I like the Sean Payton hire. After his many seasons with the Saints, I think it’s fair to argue that he’s one of the top half-dozen offensive coaches in the history of the game. If there’s a coach out there who can get Russell Wilson back to being one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the game, it’s Payton.
Drew Brees put up legendary numbers in his 15 seasons working with Payton, leading the league in passing yards seven times and averaging at least 2 TD passes per game 12 times. He threw 46 and 43 touchdowns in his most productive seasons. Brees, like Wilson, is a short quarterback, so while those guys aren’t carbon copies, Payton at least has shown he can work around a height disadvantage.
In Payton’s 15 seasons in New Orleans, the Saints averaged 27.6 points per game, 2nd-most in the league behind the Patriots, and over 2 points per game more than every other team except the Packers.
More notably than his work with Brees, Payton has shown he can be successful with lesser quarterbacks. In his last three seasons in New Orleans, Teddy Bridgewater went 5-0 as a starter, Taysom Hill went 7-2 when he was starting, and Jameis Winston went 5-2. And one could argue than Brees in his final seasons wasn’t really an elite quarterback either (with a diminished arm); Brees went 8-3 and 9-3 in his final two seasons.
If Payton can win with those guys, I would think the chances are very good that he can get into the playoffs with Wilson this season. Wilson has declined some since his heyday in Seattle (his mobility in particular), but I think he can still be a successful winning quarterback, with a chance at top-10 numbers. I will concede that his contract increases the degree of difficulty, making it harder to put together a well-rounded roster. (Note that three of the four teams making the conference championships this year have quarterbacks still on their rookie deals.)
Below see the per-start stats for Payton’s quarterbacks in his final three seasons with the Saints. Collectively, those guys went 34-15 in those 49 games, with 90 TDs and 26 interceptions. In the final column, the “rank” number shows how those stats fared against other quarterbacks who started at least half of those seasons (most of these quarterbacks didn’t actually start eight games, so for them, the number indicates where they would have ranked had they produced at that level for a full season).
| SAINTS QUARTERBACKS, 2019-21 (per-start stats) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | W-L | Pass | TDP | Int | Run | TDR | Pts | Rk |
| 2019 | Drew Brees | 8-3 | 270.8 | 2.45 | .36 | -.4 | .09 | 23.9 | 10 |
| 2019 | Teddy Bridgewater | 5-0 | 241.0 | 1.80 | .40 | 6.4 | .00 | 19.9 | 24 |
| 2020 | Taysom Hill | 3-1 | 208.5 | 1.00 | .50 | 52.3 | 1.00 | 25.7 | 9 |
| 2020 | Drew Brees | 9-3 | 245.2 | 2.00 | .50 | -.2 | .17 | 21.2 | 19 |
| 2021 | Trevor Siemian | 0-4 | 231.0 | 2.00 | .75 | 4.8 | .25 | 21.5 | 13 |
| 2021 | Taysom Hill | 4-1 | 184.4 | .80 | .80 | 54.0 | .40 | 20.2 | 14 |
| 2021 | Jameis Winston | 5-2 | 167.1 | 2.00 | .43 | 23.7 | .14 | 19.6 | 16 |
| 2021 | Ian Book | 0-1 | 135.0 | .00 | 2.00 | 6.0 | .00 | 7.4 | 32 |
—Ian Allan