Will New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton start Drew Brees at quarterback this week against the Arizona Cardinals, or ride out the first leg of the season into the bye week with backup Teddy Bridgewater? For now, he isn’t saying.
“No, we’ll see,” Payton said Friday. “We’ll see. Both those guys got a lot of work this week. We’ll probably wait until Sunday.”
Payton said earlier this week that Brees could be a game-time decision on Sunday, giving team medical staff more time to evaluate the surgically repaired thumb of his throwing hand. Bridgewater has helped lead the Saints to a 6-1 record in Brees’ absence (winning all five of his starts with Brees sidelined), and there’s some sense to the idea of letting Brees have more time to recover while his backup continues to play well. But there’s no questioning the logic of putting Brees back into the starting lineup once he’s medically cleared to play.
On the other hand, this could be a strategy by Payton to obscure his intentions. By not declaring Brees or Bridgewater the starter ahead of schedule, he’s making the Cardinals work double time to study film on both quarterbacks.
And if that’s the case, that strategy is working. Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury admitted as much during a conference call this week, saying, “Drew is one of the best (to) ever play and we understand that, but when you watch the film this year, Teddy’s playing at an incredible level and Coach Payton has such great offensive creativity, finds great matchups and they’re rolling right along.
“We know whichever guy it is we’re going to have our hands full as a defense,” Kingsbury added. “I think that’s a testament once again to that coaching staff, that organization that you can have your backup quarterback come in and still play at such an incredible level.”
The Saints have played great complementary football during this stretch without Brees, with the defense and special teams units doing just as much as the offense to make game-changing plays. That kind of top-to-bottom depth in all three phases of the game is rare, and it just makes things that much more challenging for opponents to prepare for.
