Our friends at SB Nation's Saints blog, Canal Street Chronicles, were kind enough to field five questions about their team.
2. What kind of role will we see Reggie Bush play?
You will continue to see guys like Pierre Thomas, Mike Bell (injured) and Lynell Hamilton get a bulk of the standard running back carries. The key is not to put Reggie in that same category. His role does include a little bit of the standard running back stuff, but it also includes so much more than that. His mere presence on the roster forces opposing teams to game plan and spend a lot of time figuring out how to deal with him, leaving a lot of opportunity for the rest of the play makers on this offense.
It seems the coaching staff has resigned themselves to giving Bush a certain number of touches every game, but each of those touches comes in a variety of different forms. Every now and then he might take an inside hand off, but most of the time he's utilized on swings, screens and pitches. He'll even line up out wide. All of this on top of returning punts. Getting him into space so that he can use his athletic ability and speed to beat guys one on one is when he's most dangerous, and what the Saints try to focus on. If he's not getting the ball, he's being used as an ever-important but under-appreciated decoy. Without him, this offense might not be able to execute the way it does, even if Reggie never touches the ball.
3. The defense looks a lot better than a year ago. Discuss the impact of new coordinator Gregg Williams. What has been more instrumental in the defensive turnaround, the new coach or player acquisitions?
4. Give me keys to a Saints victory.
Great question. Ummm...Head coach Sean Payton wrote a script for a movie called "The XBox Kid" which was inspired by his son and is about a boy who starts controlling the outcome of NFL games through a refurbished Xbox given to him by his grandfather following a devastating hurricane. It is currently being shopped around to movie studios. Is that surprising?