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The Saints produced what might have been the most impactful offense in football last season.

Sean Payton's playbook kept New Orleans among the top-three scoring offenses in the NFL despite being without Drew Brees for multiple games, and many of his passing concepts helped carry LSU to a National Title.

All credit is due to Joe Brady, the former LSU passing coordinator, who put his twist on things and taught the offense to a bunch of college players. But there is no denying that his time as an offensive assistant influenced his playbook. Now, it will head to Carolina, where Brady will take over as the offensive coordinator of the Panthers with former Saints quarterback Teddy Bridgewater under center.

To get a better understanding of how much influence the Saints had on Brady, we looked at every play the Tigers ran last season and compared them to what New Orleans ran last year.***premium***

The Saints' levels concepts and many other staples of Payton's offense show up all over the tape. It would be fair to say the two offenses got built on similar foundations.

To make this a digestible study and keep it from getting too out of hand, I decided to look at LSU's top-10 plays in terms of passing yardage from last season and cross-reference to see how many times New Orleans ran the same plays.

Play 1

LSU vs. Texas

Joe Burrow passes to Justin Jefferson for a gain of 61

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New Orleans ran this play several times last season. For the sake of authenticity, I tried to limit the instances where the two inner routes on the trips side of the formation stemmed inside to the middle of the field. There are, however, several more where New Orleans ran four vertical routes that are in the same neighborhood as this call.

The Saints ran this play three times last season. Once against Houston, once against Arizona and another time against Indianapolis. New Orleans tried it a second time against Houston, but the single route to the outside was an out instead of a vertical route.

New Orleans runs this play with a more rounded vertical route that loops over the middle, often the case with a lot of the stuff the Saints do down the field. This might be something the team does to get Brees a more friendly target over the middle instead of pushing down for a longer throw. On this particular illustration, Michael Thomas ends up working more toward the middle because he gets jammed that direction at the line of scrimmage.

Play 2

LSU vs. Texas A&M

Joe Burrow passes to Ja'Marr Chase for 78 yards

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The route combination over the middle creates a lot of chaos for the defense, especially those at the college level who are not quite as disciplined or talented as their NFL counterparts.

The Saints ran this play at least five times last season but did not enjoy the same level of success that LSU had. New Orleans connected on it for gains of 5 yards against both Seattle and Atlanta but missed the other three times the play got used.

But it is easy to see why the play works – and it should have more than once. Against Tennessee, Jared Cook got open over the middle but safety Kenny Vaccaro, trailing in coverage, tripped and took the tight end to the ground as the ball was arriving.

Play 3

LSU vs. Georgia

Joe Burrow passes to Justin Jefferson for 71 yards

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The core play here is a similar concept to one the Saints have used a couple of times over the years, including once last season against the Texans on a pass to Michael Thomas for a gain of 14 yards.

But everything that made this a 71-yard gain for LSU – Burrow’s ability out of the pocket, Jefferson quickly recognizing what is happening and making himself friendly, Georgia’s defensive backs forgetting to cover – belongs to the Tigers. The play design was only a minimal reason for success.

One of the interesting things about this play is that if you study the two examples above, you’ll see that the same picture gets painted for both quarterbacks, but it comes together from different alignments. This allows Payton to run the same plays multiple times during a game without it ever looking the same presnap.

Play 4

LSU vs. Mississippi

Joe Burrow passes to Ja’Marr Chase for a gain of 61

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This is another example of LSU turning a short pass into a huge gain, which shouldn't be a surprise since the Tigers gained 2,789 yards after the catch last year, which equates to 46.2 percent of the passing offense.

For the Saints, this play frequently appears. New Orleans used it four times last season, with both completions coming in separate games against Tampa Bay. The first one resulted in a touchdown to Thomas, and then the team brought it back during the second meeting and again found Thomas for a gain of 11.

No surprise that Thomas was running the slant on both plays.

Play 5

LSU vs. Oklahoma

Joe Burrow pass to Thaddeus Moss for 62 yards

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Brees attacking the seams? Not exactly. The intent might have been there, but the quarterback was forced to throw the ball away and was whistled for intentional grounding after the offensive line failed to pick up a blitzing linebacker.

The seam route really hasn’t been much of a weapon for New Orleans the last few years. If you include skinny posts, Jared Cook was targeted on 11 seam routes last year. Far cry from the glory days when Jimmy Graham weaponized the route and used it to shred defenses.

There’s a reason this play was part of the playbook but did not show up more than once last year for the Saints. Perhaps that changes some as Cook further settles into the offense, and Brees returns with a healthy thumb.

But without that element of the offense intact and little threat of throwing it deep down the seam, there is no need to build a play around this route.

Play 6

LSU vs. Mississippi State

Joe Burrow passes to Racey McMath for 60 yards

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The Saints didn’t have a perfect match to this play, but they did twice create the same picture by bringing routes to the same spots from different places.

The fact that this play only showed up twice for the Saints last season isn’t a surprise. Anything with a corner route as a featured route no longer has a significant place within the offense. The offense only targeted eight of them last season, including seven by Brees (all complete). This isn’t a new trend. Brees targeted nine in 2018 (four completions) and 15 in 2017 (11 completions).

Burrow, meanwhile, hit on six last season. He has the arm. This route just isn’t a huge part of this offense.

Play 7

LSU vs. Northwestern State

Joe Burrow passes to Jontre Kirklin for 65 yards

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New Orleans again doesn’t have a perfect match for this play across the board. However, the Saints frequently run the action where two vertical routes intersect down the field.

A quick review of every play the Saints ran last season reveals at least 20 instances with similar action, however, there could be more on film.

The goal of this action is to have one of the vertical routes cause confusion and displace the safety, which is what happened for LSU on this play. So many of the Saints’ passing concepts put pressure on and break NFL defenses. Seeing them shatter college defenses is no surprise.

While it’s not a perfect comparison, that crisscrossing action down the field causes the Tampa Bay defense to break on a Ted Ginn touchdown in Week 5.

Play 8

LSU vs. Clemson

Joe Burrow passes 56 yards to Ja'Marr Chase

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Who would have guessed that a play involving two slants would be the one that doesn’t have a match from the Saints?

New Orleans slanted teams to death last season and has one of the league’s most-deadly weapon on the route in Thomas, but this one didn’t hit. And it makes sense after realizing that New Orleans hasn’t been doing much up the seams the last couple of seasons. Brees certainly isn't hitting that throw to Chase. 

Why waste a route when you can get Thomas the ball on a slant from any route combination?

LSU wasn’t shy about slants last year, though. Burrow connected on 52 for 609 yards. The New Orleans quarterbacks attempted 44 slants and hit on 38 for 381 yards.

Plays 9 and 10

LSU vs. Vanderbilt

Joe Burrow passes to Ja’Marr Chase for 64 yards

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LSU vs. Texas A&M

Myles Brennan passes for 58 yards to Racey McMath

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The Tigers were the beneficiaries of some poor tackling on both of these plays, which helped turn moderate gains into back-breaking plays. But the design of the play helped create some space.

Against Texas A&M, the routes over the middle froze the safety, which allowed the receiver to get one-on-one on the outside. Against Vanderbilt … well, there is no excuse for Vanderbilt.

New Orleans runs this play quite often. The offense has three exact matches, and at least three others with a post and in route working over the middle of the field.

On the three matches, the Saints picked up gains of 9 and 12 against Jacksonville and Chicago, respectively. The third attempt fell incomplete.

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The influence on the offense is obvious. Brady is going to come up with his own things and continue to evolve moving forward, but he was smart enough to take one of the best offense's in the NFL with him when he left for LSU. Now, he'll take those same concepts and a quarterback who was groomed by the Saints to Carolina.

The good thing is, New Orleans has been practicing against this offense every day for years. The Panthers will probably stress out opponents a little more now with this offense installed, but it shouldn't be much of a surprise for the Saints.