New Orleans Saints: Drew Brees’ return also brings back another weapon

It appears as is Drew Brees is going to make his return to the New Orleans Saints in Week 8, and if so, he is going to bring back another offensive weapon with him.

All signs are pointing to Drew Brees playing on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals. The New Orleans Saints quarterback stated that his plan is to indeed play on Sunday as he will tell Sean Payton how he feels and then go from there.

Knowing Brees, chances are that he will tell Payton that he is ready to go, even if he is not 100 percent ready. Brees is a born competitor and has been itching to get back out there since it happened.

Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing that his recovery was going very well and was ahead of schedule, which was originally intended to last six weeks. Unless the New Orleans Saints decide to be outright precautious, I think we will see Brees on Sunday.

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The return of Brees is not just the return of the team’s franchise quarterback, as when he returns, the Saints are also going to get an offensive weapon back as well. And no, we are not talking about Alvin Kamara and Jared Cook.

The offensive weapon that the Saints will get back that they missed is Taysom Hill.

Yes, we know Taysom Hill has been playing this entire time and no, that was not a typo. While Hill has been active this entire time and even scored a touchdown against the Chicago Bears, the Saints have not gotten the full potential of Hill with Brees out.

The reason for this is simple: with Brees out, Hill moves up the depth chart from the third quarterback to the second quarterback. With that being the case, Payton has to take fewer risks with Hill just in case anything were to happen and they were left with no quarterback.

Brees returning moves him back down to the third-string quarterback but ironically gets him on the field more often. Hill was in 23 percent of the Saints’ offensive snaps in Week 1 and 33 percent in Week 2. The highest since has been 22 percent, with all other games falling below 20 percent.

Hill is a huge part of this offense as well. Although he feels like a gimmick at times, he is massively important due to his ability to swing games and come up with big plays to extend drives on third and fourth down. Having that kind of unique, dynamic drive extender is something the Saints have that nobody else really has.

That is huge for a team that could potentially be without Kamara this week and already has a very weak receiving corps behind Michael Thomas. It makes it even better that Hill can catch, run and throw, all at a great level.

If Brees does not play then we will have to wait to see Hill get his traditional role back. But if he does, oh man, this is going to be a fun one.