Breaking Down How Randy Moss Would Fit Into Saints Offense

According to Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Saints are interested in free agent receiver Randy Moss:

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The New Orleans Saints plan to bring in receiver Randy Moss for a workout Tuesday, we have confirmed. Moss, 35, is returning to the NFL last year after a one-year retirement.

The Saints could potentially lose two of their top four receivers in free agency - Marques Colston and Robert Meachem. And Moss probably won't cost much at this stage of his career.

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This isn't the worst of ideas considering how insanely accurate, strong-armed and consistently great Drew Brees has been for New Orleans.

Moss would easily be the best deep threat receiver Brees has ever been able to target and the Saints, if they want to remain a prolific offense, need to stretch the field more.

With tight end Jimmy Graham really sifting through defenses, Moss's presence alone would be a great complement. Neither would see double-teams and Brees wouldn't get blitzed that often either.

In 2011 the Saints had three players with 80 receptions or more (Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, Darren Sproles) and four others with at least 32 (Lance Moore with 52, Robert Meachem with 40, Devery Henderson with 32 and Pierre Thomas with 50).

Even if New Orleans loses both Colston and Meachem, the addition of Moss would allow for a guy like Henderson to develop even more. Obviously, Brees won't have seven reliable receivers to target and the Saints would be able to run the rock more effectively early in games, so if anything, it'd be a more balanced approach.

A big reason why the Saints ranked No. 6 in rushing is in large part due to how well they dominated through the air early on. Once building a lead, New Orleans would just run the clock out and accumulate yards via garbage time.

Still, that effectiveness provides much confidence for 2012 and with Moss on the outside, the Saints will be stretching the field a lot more than their quick, spread-the-field approach to control the game tempo.

More like a quick strike deep to setup the run or vice-versa, while also having the luxury of allowing Moss to out-jump any defenders inside the red zone.

In the event of possibly signing Moss while not retaining Colston and/or Meachem, it wouldn't be surprising to see the Saints draft a receiver either. Right now New Orleans has much talented depth to rely on and replenishing that will be needed.

Being in an expected tough salary cap situation, though, New Orleans will be an interesting franchise to watch this offseason. And right now, because of their possible financial position, Moss is an appealing replacement heading into 2012.

John Rozum on Twitter.