Taysom Hill's role in the New Orleans Saints offense has always been hard to define with one position, and don't expect that to change in Klint Kubiak's new system.
It's been several years since Hill shed the red non-contact jersey in offseason work, but the 2024 OTA sessions were the first time we'd seen him get work at fullback. He's also gotten work at tight end and taken handoffs from the quarterback, something he'd wager he's done about 10 times in games throughout his football career, and been involved in a lot of motion sets early on.
"I think it’s nice to be challenged," Hill said this week. "I’m trying to learn as much as I can and learning different positions and what that looks like.”
The biggest change will be one that only a few of the Saints' offensive players have to manage. Players like Hill, RB Alvin Kamara, C Erik McCoy and RG Cesar Ruiz will have to erase several seasons of engrained terminology from the Sean Payton/Pete Carmichael system from their memory banks.
"It’d be hard to think of something specific that’d be the same from our last offense to this offense," Hill said. "At the end of the day there’s only so many concepts that you can run offensively, so conceptually we’ve ran a lot of this stuff and blocked it a lot of the same ways, but the verbiage is all new.”
For Hill, that acclimation process began early in the offseason when he sat down with Kubiak for an in-depth conversation about how the do-it-all -- let's call him a quarterback -- would be utilized in the new scheme. Conventional wisdom would say some combination between 49ers versatile fullback Kyle Juszcyzk and versatile WR Deebo Samuel, with some wildcat quarterback thrown in.
Hill would say that the unique path to where he is right now is that his experience and success as a starting QB (he's 7-2 in those opportunities) is what really sets him apart. When he's on the field, other teams have to respect the pass. Interestingly, QB is one of the only roles he won't be seeing action prior to training camp, with those valuable reps going to Derek Carr, Jake Haener and Spencer Rattler as they look to pick up the new system.
Still, when head coach Dennis Allen was asked whether that could be a sign of Taysom QB reps going away, the answer was abrupt and simple.
"No," he said with a deliberate pause before adding "I don't think we're going to run it every snap, but yea, we're gonna utilize him in that. Absolutely. So start gameplanning."
That last part is the key. Taysom's existence on the field creates mismatches. It's a question that even Saints defensive coaches are still working on answering. Linebackers coach Michael Hodges approached Hill on Tuesday with questions about how defensive personnel grouping could adapt to his role. It's something that opposing defensive coordinators would certainly prefer not to answer, and that's what Kubiak's scheme will have at its disposal.
"Certainly you want to be at a place that you want to be wanted and someone that has a vision for you," Hill said. "Klint and I sat down and had a great conversation in the offseason, he kind of outlined and mapped out how he envisioned me being used and I would say we had a great frank conversation and it was super positive – and everything we’ve seen to this point has been reflective of that conversation.”
The next question becomes usage and how much is reasonable for a player entering his age 34 season, but admittedly one who still has a lot more tread on his tires than his age might suggest. It's been a subject in the past, with Allen indicating that the team has to be careful with his usage to ensure he can be there the entire season.
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How that's established is a bit more complicated. Allen said the team doesn't plan to set a number of snaps or touches that would be optimal, though recent history would suggest that more Taysom equates to more winning. The idea will revolve around high-impact plays, with the caveat being that lining up at fullback, for example, will require a lot more physicality than what might've been asked previously. Hill is coming off a season with career highs in both catches (33) and receiving yards (291). It was also a season where he threw the ball just 11 times (the lowest total since 2019), but carried the ball 81 times for another 401 yards and four of TDs.
"Guys are kind of figuring out, OK, what can we do with him, how can we utilize him, what are all the different things that we can ask him to do, and look, quite frankly there’s gonna be some times where, to utilize him the way that we want to utilize him, he’s probably gonna have to do a little bit of dirty work," Allen said. "That’s kind of the cost of doing business.”
He's had an even bigger impact when it comes to getting the Saints into the end zone. Over the past two seasons, neither of which included a start at quarterback, Hill has accounted for 18 touchdowns (3 passing, 4 receiving and 11 rushing).
In the end, Taysom sums things up best: "I think the more that I do, the harder it is to defend."
Opposing defenses, and it appears the Saints' new offensive system, would agree on that.