Derek Carr inspired the New Orleans Saints to a dominant victory over the Dallas Cowboys to continue their emphatic start to the 2024 NFL season; watch them face the Philadelphia Eagles live on Sky Sports NFL from 6pm on Sunday
Thursday 19 September 2024 06:19, UK
Derek Carr is the most dangerous quarterback in football, Klint Kubiak is the most destructive offensive architect in the league, Dennis Allen is dropping Kendrick Lamar references into locker room speeches and suddenly the NFL is scatting to the tune of jazzy New Orleans Saints supremacy.
Who had that down on their Week Two bingo card? Yeah, right. How long will it last? Don't answer that, the NFL wants you to fall into its trap.
Carr, the Saints and their scintillating offense have emerged as one of the stories of the NFL across the first fortnight of the 2024 campaign, torching a sorry Carolina Panthers team - the nature of whom's dire situation made for 'pinch of salt' perceptions - before dismantling the Dallas Cowboys to heap the pressure on Mike McCarthy, Dak Prescott - now the highest-paid player in history - and Jerry Jones' Super Bowl-desperate minions.
First-year punter Matthew Hayball is meanwhile enjoying life in the easiest job in the league, having watched Carr lead 15 straight scoring drives to start 2024. In doing so the Saints have posted a league-high 91 points through two outings, ranking first in offensive EPA/play while sitting second in dropback EPA and second in rush EPA as the NFL's early surprise package odd-busters.
'Sometimes you gotta pop out and show 'em', said head coach Allen, nodding to Kendrick's chart-topping Drake diss track following Sunday's 44-19 win over the Cowboys. How his players loved it.
The Grammy-winning rapper will perform as the headline act at half-time of Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans this coming February; to forecast a famous home Lombardi bout would be a premature Week Two overreaction, but the Saints could not have started their unlikely quest more impressively.
Allen's defense has long-been among the NFL's most consistent on a year-to-year basis, regardless of post-Sean Payton transition periods or post-Drew Brees declines. As much remains true, the Saints yet to give up 20 points in their first two games while ranking second in the red zone, third in sacks and second in takeaways. But it has been a full throttle attack at the heart of their early success.
There was change on the sidelines this offseason as New Orleans moved on from long-time offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr after 15 seasons and replaced him with former San Francisco 49ers passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak, the son of Super Bowl-winning head coach Gary Kubiak.
The latter's influence remains ingrained in modern day offensive design across the league, Kubiak having worked alongside Mike Shanahan and Alex Gibbs in laying the foundations for three decades of football during their time with the Denver Broncos. Their West Coast system had functioned on the fundamentals of the Bill Walsh teams that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s, utilising a wide/outside zone blocking scheme to tee up play-action passes and bootleg keepers while confusing and deciphering defenses with eye candy shifts and motions. Wherever you look in professional football, it is likely you'll find a Shanahan-Kubiakism.
Klint is not only a product of his father and the foundations he built with Mike Shanahan, but so too a feature of the Kyle Shanahan conveyor-belt having just spent a season in San Francisco. With the prevalence of the Shanahan-Kubiak philosophy continues to come personalised wrinkles from its inheritors; Kubiak was unable to make his mark while offensive coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings in 2021, but now has another chance to map out a long-term impact in the league.
And on that note, he also has two brothers in the game - Klay Kubiak, an offensive passing game specialist with the 49ers, and Klein Kubiak, a national scout with the Cowboys. Keeping Up With The Kubiaks... coming to screens near you.
His breakout arguably arrived on Sunday as he dunked on the Mike Zimmer defense with which he had become so familiar during their spell on the same coaching staff in Minnesota.
Among the priorities when it comes to offensive production against Dallas is finding a way to blunt Micah Parsons and the rest of his defensive front. Kubiak succeeded in doing just that as the Cowboys were limited to just one sack and quarterback hit (of which they managed 17 in their Week One win over the Cleveland Browns), Parsons even giving the Saints offensive coordinator his flowers for the way in which he schemed against him after the game.
Kubiak got funky with the double-team disguises on Parsons, deploying tight ends in motion as chippers along with running back support to leave the Cowboys edge rusher with multi-layered traffic-jam protections in his face at all times. Zimmer's men were second best all afternoon, Kubiak's use of 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE) selling the running game and forcing the Cowboys into base personnel with heavy formations in order to warrant slower second-level defenders as a means of opening up the passing game downfield.
Carr used play-action on a league-high 58.8 per cent of passing plays (Next Gen Stats), with under-center heavy sets, pre-snap motion, efficient zone blocking and a four-touchdown Alvin Kamara sustaining the threat of the ground game while the Saints quarterback delivered snappy releases in a fast and fluid offense built on clinical and straight-forward decisions through the air. The reads were simplified by outstanding play design, while the window-dressing maximised the Saints' speed downfield.
"Just speaking for the offense, when you're able to go out there and execute, limit the self-inflicted wounds, have explosive plans, like, man, the sky's the limit," said Kamara. "It feels good right now. You all know me, I'm not too into the hype. It's a win but we've got to keep moving."
It was also representative of a confidence-filled Carr, who split two high safeties with a deep shot that travelled 49 yards through the air over the middle of the field before being collected by Rashid Shaheed and finished off for a 70-yard touchdown early on in the game. Shaheed himself has become one of the league's feel-good case studies by emergence as something of a throwback deep threat in an era of high coverage shells designed to eradicate chunk plays; he had also opened the scoring on the first NFL Sunday of the season with a 59-yard touchdown, with eight of his 11 career touchdowns having gone for 40+ yards. Straight line speed still kills.
At the heart of it is a Carr chasing his own redemption story at a time when the league has witnessed both Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith revive their careers, and with Sam Darnold seeking to do the same under Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. The 33-year-old had looked down-and-out during the latter years of his time with the Raiders, being ousted and then shipped in Las Vegas to find himself as part of a Saints organisation entering rare uncertainty at quarterback in light of Brees' retirement.
Through two games in 2024, he is the best quarterback in football (Yes, Patrick Mahomes still exists; yes he is still the best). Suddenly Carr is piloting one of the league's most explosive offenses, with Shaheed his top-chopping flier, Chris Olave resuming his rise and Kamara enjoying a prolific patch in a Kubiak system thriving behind screens and play-action.
NFL offenses have hobbled through the opening two weeks with passing yard averages well down on previous years... but not the Saints. Little had been expected of them, little may come of it, but an unlikely Saints surge coupled with Baker's Bucs and a Kirk Cousins-led Atlanta leaves the NFC South as one of football's most absorbing divisions.
Watch the New Orleans Saints against the Philadelphia Eagles live on Sky Sports NFL, with coverage under way from 5pm Sunday, followed by the Dallas Cowboys against the Baltimore Ravens at 9.25pm; Also stream with NOW.
