There are only two players on an NFL roster that touch the ball on every play. One of those is the quarterback, and the other is a guy on every NFL roster that's often overlooked.
For the New Orleans Saints, that player is Erik McCoy, a stalwart star whose importance to his team only became more and more apparent with his absence. He went out early in Week 3 with a groin injury and landed on injured reserve. The Saints went on to lose seven games in a row, a run that ultimately ended with the firing of Dennis Allen before a win in Week 10 over the Falcons.
"If you have a fantasy team you would never understand why he’s important," Carr said this week, talking about McCoy's anticipated return in Week 11 against the Browns.
That importance could be seen in the results and offensive efficiency, which fell off a cliff as the Saints played musical chairs on the interior of the defensive line due to a slew of injuries. The Saints signed Connor McGovern off the Jets practice squad, and he filled in admirably as the starter of the past five games. But McCoy's leadership, ability and intelligence simply couldn't be replaced.
NFL analyst Mark Schlereth, who called the Week 1 win over the Panthers, pointed to exactly that when he diagnosed the Saints losing streak on WWL this week.
"When you look at the downfall of the New Orleans Saints this year and it’s really their offensive line that got decimated by injuries," Schlereth said. McCoy, it started, and then obviously, you know, [Cesar Ruiz] got injured, so there’s been issues up front and listen, I don’t care how 'skilled you are,' how many good wide receivers you have. If you can’t control the line of scrimmage, you do not win in the National Football League and McCoy is one of those guys that is exceptional."
For the Saints, exceptional is married with functional. Klint Kubiak's offensive scheme relies on the center to handle a bulk of the protection calls, and that ability doesn't transfer simply. With McCoy's absence that falls more on the quarterback, and while Carr is capable, communication within the OL suffers. That's true on scouted plays that the team is expecting, but it shines even more on unscouted looks where the defense is doing something they might not have shown before and the OL simply has to react in real time and without an established plan.
Those moments are where McCoy shines.
"Just the things he’s able to do and the way he’s able to communicate and ... the things you don’t practice, that someone throws a wrench at you, he feels the pressure coming, we didn’t talk about that, but he fixes it," Carr said, "and really then our time on task together, just the repetition, the blitzes, us watching it together. ... Those reps we put in the bank and those things, those are like gold, because then it comes up in the game and you do it and so like I said before, I thought our guys handled that stuff really well, but for a quarterback it’s nice when he’s there, because you know exactly what you’re getting.”
Many of those things have been true of McCoy since the Saints traded up to select him in the second round of the 2019 draft. He slotted in immediately as the center in front of Drew Brees and has never relinquished that position since. His teammate Cesar Ruiz calls him "the best center in the NFL" without hesitation, and that's the player the Saints will be adding back to their offense this week as they seek to do the seemingly impossible and win their way back into contention after a 2-7 start.
For McCoy it's about taking one step at a time, even as he returns to a locker room that's seen significant change and is now led by interim coach Darren Rizzi. The steps back began on a Wednesday, 24 hours removed from groin surgery, when he spent time "ugly" walking on a treadmill. He advanced to field work a few weeks later, and he's gotten in limited practices each of the past two weeks, though still not officially activated from IR as of Friday morning. He admitted to feeling a bit rusty in the early going but expected to be all systems go on Sunday against the Browns.
“It was hard, just knowing that there was nothing that I could do to assist or contribute any factor when it came to that," McCoy said. "But you know, I believe in the guys in our room and I believe we can go out and execute for the rest of the season and yea, do whatever is possible.”
We'll have to see on Sunday how far that belief goes. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
