Saints rookie quarterback Ian Book will start the next chapter of his football career with his first NFL start on Monday night against the Dolphins. News broke out Thursday that the Saints would be without quarterbacks Trevor Siemian and Taysom Hill, and with Jameis Winston currently in recovery, that leaves Ian Book as the starting quarterback on Monday night.
While the idea that the team will be down to their fourth quarterback of the season isn’t the best news, I don’t think there will be a huge decline in the overall play at the quarterback position. Without Jameis Winston the Saints quarterbacks have a similar style of passing. With Trevor and Taysom they both don’t have the strongest, most accurate arm. While we haven’t seen Ian Book throw much aside from the preseason, it’s known that he doesn’t have the strongest arm so it’ll be up to the coaching staff to set Book up for success.
Now while Ian Book may not have the strongest arm, he does do one thing pretty well and that’s extending plays. At Purdue he was known as the guy who extended plays with his legs and had good pocket awareness. He was able to step up into the pocket when there was pressure from the outside, and roll out when there was pressure coming from the inside. That’s his style of play and that makes him efficient.
In the passing game there are some positives. He’s a very quick instinctive decision maker in the short passing game. The check downs, screens, slants and any route that goes up to around 15-20 yards. The timing of the quick passes is on point and gets the ball out when it needs to get out. He won’t force throws and will keep his eyes downfield while staying patient with his weapons as opposed to just taking off and running too soon.
Book will match the style of offense the Saints have been playing since 2019 with check downs, screens, more of the offense we saw with Trevor Siemian. I wouldn’t expect a lot of shots from the Saints offense, simply because Book’s arm strength can’t be relied on as a vertical threat down field. On the plays that have downfield shots, we’ve seen Book hesitate and second guess himself, he gets too much in his head trying to not turn the ball over and makes passes later than he should causing an inaccurate pass.
That’s the basic base line of what we’ve seen from Ian Book in college and from that one preseason game, aside from that there isn’t much to go off of. It will be up to Sean Payton to set Ian Book up for success, but how might Payton go about that approach? Will he adjust anything offensively? Will there be limitations in the playbook and how will the offense look with their fourth quarterback of the season?
Just as the Saints have been for the majority of the season, they’ll rely on the backfield of Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram. This won’t be an easy task though, the Dolphins have the 7th ranked best rushing defense and the Saints are once in jeopardy of not having either tackles. If the Saints can find a way to get the run game going and take a ton of pressure off of Ian Book, which will set him up for success later on in the game with some play actions and roll out passes.
I would expect quite a bit of screens, but not the usual screens. Maybe some motions to show some misdirection and throw a tight end screen, similar to how the 49ers run their playbook. Using Alvin Kamara as a slot receiver to set up a screen for someone else like Mark Ingram or the speedy Easop Winston would be huge and would likely go for a decent gain if it was set up right throughout the game.
The offense has to find ways to set Ian Book up for success on third down. They have to get 3-4 yards on both first and second down so that the playbook stays open on third and short. Book has decent size, and since he is mobile we could maybe see some quarterback power with Book on some super short plays, maybe a possible read option. These plays aren’t out of the playbook and I’m sure Payton is open to just about anything offensively at this point.
The offense will probably look similar to how it did when Trevor Siemian was in control of the offense, but with a lot more running.
Book will need some help, not only from his teammates but the coaching staff. In his first NFL start he will need to be set up for success not relied on for success. The skill positions will have to step up, which is something they haven’t done much of this year.
The Saints playoff hopes are essentially on the line, the fans know it, the players know it, and the coaches know it, but how will they respond as adversity is once again in their face? We’ll find out Monday.
Written By Kadin Janisch
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