Drew Brees is absolutely a stats chaser. I'd love to see the stats on number of short TD passes over the last few years. Brees has to be way ahead of everyone else (only Rodgers would be close). The saints drafted Ingram high, and although I think he's mediocre, they've never given him a chance to run the ball, even when they have those huge leads. Now how much of this is in Brees' control, as opposed to Sean Peyton, I don't know.
Compare this to teams like the Chargers or even the Patriots. At times, Belichick has run up the score with the best of them, and let Brady pass with big leads. However, at least as often, he will run the ball relentlessly with smaller leads than the Saints had last night. Even the Packers don't continuously pass the ball, no matter the score, like the Saints do. They literally never run the ball two plays in a row, at any point in the game.
I know it's tempting to just keep passing when you can, when the defensive backs are as putrid as they are throughout the league, and the rules have been re-written to make it hard for even the best of them to play defense, but sportsmanship should come into play at some point. Because of the number of times this has happened in Brees' Saints' career, I don't respect his numbers (and to a lesser degree, Rodgers as well), the way I respect Manning's, Brady's, etc.
Ingram is a complete bust, their running game sucks. Ingram gets you 2 yards at best and only good up the gut. So many times ive seen them run with good blocking for him to get stuffed at the goal line 2 or 3 times, then Brees throws a pass for a td. Go check the stats, last time you claimed this i pulled it up for you, Brees actually has a high number of tds over 20 yards. Darren Sproles is a scat back can't pound it like Woodhead can, although the two are compared Pierre Thomas can but is injury prone can't handle more than 10 touches a game or will be injured. Ingram, like mentioned is a bust. Ivory was great and they used him to run out the clock but he couldn't complete a game without getting injured, the Jets foolishly traded for him and now hes injured, SURPRISE. The Superbowl season when they could run it, they did, and they were able to do it with guys like Mike Bell. Right now, the only back that looks like he has potential is Khiry Robinson, a 206 pound back from West Texas A&M with 4.8 speed sad that he has the most potential, but this is why I say agility is better than straight line speed, Ingram ran a 4.6, but also a 4.6 shuttle, which is the slowest i can think of off the top of my head, the only success with slow shuttle is Lawfirm with 4.5, and he is mediocre at best. This is why Ingram can only go straight up the gut. And Robinson has really had only two games where flashed potential.
The sad part of this story is, Brees is still put down for the most ridiculous reasons. No he doesn't call the plays, Sean Payton has complete control, he can audible to get a better matchup but if Peyton has them lined 4 or 5 wide not much he can do with that. Look at theton sidelines, Payton has this big sheet of plays, his playbook is really like what every team says they are, which is why wideouts always fall ill to some injury their first year because they take that long to learn the different duties of the wideout spot (Peyton likes his wideouts and tight ends to be able to play all spots on the field, which means x y z for wideouts and tight and split out wide for tight ends which is why I hate why Graham is considered the best "tight end", dude plays less than half of his snaps lined up as a true tight end.
Brees still did well in a run first system with Marty Shottemheimer with LT the feature guy, made Gates who he is today by working extra with him (the same thing now with Graham). Attempted way less passes and still had 27 and 24 his last two years there, which rose to 26 his first year with the Saints, then 28, then 34 when the league was getting more spread happy. He is an elite qb, but Payton has the perfect system for him similar to Bellicheck and Brady (Peyton Manning is the only one who really runs his own show all by himself, which I think has hurt him in the playoffs), because last year when Payton was gone, Brees may have led the league in tds, he also led in interceptions, did not look like the same qb.
and respect Brady but not Brees? Payton/Brees, Bellicheck/Brady are a combo. when they could throw it they did. It wasn't until a couple of years ago they tried to start running more. from 2005 until now they were chucking it just like Brees with 1250 combined attempts 2012 and 2013. Brees has like 80 more attempts which is 40 per year, not much in the grand scheme of things, it comes out to 2.5 attempts per game. Then it looked like they didn't want to keep Welker so looked like they wanted to go back to the pre spread Pats where they ran it more, but Welker still put up big numbers and Gronk. The first few seasons Brady was more like in a role similar to Brees with the Chargers. If Gronk was still healthy and if any of those black receivers were worth a damn they would be doing the same thing. Patriots have gotten more flak for running up the score than anybody but you do something until you can make an opponent stop it. its a passing league with corners who can't cover, with only a handful of elite backs, a few average and tons of scrubs with injuries piling up every week. What would you do with an elite qb? Brees doesn't have a backup really to come in. Ryan Griffin from Tulane is really raw, first year out struggled in training camp and Luke McCown is a game manager, same age as Brees,not a guy you put out there in garbage time to develop ,nonee on the level of Mallet, Hoyer, Cassel, the last two are proven starters
and unlike Bellicheck and Brady, back in 2009 when Payton had a playoff game and homefield advantage locked, he sat his starters the last game, what stats were they chasing there?
its such a ridiculou notion that Brees or any White qb goes out there thinking he has to get so many yards or tds. He had the shot to break Marino's record back when they had a losing season, the defense let the dude get wide open just not in scoring distance, and Brees said screw it, he need like 8 yards or something and decided not to break it, rather try to force it for a win that wouldn't affect the playoffs. It wasn't important to him. Winning is important to him and like most qbs and workhorse rbs, I am sure they want to try and do a a good amount of the winning on their shoulders
Now Sean Payton has gotten what is known as "the fever" as described by Bill Parcells, where he wants to pass it too much, in fact had his play calling duties taken away one year while in New York because of this. I am sure this still occurs from time to time.
besides, im not sure if you understand football, its much harder to score closer to the redzone, which why always hear the phrase "they must convert in the redzone...tds not field goals", because the field shortens, less space for dbs and linebackers to cover, everything becomes congested. If it were so easy to throw tds in the redzone every team would do it all the time. Its usually easier to get into a big jumbo package extra tight end and run it in.
over the Ravens defense Manning could have had 8 TD passes in the game. Instead they killed the clock out on the ground.
