It’s not quite fair to say Sean Payton’s Saints have never had a good defense. They had one, once, at least after you factor in all the magical takeaways, and that year they won the Super Bowl. They had a couple others that weren’t disasters.

But for most of the last decade, Payton’s defenses have defined terrible as definitively as his offenses have defined excellence. They have often made opposing quarterbacks look good — really good. Margin for error in the NFL is primarily a product of how well your team’s quarterback runs his offense and how badly you can make the other team’s quarterback perform.

The Saints have had a Hall of Fame quarterback. The problem is, they’ve spotted their opponents with Hall of Fame quarterbacks, too, consistently turning the likes of Alex Smith or Marcus Mariota into Joe Montana and Dan Marino.

Here’s a look at the NFL quarterback whose career passer rating is most similar to the passer rating the Saints’ defense has given up, ranked from worst Saints performance to best. It’ll give you an idea of how shitty the Saints have made life for the greatest quarterback they’ll ever have.

10. The 2015 Saints Make Every QB Aaron Rodgers



via Mike Morbeck

2015 Saints passer rating allowed: 112.0

Rodgers career passer rating: 106.2

So far this year, the Saints are actually quarterbacks to perform, on average, even better than Rodgers’ career mark, but because Rodgers’ 106.2 is the best career passer rating in NFL history, he’s the closest we’ve got.

Free fantasy football advice: Start every quarterback who faces the Saints’ defense this year. Even Brandon Weeden did okay.

9. The 2007 Saints Made Every QB Peyton Manning or Steve Young



via Michelle M. Dickson

2007 Saints passer rating allowed: 96.9

Manning/Young career passer rating: 96.8

The Saints’ offense started slowly in 2007, to say the least — but then, as it has this year, it got better. Drew Brees heated up. But because the Saints made every quarterback they faced look like Peyton Manning or Steve Young, it wasn’t enough, and any hiccup on offense meant an automatic loss and a final, soon to be familiar record of 7-9.

8. The 2012 Saints Made Every QB Ben Roethlisberger

2012 Saints passer rating allowed: 93.8

Roethlisberger career passer rating: 93.8

Sean Payton wasn’t the head coach in 2012, but something tells us he wouldn’t have made much of a difference. After all, it turns out this wasn’t even the worst defense the Saints have had since 2006. Pretty scary, really.

7. The 2014 Saints Made Every QB Joe Montana



via Cliff/Flickr

2014 Saints passer rating allowed: 92.9

Joe Montana career passer rating: 92.3

This one really fits, because the 2014 Saints had a special way of blowing games late on improbable game-losing passes. Matt Stafford was Joe Cool.

Also, this photo appears to be of a terrifying Joe Montana wax figure, which could be rolled out against the Saints defense this year and still throw for 350 yards and three touchdowns (just don’t ask how Wax Montana did it, lest Brandon Browner overhear).

6. The 2011 Saints Made Every QB Dan Marino



via Jacob Childrey

2011 Saints passer rating allowed: 86.4

Dan Marino career passer rating: 86.4

This is the most fitting match. Drew Brees broke Dan Marino’s longstanding record for yards in a season in 2011, and he did it while going up against quarterbacks the Saints’ defense made into Marino every week. If you find yourself protesting, because the Saints were so good in 2011, just re-watch the end of the playoff game in San Francisco. Honestly, the Saints made Alex Smith look better than Marino, because Marino probably couldn’t have run 30 yards for a touchdown. Probably.

Question: Who would throw for more yards against the 2015 Saints secondary, Wax Montana or Broadcaster Marino?

5. The 2006 Saints Made Every QB Look Like Cam Newton



Pantherfan11

2006 Saints passer rating allowed: 85.1

Cam Newton career passer rating: 85.0

You know, this one isn’t so bad. The Saints’ defense wasn’t that terrible in 2006. It was streaky, pairing nice performances with bad ones, and that’s a performance style that makes Cam a good fit. The Saints held up pretty well until teams started targeting the aged version of Fred Thomas and Josh Bullocks, the original Payton-era disappointing free safety.

4. The 2013 Saints Defense Made Every QB Look Like Mark Brunell



Sir Marc Isambard Brunel

2013 Saints passer rating allowed: 83.6

Mark Brunell career passer rating: 84.4

The 2013 Saints started extremely hot on defense, producing a rating allowed that was among the league’s best, closer to Seattle’s juggernaut than to the middle of the pack. Then Jabari Greer got hurt:

The Greer effect in 2013 is famous. Greer played the first ten games of that season. The Saints went 8-2. They allowed opponents to complete just 56.6 percent of their passes for 1914 yards (just 191.4 per game) with 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Passer rating allowed: 72.6. Without Greer, the Saints went 3-3, allowed opponents to complete 65.8 percent of their passes for 1191 yards, with nine touchdowns and just two interceptions. Passer rating allowed: 95.

So, really, the Saints spent the first ten games of 2013 making opposing quarterbacks look like Tony Banks (career rating 72.4) and the final six games making them look like, well, Drew Brees (career rating 95.7).

As for Brunell, he was…

…the second son of Jean Charles Brunel and Marie Victoire Lefebvre. Jean Charles was a prosperous farmer in Hacqueville, Normandy, and Marc was born on the family farm. It was customary for the first son to inherit the farm and the second son to enter the priesthood. His father therefore started Marc on a classical education, but he showed no liking for Greek or Latin and instead showed himself proficient in drawing and mathematics. He was also very musical from an early age. At the age of eleven he was sent to a seminary in Rouen. The superior of the seminary allowed him to learn carpentry, and he soon achieved the standards of a cabinetmaker. He also sketched ships in the local harbour. As he showed no desire to become a priest, his father sent him to stay with relatives in Rouen, where a family friend tutored him on naval matters. In 1786, as a result of this tuition, Marc became a naval cadet on a French frigate and during his service visited the West Indies several times

Wait, we screwed something up here.

3. The 2010 Saints Made Every QB Look Like Eli Manning



via Al Guel

2010 Saints passer rating allowed: 83.2

Eli Manning career passer rating: 83.2

Trying to work out some math here. If the 2010 Saints made every QB look like Eli Manning, and the 2015 Saints make every QB look like Aaron Rodgers — an assertion backed up by the fact Eli Manning threw six touchdowns against the 2015 Saints — then how good would actual Aaron Rodgers be against the 2015 Saints?

2. The 2008 Saints Made Every QB Look Like Ryan Fitzpatrick



via Jeffrey Beall

2008 Saints passer rating allowed: 80.2

Ryan Fitzpatrick career passer rating: 80.2

Hey, remember when we complained about how terrible the Saints’ defense was in 2008? Man, were those the good old days.

Interestingly, the failures in 2008 might be the ones Drew Brees is single most responsible for. That season, Brees won Offensive Player of the Year and became the first quarterback since Marino to break the 5000 yard barrier, so his inconsistency went mostly unnoticed. Yet 2008 was Brees’ most inconsistent season. He had a passer rating of 100 or better in eight games, but had a passer rating of worse than 70 in six others, by far the most of his Saints career.

The Saints went 0-6 in those six games. Replace the Drew Brees of 2008 with the one from just about any other Payton-era team, and the 2008 team almost certainly would have made the playoffs.

1. The 2009 Saints Made Every QB Look Like Billy Joe Tolliver



via Wiki

2009 Saints passer rating allowed: 68.6

Billy Joe Tolliver career passer rating: 67.7

A few other quarterbacks are closer matches than Tolliver here — shoutout to Eric Hipple, 1980-1989, Detroit Lions — but none of them is more fun.

Also, when you search for Creative Commons images of Billy Joe Tolliver, you get eclectic results. One of them is even a picture of Tolliver himself, a fairly recent one of him playing golf, but it’s boring. This 1894 mugshot of Butch Cassidy, which appears in the search, seems more representative of everything we’ve discussed. It speaks to us. (Also, there’s a pretty strong resemblance.)

Hey, how many yards do you think Butch Cassidy would throw for against the 2015 Saints?1

Featured image via Kelly Bailey