When Kellen Moore broke in as an NFL play-caller in 2019, he directed a pass-heavy Dallas Cowboys offense that was built around quarterback Dak Prescott’s strengths.
When he helped guide the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl LIX title last year, Moore’s offense leaned heavily on a ground game that featured Saquon Barkley running behind one of the league’s best offensive lines.
The point is nobody really knows what the Moore offense will look like this fall in his debut season with the New Orleans Saints because of his history marrying his play-calling to his roster’s strengths.
But the people responsible for operating it on the field might have the best guess.
“It’s very QB friendly,” quarterback Jake Haener said.
The Saints are still somewhat early in the process of installing Moore’s new offense, but the quarterbacks are getting a gist for what should work in the offense if everything is running the way it is supposed to. And for this specific team, with four quarterbacks that have a combined seven NFL starts under their belt, that might mean making things as easy as possible for the signal callers.
“We put a lot on the position, but want them to feel when they go out there, like the offense is working for them,” said offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier. “They're not having to work the offense, if that makes sense.”
Haener has known Moore for nearly a decade, dating back to his time being recruited by Moore’s college coach, Chris Petersen. Moore’s younger brother, Kirby, also coached Haener at Fresno State.
The offense he’s being asked to learn now is schematically similar to what Kirby Moore had him running in Fresno, he said.
“He’s going to get his quarterback completions early,” Haener said. “In the RPO (run-pass option) scheme, the RPR (run-pass-run) scheme, being able to get early completions to the skill players early is part of his game.
“Turn the tape on, there’s a lot of easy completions to get into a rhythm right off the bat.”
It isn’t drastically different than what a lot of teams are running across the league right now, Haener said. Moore’s passing attack features a pure progression system, meaning the quarterbacks read the receivers in a predetermined order. There are going to be opportunities to take vertical shots, though probably not to the same extent as last year’s team that was consistently looking to blow the top off a defense. The Saints will likely choose to hunt their explosive plays with higher-percentage throws.
“The one thing that differentiates this system is the bubbles (screens), the RPOs, the quick throws,” Haener said.
Saints fans should probably familiarize themselves with RPOs, which are plays that give the quarterback the power to think on his feet as the play unfolds. The quarterback will often read a specific player or gap and decide whether to hand the ball off or pull the ball back to throw based on what the defense does.
Moore used a heavy diet of RPO plays last season with Philadelphia. According to Pro Football Reference, the Eagles used an NFL-high 274 RPOs — 103 more than the next closest team. The year before that, his Chargers offense finished second in the NFL in the total number of RPO plays. His Cowboys teams didn’t use RPOs as much, but still consistently finished in the top half of the NFL in usage.
New Orleans finished near the bottom of the league in RPO usage last year, but that should change under Moore — especially considering the fact that his quarterbacks ran plenty of RPO concepts in college.
Spencer Rattler ran “a ton” of RPOs at South Carolina. He likened those plays specifically and the Moore offense generally to allowing the quarterback to play like a basketball point guard.
“If you can just get a couple quick completions going, get settled in, get the offense settled in, … that’s super beneficial,” Rattler said. “You want to get the ball in your playmakers’ hands as quick as possible. That’s what this offense is kind of centered around.”
Rookie quarterback Tyler Shough said he’s spent a lot of time watching film cut ups of Pro Bowl quarterbacks Prescott and Justin Herbert operating in Moore’s offense, and he’s had fun doing it. Prescott threw for nearly 5,000 yards in his first season in Moore’s offense, and nearly 40 touchdowns a few years later.
In the Saints version of Moore’s offense, Shough expects there to be built-in answers depending on what the defense presents.
“Whether it’s finding different ways to scheme up runs or get into different passes or take loads off certain people — the quarterback, the o-line — I think he does a really good job of complementing each position and allowing everybody to go out there and play fast while still giving you a tool box … to let your talent shine,” Shough said.