Why Sean Payton’s offense is the perfect fit for today’s NFL

NFL defenses have changed the last several years, and the offense Payton runs is the perfect counter-punch.

The NFL has changed over the last several years.

Every few years, the league winds change and new trends take hold, both on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. The constant punch, counter-punch of teams adjusting to what’s working or what propelled the latest Super Bowl team is part of what makes the game fun and exciting.

In gaming this is often referred to as the META or “Most Effective Tactics Available”. For a while, ground and pound with star running backs like Shaun Alexander and LaDainian Tomlinson were the NFL meta. Later, with the success of Calvin Johnson and Julio Jones you saw teams chasing big, fast wide receivers on the outside or trying to replicate the freak tight ends like Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski.

There’s also schematic metas with things like the read option, RPOs, Seattle Cover-3, or Tampa-2 (if you want to reach way back). Often the trending schemes dictate the types of players teams want or will pop up in response to a particular player or scheme dominating at the time.

We’re currently in a new meta. Two major trends have solidified starting around 2020 that have altered how the game is being played today.

2-High Safety Coverages

Maybe it was the league watching Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs gash them with explosive plays, culminating in the famous “Wasp” play to Tyreek Hill in the 2019 Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers, but right around the turn of the decade, defenses shifted their coverage approach.

Vic Fangio has been one of the most influential pieces of this trend taking hold over the last few years. I’ve broken down his defenses pretty extensively in the past when he was in Denver, but Ted Nguyen of the Athletic has a perfect piece illustrating this new league trend.

What makes Fangio’s defense the best response to modern offenses? Its two-high (two deep safeties) structure limits explosive plays and forces offenses to stay patient and throw short.

Dink and Dunk Offense

The proliferation of 2-high safeties has led to a second trend in passing offenses around the league, ironically, culminating in Patrick Mahomes winning another Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers, but this time with a 6.1 air yards per attempt and a 9.8 yards per completion. Both of those numbers would put him bottom five in the league for the 2023 season in those categories.

The Chiefs are a great example of this transformed offensive style as Mahomes ranked 31st in the league in intended air yards in 2023, and 21st in yards per completion, which was only his second finish outside the top five in YPC in his career.

And it’s not just Mahomes and the Chiefs embracing this new offensive wave as they adjust to the way defenses are playing them. The entire league has seen the average yards per completion fall off a cliff since 2020. In fact, an amazing stat I found researching this piece, the last two years saw the lowest league average YPC since the merger.

In 2023, 68% of all passes thrown were 9 air yards or less.

I bet you already know where this is going, now.

Sean Payton’s Offense

I’m not going to get into arguing about Russell Wilson and last season, but an expert in Payton’s offense, Drew Brees, recently said in an interview before the Super Bowl that what was happening in Denver did not look like the typical Sean Payton offense.

Whether it was QB limitations/preferences, talent, time to learn or a combo of all those things, I think it’s fair to say we haven’t yet seen an actual Sean Payton offense in Denver and I’m guessing we will this upcoming season.

One of the staple features of Sean Payton’s offense is efficiency – efficiency fueled by getting the ball out quick, throwing it short and on time, and limiting negative plays. It’s important to note that throwing it short isn’t an end unto itself, but is effective in allowing the quarterback to be efficient and counter defenses that require you to march down the field in smaller chunks.

High completion percentage

Drew Brees ended his career with the highest career completion percentage in the NFL at 67.7%. He’s since shifted down to 2nd as Joe Burrow has barely edged him out since coming into the league.

In the decade with Drew Brees under center in New Orleans, the New Orleans Saints never ranked below 2nd in the league in completion rate, with Brees averaging an eye-popping +70% his final five years.

The high completion rate is facilitated by getting the ball out quickly and short passes.

Quick and short passes

In Payton’s time with the Saints (2006 – 2021) their average time to throw was 2.62 seconds, which was 5th in the league during that span – contrasted with the fourth slowest time to throw (3.09 seconds) the Denver Broncos averaged last season.

Additionally, from 2018 – 2020 (as far back as the data goes), the Saints ranked 28th, 32nd, and 31st in intended air yards per attempt.

Low Sack Rate

Another piece of being efficient in the passing game is eliminating negative plays. One of the more interesting stats I saw on Twitter recently is 84% of the time if a sack occurs on your offensive drive, the drive is dead – meaning it scores no points.

It’s no surprise then that elite quarterbacks and very efficient offenses are great at avoiding sacks.

Getting the ball out quickly and on time is a huge enabler of this as well. In the last ten years, the Saints under Sean Payton have been one of the better teams in the league at limiting sacks to avoid killing their drives, rarely ranking outside the top ten in this category.

With Russell Wilson no longer in the picture for Denver, look for whoever starts at quarterback next year to lean more towards this approach as Payton looks to further implement his offensive vision.

More importantly, it seems that Payton’s offensive strengths are coinciding perfectly with a league that’s shifting more towards efficient, “dink and dunk” style offense to counter the prevailing defensive tendencies.

Of course, the players need to be in place to execute at a high level, but the blueprint is there for Payton to build a system that can hopefully give Denver an offensive identity they have long lacked.