Saints wary of wildcat

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 22, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

METAIRIE — The trendy wildcat offense was the talk of the locker room on Wednesday as the undefeated New Orleans Saints began their preparations for Sunday’s game with the Miami Dolphins.

The Dolphins are credited with bringing the wildcat, which in its base form has someone other than a quarterback taking the snap, to the NFL last season — running wild in a 38-13 bashing of the New England Patriots in Week 3.

It’s caught on to the point where almost half of the league’s 32 teams have used it in some shape or form this season. But none have done it like the Dolphins, who lead the NFL in rushing at 177.0 yards per game.

“There are a number of teams that dabble in this offense and the team we’re playing this week runs it and executes it at a much different level,” Saints coach Sean Payton said Wednesday.

“When teams begin to look at it and try to study and possibly emulate someone else, certainly this is one of the teams you want to put the film on. They do a great job with it.”

In their last game, a 31-27 victory over the New York Jets on Oct. 12, the Dolphins rushed for 89 yards on 14 wildcat plays and also threw a pass out of it for 21 yards. Running back Ronnie Brown had a 2-yard TD run for the winning points with six seconds left after taking the snap from center.

“You’ve got to stay focused and burn your eyes on their keys,” said strong safety Roman Harper. “We have to play our style and not get caught up with what they’re doing.”

Fujita day-to-day

Payton said strongside linebacker Scott Fujita, who strained his left calf early in Sunday’s 38-27 win over the New York Giants, will be day-to-day this week after not participating in Wednesday’s practice.

“We’re hopeful, but we’re day-to-day,” Payton said. “We’ll see where Scott’s at (today).”

Fujita said the calf felt better on Wednesday than the day before.

“It feels pretty good right now, so we’re just going to take it day-to-day and hope it continues to improve. I don’t like to be told that I won’t be ready because with these things you never know … it might improve.”

Injury report