In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, and Texans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons

Without Sean Payton, the New Orleans Saints were one of the worst franchises in NFL history. The ‘Aints won just 40% of their games prior to Payton’s arrival in 2006; under his reign, New Orleans has a 0.615 winning percentage. Overall, the franchise now has 45% winning rate, which means “games under Payton” — despite representing just 24% of all Saints games — has increased the team’s overall winning percentage by 5%. That makes him one of just five head coaches to be responsible for a 5% increase in his team’s winning percentage, along with four inner circle Hall of Famers: Don Shula in Miami, Bill Belichick in New England, Paul Brown in Cleveland, and George Halas in Chicago. Payton and Jim Mora are the only two coaches in New Orleans history with a winning record. The table below shows each coach in Saints history. At the bottom you will see Mike Ditka, Hank Stram, and Bum Phillips, who won 63%, 62%, and 61% respectively of their games with Chicago, Kansas City, and Houston, before struggling as head coach of the Saints.

When it comes to quarterbacks improving a team’s record, Drew Brees has the best mark of any quarterback not named Tom Brady. As with Payton, the franchise without Brees has been a bottom-feeder. Bobby Hebert is the only other quarterback with a winning record of note, and he played most of his time with New Orleans opposite a dominant defense.

Of course, we can’t talk about the history of Saints quarterbacks without mentioning Archie Manning. From an individual standpoint, he wasn’t nearly as bad as his numbers might initially appear: after adjusting his passer rating for his era, he was basically league average in passer rating for his career. But from a won-loss perspective, Manning’s time in New Orleans was a disaster. Other than David Carr on the Texans, no quarterback has tanked his team’s winning percentage like Archie. Consider: New Orleans has a 0.487 winning percentage in games started by anyone but Manning. In fact, remove starts by Manning and Billy Kilmer, and New Orleans has an even .500 record over the course of the team’s history.

The Saints have done well with SEC running backs, making life easy on the New Orleans scouting department. Dalton Hilliard was the best running back in fantasy football in 1989, and he went to LSU. Mark Ingram (Alabama) and Alvin Kamara (Tennessee) may go down as the best two running backs in Saints history. And Mississippi’s Deuce McAllister might have been the best of the bunch: in his prime, he was a smooth runner with outstanding athleticism and held his own as an elite running back in arguably the best running back era in NFL history. Archie Manning led the team in rushing in 12 games in his career and was a Rebel like McAllister. And while LSU’s Hokie Gajan was only a part-time player with a great name, he once averaged 6.0 YPC in committee duty, which was still remarkable for that era. For a non-SEC running back of note, you only need to move one state over to find Texas’s Ricky Williams, probably the most famous running back in Saints history. And while The Trade for him may not have been worth it, he did lead the team in rushing in 87% of his games.

New Orleans has a fascinating history at wide receiver. The Brees/Payton Saints in the modern passing era have scorched the team’s passing books, but that isn’t quite the case yet at wide receiver, too. Three of the team’s top four leaders in receiving yards put up all or nearly all of their numbers without Brees and Payton, and even more interesting is that all of them were low draft picks.

Eric Martin was a 7th round pick in 1985 who wound up leading the team in receiving yards in 63 games. You probably thought Marques Colston — a 7th round choice out of Hofstra and the team’s franchise leader in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns — would be the team’s leader in this category, but he “only” led New Orleans in receiving in 38% of his games. Joe Horn was a 5th round pick for the Chiefs and did little in Kansas City in four years; he joined New Orleans in 2000 and became an instant Pro Bowler, and led the team in receiving yards in half of his games. And finally, we have #46 Danny Abramowicz, a 17th-round selection who made a name for himself catching passes from Billy Kilmer and then Manning. Abramowicz was a good player who became the best wide receiver ever in any alphabetical ranking, until Jared Abbrederis came along.

That’s it for the Saints version of this series. Please leave your thoughts in the comments.