Designs for explosive plays hadn't been scrubbed from the New Orleans Saints' offensive game plan. The dearth of them during the team's seven-game losing streak just made it seem that way.
But against Atlanta, New Orleans in the first half produced: A 34-yard screen pass from Derek Carr to Taysom Hill in the first quarter which would have been an 88-yard touchdown, but was negated by a holding penalty; a 40-yard touchdown pass from Carr to Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the second quarter; and a 67-yard pass from Carr to Valdes-Scantling in the second.
Toss in a 22-yard pass to Kevin Austin and 31-yard screen pass to Alvin Kamara in the third, and what would have been a 56-yard touchdown pass to Kamara in the fourth quarter (a wide-open Kamara dropped the pass), and the Saints were able to unearth a missing element to the offense.
Doing so without the team's two known deep-threat weapons – receivers Rashid Shaheed (out for the season after meniscus surgery) and Chris Olave (on injured reserve following his second concussion of the season, and fourth in three NFL seasons) – made the accomplishment stand out more.
The Saints (3-7) face Cleveland (2-7) at noon Sunday in the Caesars Superdome.
"I think with Rashid and with Chris out maybe they played a little bit tighter in some situations, so we were able to take advantage of that down the field," Carr said. "There's been teams that have been, whether it's single high or two high it doesn't matter, corners are playing on top just forcing you to play everything underneath.
"But this game was not the case. They were kind of underneath, safeties were low on some things trying to take crossers and things like that. Every game is different and every team, no matter what they show on film they can play things differently during the game.
"Our guys did a great job of just adjusting to the cut safeties and being able to connect on those, I thought, MVS making those plays down the field for us really just opened things up for us. He sparked us, for sure."
Valdez-Scantling caught three passes for 109 yards and had the second two-touchdown game of his seven-year career.
Carr totaled 269 yards and two touchdowns on 16 completions, wasn't sacked in 25 pass attempts and New Orleans averaged seven yards per play.
By contrast, the longest play from scrimmage against Carolina was 25 yards; against the Chargers there were gains of 37, 36, 28, 24 and 22 yards; the best against Denver were 32 and 28 yards; against Tampa Bay it was 47, 27 and 25; 43 yards was apex against Kansas City; 25 yards was best in the first Atlanta game; and 29- and 27-yard gains were longest against Philadelphia.
In four of those games, the Saints scored 13 points or less and they didn't average more than 5.8 yards per play in any.
Carr missed three of the games with an oblique injury but in his third game since returning, New Orleans was able to hit an offensive stride, at least early.
"One of the things we were concerned about when you lose (Chris) Olave and you lose (Rashid) Shaheed and some of those guys is the speed element," interim head coach Darren Rizzi said Wednesday. "We felt like we could get some of that from MVS, and it was a big emphasis last week on a couple of those big plays.
"The bottom line with those is execution, right? Gotta have a great route, gotta have a great ball. Even the first play of the game (the 34-yard reception by Hill), we felt even though it was a short pass to Taysom, we felt like there's a couple of those plays underneath that could end up in explosive plays, too.
"There's going to be those opportunities in the game that we'll try to take advantage of and there are two or three that come to mind (against Atlanta) that were big ones."
New Orleans will see Sunday if it's able again to respond if, or when, the opportunity presents itself.
