The New Orleans Saints have a brand new offense and good reason for optimism surrounding it, but what will it take to unlock the best version of it?
NFL analyst Mark Schlereth, who will be calling Sunday's season-opener against the Carolina Panthers, thinks it will come down to something very specific: Wide receivers blocking.
"All the receivers want to catch passes, but there are some guys that don’t want to do the dirty work," Schlereth told Mike Detillier and Charlie Long this week on WWL, "and it’s the guys who are willing to sacrifice and do the dirty work, those are the guys that make the big-time explosive plays because they sell it and it looks the same.”
Listen to the full interview with Mark Schlereth in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
That goal of making everything look the same has been echoed by offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, but mostly by QB Derek Carr who said the first five steps of most of the playbook could be anything. That's particularly important when it comes to the play action, which only works as well as it should if the defense is at least somewhat convinced the play could be a run. To do that, the Saints will have to be able to run the ball out of looks with one or both of Rashid Shaheed and Chris Olave on the field.
Both players have said they added extra bulk this offseason with that in mind, but it'll come down to the effort on the field when it matters. Schlereth pointed to one rep in the Saints' game against the 49ers where he didn't see a satisfactory block from Olave and it led to a Taysom Hill run getting stopped in the backfield.
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"That’s one of those things that’s not gonna fly, and ... you have to understand globally the importance of the role of blocking as a wide receiver, and in this offense and I played in this offense for a long time and I’ve been covering this offense for a long time, I’ve seen the evolution of this offense for a long time," Schlereth continued. "In this offense, if you’re not willing to do that, like, a lot of the big plays that you’re gonna make, a lot of the big-time explosive plays you’re gonna make are coming off that play action game, and so like, you have to start understanding the global perspective of if I get down here and root a guy out and I show people this on a consistent basis, when I do that and I’m faking it and all of a sudden I’m running a deep over or something of that nature or … whatever I’m running, you know, I’m running some type of hide and I’m leaking out, like, these are going to get you these big-time over the top touchdown passes, these things that go where I’m not covered and I’ve got 20 yards of space, and that’s this offense."
Big blocks from the wide receivers can and will lead to big plays for the wide receivers, and that'll be the foundation of this offense. The Saints' first chance to prove they can get it done will be on Sunday when they host the Carolina Panthers at the Caesars Superdome.