NFL Coaching Matters: 2022 New Orleans Saints Offense and Coaching Staff Preview

After every NFL season, NFL teams take the time to evaluate not only the players but also the coaching staff and front office as well. While many teams choose to retain the same head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator, a few other teams opt to go in a new direction with their coaching staff.

The New Orleans Saints had head coach Sean Payton retire this offseason, but decided to promote from within and hire former defensive coordinator Dennis Allen as the team's new head coach. They will bring back Pete Carmichael Jr. to serve as the team's offensive coordinator and promote both Ryan Nielsen and Kris Richard to serve as the team's co-defensive coordinators during the 2022-23 season.

This article will look at the potential impact this coaching staff will have on the players and try to pinpoint the Saints players' fantasy values in it.

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The Baseline

To get a better understanding of the value the Saints coaches bring to this team, we can look at the NFL league averages in each of the past two years in a variety of statistical categories and then compare them to the averages achieved by the Saints coaches. Here are 'The Baseline' NFL league averages over the past couple of years:

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

Defense Impact

Previous Coaching Staff

In order to get an understanding of how the New Orleans Saints' fantasy players may be impacted this year, we also need to look at what kind of production former head coach Sean Payton got out of the Saints' offense during his time in an offensive play-calling role. By doing this, we will have a better understanding of where the new offensive coordinator is starting from and where the primary changes will occur.

Former Head Coach: Sean Payton

Sean Payton served as an offensive coordinator for the New York Giants (2000-2002) prior to becoming the head coach for the New Orleans Saints (2006-2011, 2013-2021). He's retired now, but given Sean Payton's offensive background, let's take a look at some of his team's offensive statistics over the course of his career in an offensive coordinator or head coaching role.

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

*Sean Payton missed the December 19th game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers while he was in COVID protocols

2022 Offense

2022 Offensive Coordinator: Pete Carmichael Jr.

Pete Carmichael has been the New Orleans Saints' offensive coordinator since 2009. Let's take a look at the performance of Carmichael's offenses over the course of his 209-game career as an offensive coordinator.

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

Pete Carmichael Takeaways & Expectations

Pete Carmichael Jr. has been the New Orleans Saints' offensive coordinator since 2009 but the 2022 season will be just the second full season (2012 was the first time with Sean Payton suspended for Bountygate) that he serves as the team's primary offensive play-caller on game days with former head coach Sean Payton now retired.

Over the course of Pete Carmichael's 209-game career as an offensive coordinator, his team has averaged 37.56 passing attempts, 290.51 passing yards, and 2.14 passing touchdowns per game. In recent years that usage has dropped quite a bit, as the team threw the ball just 32.63 times per game in 2020 and 29.65 times per game in 2021. Looking ahead to the 2022 season, with Jameis Winston healthy and the team having a strong trio of wide receivers, it seems likely that we see a bit of a bounce-back in the number of passing attempts per game to at least a league-average level with Carmichael calling the plays on offense.

It's also important to pay attention to the amount of rushing work a quarterback receives since it can give your quarterback a higher ceiling in fantasy leagues. Over the course of his career, Carmichael's quarterback room has averaged 2.90 carries per game.

Clearly, Pete Carmichael's quarterback room has generally carried the ball a below-average number of times per game over the course of his career. The recent trend of his quarterback room getting an average/above-average number of carries should officially end this year with Taysom Hill permanently moving over to the tight end position. Overall, Jameis Winston should be in the QB2 conversation and a solid streamer for the 2022 season in Carmichael's offense.

Moving onto running backs, Pete Carmichael has been a part of a lot of offenses that frequently utilize the running back position. Over the course of his 209-game career as an offensive coordinator, Carmichael's running back room has averaged 22.71 carries, 101.84 rushing yards, and 0.81 rushing touchdowns per game on the ground.

If old trends hold true, then Pete Carmichael will give his running backs a decent amount of work on the ground. In terms of the distribution of carries, is Carmichael's offense feeding one back on the ground or rolling with a running back by committee approach?

Looking at the graph above, it's clear that over the course of a full season Pete Carmichael will divide up the work on the ground and tend to roll with the committee approach. This is a little discouraging from a fantasy perspective, but it's important to remember that there is plenty of carries to distribute, and the most valuable fantasy asset in the Saints backfield tends to be the team's primary pass-catching back. Over the course of his career, Pete Carmichael's running back room has averaged 9.28 targets per game.

This career average is one of the better marks among active offensive play-callers and suggests that there's a good chance that the Saints backfield bounces back in the targets department from the 2021 season. Overall, the offenses that Pete Carmichael has helped coordinate have done a good job in providing their tailbacks' work both on the ground and through the air throughout their careers. Based on this information, Alvin Kamara should be a quality fantasy running back again in 2022 and a low-end RB1 in the games that he's active and healthy.

Jumping to the wide receiver position, in Pete Carmichael's 209-game career as an offensive coordinator he has seen his wide receiver room average 18.83 targets per game.

These career averages are below the NFL league averages for the last couple of seasons. In addition, looking at the chart above, it's clearly a consistent trend as Pete Carmichael's wide receiver room has seen below-average usage in each of the last five seasons. Based on this information, it's likely that at least one of the Saints' wide receivers isn't fantasy relevant in 2022 – keep this in mind when deciding where you want to draft Michael Thomas, Chris Olave, or Jarvis Landry.

Finally, we move onto the tight end position. In his career as an offensive coordinator, Pete Carmichael's tight end room has averaged 7.76 targets per game.

This career average is pretty good, but looking at the graph above, you can see the high peaks in tight end usage during the Jimmy Graham years and a fall-off in usage in recent years. Because of this recent trend, it's unlikely that the Saints have a fantasy-relevant tight end in 2022, and Adam Trautman should be viewed as just a streamer in the 2022 season.

Fantasy Relevant Players: Jameis Winston, Andy Dalton, Ian Book, Alvin Kamara, Mark Ingram II, Tony Jones Jr., Dwayne Washington, Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, Chris Olave, Marquez Callaway, Tre'Quan Smith, Adam Trautman, Taysom Hill, and Nick Vannett

2022 Defense

2022 Head Coach: Dennis Allen

Dennis Allen joined the New Orleans Saints as a defensive coordinator back in 2015 and was promoted to head coach this offseason after Sean Payton retired. He also has previously spent one season as the Denver Broncos defensive coordinator (2011) and 36 games as the Oakland Raiders head coach (2012-2014). Because of his defensive background, let's take a look at some defensive statistics from Allen's time in a defensive coordinator or head coaching role.

2022 Co-Defensive Coordinator: Kris Richard

Kris Richard will be one of the New Orleans Saints' defensive coordinators in the 2022 season after Dennis Allen was promoted to head coach. Richard has primarily worked with defensive backs over the course of his career, but he did serve as a defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks from 2015 to 2017. Below are some statistics from his time previously serving as a defensive coordinator.

2022 Co-Defensive Coordinator: Ryan Nielsen

The 2022 season will be the first time that Ryan Nielsen serves as a defensive coordinator at the NFL level. Below are some of his previous coaching jobs.

Other Notable Assistants

Special Teams Coordinator: Darren Rizzi - Darren Rizzi has been the Saints' special teams coordinator since 2019. He has been involved in coaching since 1993, and previously spent time as the Miami Dolphins special teams coordinator (2010-2018).

QB Coach: Ronald Curry - Ronald Curry became the Saints' quarterbacks coach in 2021 after Joe Lombardi joined Brandon Staley's coaching staff in Los Angeles. Curry has been coaching in a variety of roles for the New Orleans Saints since 2016 after previously serving as an offensive assistant on the San Francisco 49ers (2014-2015). He also played wide receiver in the NFL for the Oakland Raiders (2002-2008).

RB Coach: Joel Thomas - Joel Thomas has been involved in coaching since 2000 and has been the New Orleans Saints running backs coach since 2015.

WR Coach: Kodi Burns - The New Orleans Saints will have an official wide receivers coach in 2022 in Kodi Burns. Prior to joining the New Orleans Saints this offseason, Burns coached exclusively at the college level in a variety of roles. At the college level, he previously served as a wide receivers coach for Middle Tennessee (2015), Auburn (2016-2020), and Tennessee (2021).

TE Coach: Dan Roushar - Dan Roushar has worked for the New Orleans Saints in a variety of roles since 2013. He has been coaching since 1986 and became the team's run game coordinator and tight ends coach in 2021 after Dan Campbell left to be the Detroit Lions head coach.

OL Coach: Doug Marrone - One of the few changes to the New Orleans Saints coaching staff is at offensive line coach, as the team goes from Brendan Nugent to Doug Marrone. This will be Marrone's second stint with the New Orleans Saints, after serving as the team's offensive coordinator & offensive line coach from 2006 to 2008. Marrone has been coaching football since 1992 and has previously served as an offensive line coach at the NFL level for the New York Jets (2002-2005), New Orleans Saints (2006-2008), and Jacksonville Jaguars (2015-2016). Marrone has also served as a head coach for the Buffalo Bills (2013-2014) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (interim head coach in 2016, head coach in 2017-2020).

DL Coach: Ryan Nielsen - Ryan Nielsen has been coaching since 2002 and has been the New Orleans Saints defensive line coach since 2017. Nielsen will also serve as one of the team's co-defensive coordinators during the 2022-23 season.

LB Coach: Michael Hodges - Michael Hodges has been with the New Orleans Saints since 2017 and has been the team's linebackers coach since 2020.

Secondary Coach: Kris Richard - Kris Richard joined the New Orleans Saints coaching staff in 2021 and for the 2022 season he will serve as the team's co-defensive coordinator as well as secondary coach. He's been coaching since 2008, notably spending time at the NFL level with the Seattle Seahawks (2010-2017) and Dallas Cowboys (2018-2019). He has previous defensive coordinator experience for the Seattle Seahawks (2015-2017).

Enjoy this series? Be sure to check out all of the other 'Coaching Matters' team previews!

AFC North: Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals

AFC South: Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts

AFC West: Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Las Vegas Raiders

AFC East: Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, New York Jets

NFC North: Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings

NFC South: Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons

Follow Eli Grabanski on Twitter: @3li_handles

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