Saints offense seeks to improve

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Aug 3, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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

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

JACKSON, Miss. — In Sean Payton’s first two seasons as head coach of the New Orleans Saints, his offense led the NFL in total yards in 2006 and ranked fourth a year ago.

In that time, the Saints have also been one of the highest-scoring teams in the league —ranking fifth in 2006 and fourth last season in averaging 21.9 points a game over that 32-game regular-season stretch.

On top of that, they led the NFL in red-zone efficiency last season in scoring a touchdown 72 percent of the time after penetrating the opponents’ 20-yard line.

Yet, you rarely hear them talking about what they’ve done. It’s about what they can do. The focus through the first 1‰ weeks of training camp is on how they can improve to help the team return to the playoffs after a disappointing 7-9 season in 2007.

“There really is room for improvement,” said Doug Marrone, the Saints’ offensive coordinator/offensive line coach. “Every year is a different year. We want to see our players that did well the year before do even better. It all comes down to making sure we’re putting them in the best position to make plays. That’s what we try to do.”

With quarterback Drew Brees putting together two monster seasons, throwing for more than 4,400 yards each year and piling up a total of 54 touchdown passes, the Saints are poised for more of the same this season.

His top weapons return in wide receivers Marques Colston and David Patten and running back Reggie Bush. Running back Deuce McAllister is trying to come back from double-knee surgery and the Saints traded for another receiving threat in four-time Pro Bowl tight end Jeremy Shockey.

In addition, an offensive line that has allowed just 39 sacks in the last two seasons — fewer than seven teams allowed last year alone — makes the Saints a threat to be in the top five in total yards again, especially if McAllister can be effective.

While the pieces are in place, they have to do it again, Marrone said.

“This game is ever-evolving, you go back and you look at what you did last year and you want to build on it,” he said. “Then, you look back on what you didn’t do well and then you start doing some research. You’re always trying to stay ahead or catch up to what the defense is going.”

Payton preached red-zone efficiency in last year’s camp and the Saints improved from 11th to first.

“We put a lot of emphasis on (red zone) last year in camp,” Brees said. “When you look at the statistics every year, right next to turnover ratio is third-down efficiency and red-zone efficiency. Certainly, that’s always something we put a lot of emphasis on.”