. The charting is the charting. But man, there is so much that goes into that though, you know, the vibes matter vibes matter because these are humans. These are guys with emotions, you know, and the vibes in New Orleans were just, man, they were just off last year. You know, it feels so different. And I get it, they're winning big. And so whenever you win, it's, it masks a lot, you know, totally 100%. But man, the way they're winning though, it's fun. As a matter of fact, Alvin Camaro said it post game. It's fun. These boys are having fun out there, you know, I think even in wins last year, it was hard to say, okay, well, they're just, they're, they're vibing their crews in right now. And and man, this just, it just feels different, you know, they've got a new voice in their ear, obviously with Clint Kubiak and just the way they're playing football right now, it just, it seems as if they're having a lot more fun. By the way, the way that Clint Kubiak is utilizing his dad's run scheme, or I want to say it's his dad's run scheme because it seems very similar outside zone. And using a guy like Alvin Camaro to find those seams and cut upstream, it's like, yeah, no shit, guys, like, really, you waited this freaking long? Come on, guys, like, what is going on? You know, like, I just don't understand. But I just want to point this out. I know it's a receiver podcast. But Alvin Camaro, 77% of his runs are outside the tackle box right now. Last year, it was around, I think it was around 55%. Just, it's just so obvious, like, you want to get this guy outside and moving, you know what I mean? And especially, by the way, especially if you've got a bad offensive line, you need to move that pocket. You know, get these guys moving a little bit by that, that's part of the answers that I'm talking about when you have an offensive, when you have a guy who understands how offensive lines need to move and all that kind of stuff. Anyways, whatever, we're getting off on a tangent. Yeah, it makes me it makes me think a lot about the conversation I had with Brandon Thorne on the podcast where he talked about the ways that you can help a bad offensive line. And he and I were both skeptical of this offensive line coming into the year. But again, they've both in the run and pass game, I think they pushed all the right buttons. So that that is a really good point. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat, literally. But don't sweat it, Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery so you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
Matt and James share their thoughts on this red-hot Saints offense through the first two weeks of the season.
Whether it's the biggest stars in the league or new rookies bursting on the scene, you won't get better wideout information anywhere else. Along the way, they'll break down the biggest stories in the NFL and offer up a few big-picture fantasy football thoughts.
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