The New Orleans Saints have some questions to answer at quarterback this week with Derek Carr dealing with an AC sprain.
Jameis Winston feels likely to start if Carr can't go against the Bucs, but another question looms for Taysom Hill. With Jake Haener suspended, will Hill be forced out of his traditional role as the only viable backup? Speaking on WWL Radio this week, Dennis Allen said that he'll still be expected to contribute.
Listen to the full WWL exclusive interview with Dennis Allen in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
“I don’t think the plan really changes for him," Allen said to Bobby Hebert and Mike Hoss on the WWL Saints Coaches Show. "He was actually a big part of the game plan this past week."
Hill was a major factor while running for 75 yards on 9 carries against the Panthers, while also catching a pass for no gain and completing another for 8 yards. He caught a pass for 9 yards and carried the ball 4 times for 12 yards against the Packers. In past seasons, for example in 2019 when Drew Brees went down, Hill's role was limited. During the five-game stretch started by Teddy Bridgewater, Hill touched the ball just 12 times total.
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The Saints are 7-0 dating back to the start of 2022 in games when Hill has 40 or more rushing yards. They are 2-11 in games when he logs less than 40 rushing yards. The stat can be slightly misleading, considering Hill tends to get more touches when the Saints are ahead, but it's certainly not a coincidence.
Hill was shut down effectively by the Bucs in both matchups last season, rushing for just 24 yards on six carries. Both games were close, but Tampa came out with the win in each.
"We’ll continue to utilize him and find ways to get him involved," Allen said, "and when we did … have some just true, quarterback run plays, I thought those were effective.”
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MORE FROM DENNIS ALLEN
On getting Alvin Kamara back
“He’s back in the building and ready to go. … Look, Alvin does a great job of keeping himself in condition. That was the least of my worries. I knew that when he got back in here, he’d be ready to go and I’m excited about having him back.”
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What are 'tough corrections?'
“I just don’t think we executed like we’re capable of executing, and so we’ve got to own that. We’ve got to recognize the things that we didn’t do well, and we’ve got to be able to to get those things fixed. And so any time you lose a game like that, there’s a lot of factors that go involved in that and we have to own our part of that, and certainly our guys came in today. We had to have a little bit of thick skin and we made the corrections that we need to make and we’ve got to go out this week and have a hell of a week of practice to get ready for a divisional opponent coming in here to our house."
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On 4th quarter collapse, moving forward
“Certainly it wasn’t our best quarter of football, but look, we’ve got to swallow it, we’ve got to own it, we’ve got to get better from it. And so we’ll do that, we’ll make whatever corrections that it that we need to make. And look, at the end of the day, we’ve got to be able to maintain possession offensively. We’ve got to be able to get off the field defensively, and I thought one of the key factors in the game was third down. We didn’t do a good enough job on third down getting off the field and that led to some extended drives and had us out there defensively playing a few more plays than we needed to play.”