This is a more detailed look at the Saints on 3rd or 3 or less. Thanks to ME for the critique of my previous post, this one should be better. By the way, if you want the convoluted spreadsheet (MS Works), I will email it to you.

Start off with a table of total plays.

Down and Distance breakdown. Payton likes the 3-2 as a passing down.

Receivers Table. Moore is great in these situations. Brees went to Miller more than Shockey. Colston is surprising in both number of thrown tos and catches.

Running Plays. Bush has a poor average in these short yardage situations. PT is surprisingly good. Brees should run more.

Success Rates. On 3-1 plays we should just take a delay of game penalty. 3-2 runs at 100%? How the hell?

Quarter Breakdown. We seem to well in the 1st and 3rd quarters, but the 2nd and 4th we falter.

I ask again, what can we infer from this data? Obviously improvements need to be made in certain areas. Some of this is directed at the thought that bringing in a new back will solve this short yard problem, but the Saints ran the ball 398 times and only 40 were running plays. Do we really need a back for roughly 10% of the running plays, when we have PT who seems to be able to do the job?

I wanted to see how Payton called plays and how they were executed on 3rd and 3 or less downs. I went through last year's play by play sheets and wrote down every instance of 3rd and 3 or less. One reason for using 3rd and 3 or less is that these are supposedly running downs as the Saints average 4.0 yds per run (4.2 for NFL). However, the main reason is that we have complained that the offense can't get a first down running the ball on 3rd and 3 or less.

The Saints were in this situation 72 times, with 39 running plays called.

For 3rd and 1, there were 26 runs for 48 yards (1.9 avg). Of these 9 were for no gain or negative yards.

For 3rd and 2, there were 6 runs for 47 yards (7.8 avg) [PT had a 29 yard run against the Lions; without it 5 for 18 (3.6 avg)].

For 3rd and 3, there were 7 runs for 25 yards (3.6 avg). 1 was for no gain.

What can we infer from this? Is the problem Payton's playcalling? Execution? Both? Or something else?

I can't figure out how to make a table so hope this looks ok. I went back and looked at the drafts from 03 to 08 and took the couple or so guys still on the team and whose scores were listed. Took a lot of Google-Fu to find some of these. And this assumes that these scores are correct.

03 - Jon Stinchcomb 37

04 - Will Smith 23, Devery Henderson 17

05 - Jammal Brown 12, Josh Bullocks 19

06 - Roman Harper 26/35, Marques Colston 26/34 (correct/attempted)

07 - Couldn't find scores for our guys

Links:

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/f4/this-years-wonderlic-scores-7317.html

http://forums.signonsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=26633

http://www.clanram.com/forums/f85/wonderlic-scores-combine-8152/

http://potencial.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/2007-wonderlic-scores/#more-30

http://potencial.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/2008-wonderlic-scores/

http://potencial.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/more-wonderlic-scores/

http://foxsports.foxnews.com/other/story/5526526/Marques-Colston-Draft-Profile

http://foxsports.foxnews.com/other/story/5528046/Roman-Harper-Draft-Profile