Sean Payton: Offense doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing to be effective

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There were times during Sunday’s game between the Broncos and Saints when it might have been hard for some to tell which team was playing without a quarterback.

It was the Broncos, but the Saints weren’t interested in airing the ball out. They ran the ball on 44 of their 63 offensive plays and ran for all four of their touchdowns in the 31-3 victory.

Quarterback Taysom Hill ran for two of the scores and said that the offensive plan “drastically changed” after the Saints learned the Broncos would be without a quarterback. Head coach Sean Payton said there are “a few ways to lose a game” in such a scenario and the conservative approach they implemented was designed to avoid as many of them as possible.

“Taysom played this thing just how I wanted him to play it,” Payton said, via Amie Just of NOLA.com. “It doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing to be effective. The job is to win, and he did a good job of that.”

Adaptability is a nice trait to have on offense and next Sunday’s game against the Falcons will likely call on the Saints to show more of it.