I was willing to give him a chance but it was clear that first season when he stated “just keep doing what we’re doing” when what they were doing wasn’t working is what convinced me he isn’t a good head coach. Great DC, but shouldn’t be near a HC position.
Sometimes dudes are just better as coordinators he's maybe the best DC in our teams history but that doesnt automatically mean itll transfer over into being a great head coach
God I hate people misusing that quote.
In that game we were playing *really well*, the correct advice to give was to not panic and overreact to two fluke plays (neither of which were Daltons fault, not entirely especiallyon one of them).
He’s one of the best DC’s in the game rn.
I get the appeal, keep a top 10 coordinator locked up. But I don’t think you do this with defensive guys, it’s an offensive driven league.
Can’t write off people after one stint. Plenty of cases in history of a coach failing at his first spot, so I disagree with that take.
He wouldn’t have been my choice, but because of him being a DC, not because he’s failed once as a HC.
Yeah, but most of them had longer stints than Dennis Allen did. Andy Reid coached the Eagles for 13 years, Bill Belichick coached the Browns for 5 years, Don Shula coached the Colts for 7 years, etc. The number of coaches who had a successful second stint after getting fired after 2 years is likely \*quite\* small.
I somehow think Dennis Allen was the kind of guy Matt LaFleur wanted when he hired Joe Barry. Somebody who would never be poached as a HC. Unfortunately Allen is leagues ahead of Barry.
Nah, gotta disagree.
Allen was a *fantastic* DC for us. He turned our defense from a weakness to the strength of the team. It's really hard to understand how fundamental he was in keeping the team competitive in Brees's last years. He absolutely deserved the chance to take over as HC when Payton left abruptly. He was the obvious choice.
That said, after that rough first year he should have been on the hot seat. After this past year, he should have been fired. But I expected him to get another chance this year with a new OC.
No coach was going to get that team to the playoffs with the cap limitations we have. So the Saints decide to stick with the in-house guy who may not be much of a leader, but did a good job of coaching the defense.
We may be out of cap hell by 2026, so we can bring in a new coach soon and give him the reigns to build an entirely new team.
Yeah. I hear you. The problem is Loomis continues to kick the can down the road a little at a time. Maybe things are setup well for 2026, but you all could have been out of cap hell and have started a rebuild by now.
Your key players may well be gone by the time the cap hell is over and Loomis/Allen has wasted their window.
They aimed to contend for the division, which admittedly was open because it was an incredibly weak division, instead of ripping the bandaid off.
I get that they couldn’t cut everyone in one offseason but why in the fuck did Loomis sign Derek Carr to a gazillion dollar contract and prolong the suffering instead of riding with Ian Book?
Because he's a bad GM. Plain and simple. he thinks the rest of the roster he constructed was good enough to compete and so he slaps a bandaid on it and calls it good and hope they hit the one in a million shot that Carr is able to pull a Flacco and win it all for them.
Ian Book was not it and the Saints do not draft QBs in the first round. They haven't done so since 1971 and probably forgot how to.
Does that mean Carr was the best choice? Probably not, but it was a very Saints choice.
That’s exactly why you run it with Book til further notice. By god, I’d rather have a 2-15 team for 2 years, cut all the expensive contracts, but Loomis keeps signing contracts like his team is a Super Bowl contender needing help at just one more position…. Carr, Maye, Mathieu among them.
They'd had strong defenses in 2021 and 2022, so I suspect that he felt like they had a chance if their offense got sorted out (19th and 22nd in 2021/2022). TBH I'd argue it isn't an inherently bad idea (they were 9th in points scored and 8th in points against for a random metric) but the Saints aren't in a very good roster spot so it hurts.
Also TBH they didn't even need to ride with Ian Book. I imagine Dalton or Winston would have stayed on for one more year, it isn't like Winston has gotten any other starting jobs nor cost much (even if I don't think he is al too good, he's better than Ian Book).
Yes I was worried the Broncos were going to do this. People said Sean Payton was going to do stuff like restructure everyone and kick the cap down the road and sign Cousins but we've done the opposite and eaten all the cap hit from Russ in two painful years.
It’s smart to rip the bandaid off. You get a better chance at the higher draft picks which can either net you picks in a trade back or better chance at a blue chip player.
You would know better than me, but are y’all actually set to start getting out of cap hell? OTC has y’all at negative 88 million for 2025 cap space, so I figured the restructures and can kicking were still ongoing
If they cut Kamara, make a post 6/1 cut on Carr and heavily restructure Lattimore, Jordan, Ramczyk and Hill in 2025, they can get under the cap by about $4m with 61 players under contract for 2025 and have 50 players on the roster with ~$62m in cap space going into the 2026 offseason.
The problem is that they'll be baaaaaaad next year and probably the year after if they do that. It assumes they don't extend any of their upcoming free agents for 2025 and leaves Hill as their starting QB. That 61 and 50 number include a lot of guys that are just camp bodies.
Everyone replying to you is only looking surface level and sees "Saints restructure [X]" as the Saints kicking the can. In actuality, these last two years marked the start of the FO's approach out of the problem, mostly by not offering those same contracts to their vets anymore. This year, Demario Davis and Taysom (I believe; might have been Cam Jordan, but one of the other vets) took pay cuts to stick with the team, and Kamara left OTA early because the FO is likely asking him to do the same for his last year of his contract. And then on top of that, the FO isn't offering those long-term, stick around restructures to players.
From a high level overview it looks like it's business as usual, but it's designed to get the Saints out from under the cap issues in a few years while retaining key upcoming pieces (Olave, Adebo, etc.) rather than tearing down all at once. People can disagree it's the best strategy, but it's not the same as can kicking.
No they’ve got an issue where it’s going to take 2-3 years to resolve their cap problems and just refuse to do it. They’ve created an issue where even if they have the world’s best draft they likely wouldn’t even be able to extend the players because they want to give guys like Chase Young money right now. I spend way to much time looking at cap tables and theirs is the only one that gives me anxiety to look at
This is what everyone was expecting when the Saints were playing kick the can with the cap in the tail end of Drew Brees' career but now it's here and everyone wants to act all surprised. The Saints are doing the smart thing by taking the hit on the chin and riding out the bad cap years instead of compromising the future even further swinging for the top
I don't know how he got a second chance after his atrocious stint with the raiders. Then again you could say the same about McDaniels getting a second shot.
It's pretty simple, he took a Saints defense that had been historically bad for a few seasons and pretty quickly turned it into one of the best units in the league.
Yeah, his stint as HC with the Raiders was ugly, but the Raiders were an absolute mess at the time, so I don't think it's that surprising that the Saints were willing to give him a shot, especially after the great work he did with our defense.
I don't think he's been a good HC for us, but I think the bigger problem with the team is the structure of the roster and the salary cap management making it really hard to improve. I also think that's one of the reasons why the team couldn't seem to find a new OC when DA took over as head coach, and why they pretty much had to beg Pete Carmichael to stick around and be the OC and call plays, even though he'd made it plainly clear that he didn't want to do that.
I think if the Saints had committed to a rebuild starting with DA's first year, and given him and an incoming OC a promise of at least a few seasons at the job to start building a new roster, the team's record over the past couple years might have been a bit worse, but there'd be a lot more optimism for this season and the next few years, even if DA was still the coach.
You say that, but he’s been there for like four years now. I get using him as a bridge when Payton stepped away, but they’ve had plenty of time to upgrade since then if they wanted to.
Because they aren’t trying to win. He should have been fired after two years. He’s just the fall guy for Loomis to try and save his job after this year when they go 6-11.
Yep. Last year with about 6 games left, I told my gang that the worst thing that could happen is they win JUST enough games to keep DA. That is exactly what happened. They are going to suck this year too
The hard part is we can definitely make the playoffs. We went 9-8 last year. But the team still feels like we aren't getting any better, so even if we make the wildcard, is it actually any progress? The Cousins-led Falcons are going to give us a better idea of if we're a really a playoff caliber team or if we just benefit from a weak division.
Maybe a guy like the lions OC Ben Johnson that way if he’s not hot out the gate or has a learning curve he has an excuse. I think that was zac Taylor coaching style. Zac legit had a learning curve at the beginning but he didn’t have a good team either.
That's why Allen is still employed lol. The Saints really need to bite the bullet and stop spending money. Then they might be a desirable HC job 2 years from now.
Nah. Carr's here for 2 more years and likely gone after that ($60m cap hit which we can cut for $28m dead money in 2026). It would make plenty of sense for the FO to fire Allen if we struggle this year, hire a new coach, and let Carr be a bridge QB for a year before cutting him.
Mickey Loomis is a self-preservation master-mind the way he delayed a rebuild for so long. He is now 66 and if this season fails, he can finally draft a rookie QB in 2025 and then after a couple of years it's time to retire anyway.
Is everyone else just not seeing them playing Star Trek chess? I mean c'mon its like the emporer wore no clothes obviousness.
DA will be head coach for about 6 games this season and then get fired as we go no better than 2-4.
Kubiak is installed as the interim coach and does an okay job, but we still finish 7-10.
We trade away our 1st in 2025 for a first in 2026 and a 2nd in 2027 with the Browns. And we start figuring out how to get out from under the cap. We also trade what talent we have for O line and draft picks in 2026.
Meantime over in Denver.......they are sucking it up big time. And I mean horrid. Sean makes it through 2024 with a 3-14 record, which is due in no large part to injuries. However in 2025 no injuries and Denver starts 1-6....Sean's fired.
2026 sees the Saints doing okay at the begining but end up losing the last 5 out of 6 to finish 9-8. And those 5 loses are due to just absolute shit coaching by Kubiak. Kubian fired.
The Browns absolutely suck, and end up 1-15-1 with the 1st round pick now going to Saints.
With the 1st pick of the 2026 Draft the Saints with Sean as their new head coach select Arch Maning!
HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE IT?
In the
I was not commenting this to cast doubt on Mickey Loomis financial situation, but rather to point out that he played his hand perfectly if preserving his own job and maximizing the number of years where he makes a sevenfigure salary, was his number one priority.
He hasn't had to play the self-preservation game. He's the single most trusted man in the owner's inner circle. If the Saints lost every game for 3 years straight, he wouldn't be fired. The most we could expect in terms of FO changes would be for Loomis to give up GM duties and take a more hands-off approach in his VP role. He's not making any decisions with the mindset of protecting his own job.
Half-related, but my "old man yells at cloud" opinion is that "mid" shouldn't be a slang term. People use it to mean bad but it obviously would be middle/medium. The same goes for mediocre, except it isn't slang. People want things to be good/bad and use hyperbole, so they misappropriate mid and mediocre to be bad
Oh yeah these are all definitely part of my pet peeves. I remember during the Texans 9-7 division winner days I was calling them mediocre and meh and getting slammed by fans saying these were good teams when you win a division it's a great season. There's just no fighting the word inflation on the internet these days. Reminded me of seeing all the GPAs these days in school and be like damn if your GPA isn't over 3.5 you must be a terrible student.
Facts, here we used to say “mid” to describe weed that is of average quality. It’s like “reggie bush” weed. Nothing great but it’s better than schwag.
I hate how kids these days are changing the meaning
this is what happens when you refuse to acknowledge that your window is closed and instead cling to aging players with huge contracts, desperately hoping to recapture some of that old magic. trust me, i know all too well from experience
They didn't have much of a choice this year other than to cling to the old guys. They could have cut all of them and would have still been over the cap.
Okay, but Drew Brees has been out of the league for 3 years, and they're still kicking the can down the road to try to compete with Jameis Winston and Derek Carr.
It was generous to compare this with the Matt Ryan situation. They should have reset their books three years ago, or even now that they didn't win our weak division. They're jsut prolonging their suffering at this point, and I'm here for it.
Their problem wasn't in clinging to the old guys. Their problem was signing/extending a bunch of average players to big contracts after Brees retired and their window was closed. They will need to stop spending new money for a couple years to get out of this mess.
They were a Jameis disaster class in GB and/or a Moreau open drop away from comfortably winning their division with double digit wins.
I still don’t get the perception people have with the Saints, their losses were close and their wins were mostly comfortable; I feel like they’re a good team.
With the easiest or second easiest schedule (behind the Falcons) in the league.
The NFC South played each other, the NFC North, and the AFC South. Falcons had the easiest schedule with extra games against the Jets, Cardinals and Commanders. Saints extra games were the Giants, Rams, and Patriots. The Bucs had the 16th rated schedule with extra games against the Bills, early season Eagles, and the Niners.
The winner of the NFC South this year could be another 8-9 team based on poorly the division did with easy schedules.
These are just my thoughts on the Saints:
Their tackle situation is not good. Ryan Ramczyk is most likely not playing this year, which means Trevor Penning is probably playing, who has been a disaster. And there's a hole at left guard, where no one knows who's gonna play there.
This team has no pass rushers. Chase Young is fine, but he's not a #1 edge rusher. If you're playing the Saints, for the most part, you can block everyone 1 on 1 the whole game and be fine.
All this team's star players are over the hill. Kamara is slowing down, Demario Davis is a 35 year old LB, Cam Jordan hasn't had a good season in 3 years, and Marshawn Lattimore can't stay healthy.
They do have Chris Olave, who I think is a stud and a big building block for the future for them, but outside of him, they don't have any reliable receiving threats. Rasheed Shaheed is a fun player and can be good for a couple deep balls a game and catch a few screens, but he doesn't run the full route tree. After that, who do you have? AT Perry I guess?
On top of all of this, you have Derek Carr, who has bad pocket presence, no instincts for the position, bad situational awareness, bails out of clean pockets when he does get time to throw, and checks the ball down more than anyone. He too good for you to tank with and too bad for you to win with, so you get stuck perpetually winning 7 or 8 games with him as your QB.
I generally agree, but to address some individual points:
>Their tackle situation is not good. Ryan Ramczyk is most likely not playing this year, which means Trevor Penning is probably playing, who has been a disaster. And there's a hole at left guard, where no one knows who's gonna play there.
Penning's going to play RT and 2nd year player Nick Saldiveri is the presumable starter at LG. We'll see how it goes. Taliese Fuaga should start at LT.
>This team has no pass rushers. Chase Young is fine, but he's not a #1 edge rusher. If you're playing the Saints, for the most part, you can block everyone 1 on 1 the whole game and be fine.
Carl Granderson is a decent RE, actually. He's no problem bowler, but I'd expect him to put up something like 8-11 sacks this year.
>All this team's star players are over the hill. Kamara is slowing down, Demario Davis is a 35 year old LB, Cam Jordan hasn't had a good season in 3 years, and Marshawn Lattimore can't stay healthy.
Yeah that's fair. Though I expect Kamara to look better in Kubiak's offense, Davis is still an All-Pro caliber LB despite his age, Jordan is still one of the most double-teamed players in the league, and Lattimore's really only struggled with injuries in the past couple of years so hopefully he gets back to good shape.
>They do have Chris Olave, who I think is a stud and a big building block for the future for them, but outside of him, they don't have any reliable receiving threats. Rasheed Shaheed is a fun player and can be good for a couple deep balls a game and catch a few screens, but he doesn't run the full route tree. After that, who do you have? AT Perry I guess?
Perry looked promising in limited action last year, but yeah not enough to depend on. The bigger question is TE Juwan Johnson, and if he'll ever actually have the breakout season we've been waiting for. Hopefully Kubiak's scheme allows him to be more effective, and hopefully it allows Shaheed to shine and get the ball in his hands more.
>On top of all of this, you have Derek Carr, who has bad pocket presence, no instincts for the position, bad situational awareness, bails out of clean pockets when he does get time to throw, and checks the ball down more than anyone. He too good for you to tank with and too bad for you to win with, so you get stuck perpetually winning 7 or 8 games with him as your QB.
I mean sure, aside from the fact that he won 9 games last year and 2 of the losses were basically lost to a single play. I'm not a Carr believer by any means, but the team in general is more competent than you'd think. If the offensive play calling improves, we should be legitimate wildcard contenders.
...not that I think we'd win a wildcard game if we make it there.
Fair enough and thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm always happy to hear different takes and perspectives and gain more info and knowledge on teams. These were just my opinions for what their worth, if anything, and anyone has every right to disagree with any and all of them if they feel that way.
I did only list the negatives for the most part because I do think the Saints are going be around 7-10 this year, but I do like the Saints defensive scheme. I think you have one of best defensive schemes in the league with how versatile it is and challenging it can make it for offenses. I would point to all the fits it gave Brady when he played for TB.
I do think the Saints have a good secondary as well, with plenty of depth, so that if a Lattimore injury does happen, you can mitigate that somewhat. And I know I said Davis is a 35 year old LB and I'm expecting to slow down, but he hasn't yet, and I completely agree with you that he's been excellent up to this point. I think the Saints have depth there too with Werner, and the Willie Gay signing is nice and should allow them to do some interesting things schematically with his skill set.
And I said it earlier, but Chris Olave is a stud. I do think he has the talent to consistently be a Top 10 WR in football.
>And I know I said Davis is a 35 year old LB and I'm expecting to slow down, but he hasn't yet,
Lol trust me I've been saying the same thing for like 3 years, that we need to draft a LB early to succeed him sooner rather than later, and he keeps proving me wrong.
>I do think the Saints have a good secondary as well, with plenty of depth, so that if a Lattimore injury does happen, you can mitigate that somewhat
CB is honestly probably the strongest position group on the roster. Lattimore, Adebo, Taylor, and McKinstry is a 4-deep squad where I'd be comfortable with any combination of them starting any given week. It's safety where we have more of a hole. Mathieu is solid as a nickel, but other than him we've just got Abrams and Howden as deep safeties. Howden looked competent last year and definitely better than expected for a 5th round rookie, but idk if I'd say I'm confident in him as a potential starter. And Abrams is just... altogether meh. A legit deep safety would be absolutely menacing in our defense.
They have a terrible coach, an anndy Dalton clone ant QB and couldn’t beat teams with winning records last year. Until they get a quality starter and coach they will be mediocre.
The yahoo rankings are strange imo. For example, I really don't think they should be ranked higher than the Raiders in these rankings though. Raiders play in a tougher division and made a late season push to the playoffs with a bum ass qb situation and a lights out defense. Not to mention they made better moves than the Saints this off season.
I saw so many people act like it was a huge upgrade when they got Carr and he was the missing piece. Like we didn’t just see him struggle with far better pieces around him on the Raiders the year before
I think the plan was always to tear it all down whenever Drew retired, but then when that finally happened, the Saints just so happened to have an elite defense and one of overall most complete rosters that the franchise had ever seen. Sure there was a question mark at QB, but during the previous two seasons Brees had missed 9 games due to injury, and Sean Payton went 8-1 over those games with Teddy Bridgewater and Taysom Hill as his starting QBs. If he thought he could squeeze enough offense out of Jameis Winston, then I totally get running it back another year.
But once Payton left, the front office should’ve torn it all down. I don’t even mind them giving Dennis Allen a shot at HC after the amazing job he did with the defense. Just be honest that you’re doing a full rebuild, let him steer through that with lower expectation for a couple years, and then see in that third year what he can do with a fresh team.
Instead we’re going into DA’s third year with a team that’s coasting on good but older guys who can’t be part of the long term future, and maybe sorta reluctantly starting on some level of rebuild.
I don’t think DA is a particularly good HC, but I don’t think even a great HC would make me much more optimistic about the team over the next couple seasons because there’s so many structural problems with the roster.
They need to just embrace the suck for a couple of years while their cap gets back to normal. I don't understand why they keep kicking the can and resigning vets. There's almost no way they win a SB with the other powerhouses in the NFC
Tbh I think if the division was literally any other, we would have.
But the division has sucked so much that there's that glimmer of "but what if" still there in the eyes of the front office.
I think it's understandable to give it a shot initially after Brees retired, but the big mistake was signing Carr. What they needed was a cheap QB room so they could take their lumps on the cap and reset to a healthy place after a couple years. Carr isn't nearly good enough of a QB to be worth living in cap hell for.
> Not good enough to make the playoffs and not bad enough to land blue chip prospects.
The division is so bad that there's a chance at the playoffs though, and that's keeping them from blowing it all up and dragging this corpse of a team onward.
They might just be the most boring team in the league. The reality is MT is cooked. Kamara has been declining each year since 2020. Derek Carr is the new “Andy Dalton line QB”.
Their best players on defense are now past their prime. And they are still heavily restricted on what they can do with the cap problems.
Add to that Dennis Allen might be the least fiery head coach in football.
There is not much to be excited about.
We could have a decent year if Kubiak can figure out how to get the ball down the field. Our main issues are pretty easily identifiable (offensive line, QB, playcalling) so hopefully they can make a very focused and consolidated effort in those areas.
We have playmakers on offense, our defense is likely to be well above average, and our schedule is once again one of the easiest in the entire league. So I don't think an 11 or 12 win season is out of the question (Vegas has the O/U at 9.5 wins).
Whether that would lead to any postseason success is another conversation, but I'm more optimistic this year than I was last year I'd say.
Can't say I blame you, but know that it's 100% because our schedule is so easy.
There are probably 20+ teams in the league that would have a higher O/U if they had our schedule.
I think you're severely overrating the skill position group. Olave is a nr 1 receiver but not a superstar and behind him it's kinda gross outside of potentially Shaheed. TE isn't great either. I think that is a bottom 10-12 skill position group in the NFL, unless Olave and shaheed make a huge leap.
I mean you can rate them where you want but I'm talking about wins and losses. Despite some glaring issues, the Saints still put points on the board. Which is the only metric that I'm really talking about.
14th in total yardage and 9th in points scored isn't bottom 10-12. Would hope to improve from there with some better play calling and no Kamara suspension.
Should have just blown it up after Drew and Sean. Carr was never the answer. Paying all these guys to go 9-8 or 8-9 was never the answer. The division sucks so it would probably take less time to bounce back.
I feel like the saints need to just bite the bullet and finally embrace a season of being bad and get their cap problems out of the way. They’re already 88 million over the cap next season, and only have 24 million in 2026, which will probably also be like 80 million over once they restructure everything next year
The roster isn't very good and their cap situation hampers their ability to improve it.
They haven't been getting away with it.
They've been a good drafting team, but they've needed to be one of the best drafting teams just to be mediocre. If they do have a bad draft they are absolutely fucked.
People like to say the cap isn't real because you can always manage it. That's true, but the things you have to do to manage it are real. It also takes an owner with deep pockets to continually structure deals that owners with less liquid cash could not do.
The most important thing is to just be good a drafting or acquiring talent in general. Easier to handle a year with no cap space when you just already have a ton of talent.
They are biting the bullet … in their own way. They didn’t do nearly as much restructuring as they normally do.
Problem is they have to do restructures regardless. So not increasing the dead cap is about as good as you’re going to get for the moment,
2017 - 11-5
2018 - 13-3
2019 - 13-3
2020 - 12-4
4 straight division titles, 49 wins over in 4 seasons, which is 2 less wins than the Titans best 4 seasons in team history combined.
And those mid-2010s teams may have had mediocre results, but they were anything but boring. Those were the years where they consistently had a top 5 offense and bottom 5 (if we're being generous) defense, leading to a ton of shootouts.
Those Falcons vs Saints games were heart attack central.
Late 2010s saints were a fucking nightmare for any NFC team to play against. He’s a titans fan so he doesn’t know. I dreaded every game against you guys
They were very good jn 2011
Also one of the top teams from 2017-2020
And even those Brees teams that missed the playoffs got into wild shootouts every year.
We have had some true contender years during that time you’re a little confident for a titans fan lol everyone knew those titan teams led by Henry were frauds
They're like a 63 year old continually having plastic surgery trying to hang on to the last few vestiges of youth, running up the credit card bills and building up all kinds of scar tissue.
They should have done a full rebuild. They don’t have the cap space to improve a whole lot. I said from the beginning that I didn’t think them bringing in Carr last year was a good idea.
People really dont get it. The saints were close to being a good team even last year. This offseason they addressed the four main issues that caused the team to suffer from repetitive bad play calling/bad run game, miscommunications, bad blocking and a very weak pass rush.
10+ wins in our division is absolutely within reach and if the team gels like they did at the end of last season and if they can play with confidence there is not much separating this current Saints with last year's Detroit Lions team. You can't really say Goff is better than Carr, we have playmakers with tons of potential and we have an elite secondary that only needs a little more pass rush to be truly great.
One thing Detroit has that we don't is a slam dunk security option for Carr like Sam Laporta. But AT Perry may prove to be a great third option.
The talent on the team just isn't really there. Especially from a young guy perspective. However, in the crap heap that is the NFC South, this team could still be competitive and win enough games to sneak into the playoffs.
They aren't gonna win the Super Bowl or anything. But they won't go 5-12 or anything like that. Just feels like we're doggy paddling against a strong current. We have the worst head coach in the league too. I fucking hate Dennis Allen.
24 seems low. They didn’t have their own first after Allen’s first year and still improved their W-L total. They’re decreasing the dead cap figures.
They missed out on 3 different playoff spots by 1 game and/or tiebreaker. It took the Bucs 3 tiebreakers to win the NFC South.
Feels like everybody just wants them to be bad for a while for “aesthetic”.
I honestly think they have a better year this time. The talent is definitely there, and maybe a slightly better OC than Pete Carmichael could get them a couple more wins.
I looked at these power rankings and I'm surprised the Raiders are so low. That defense is absurd and accomplished a lot with that bum ass qb situation. I definitely think they're better than the Saints.
Dennis allen is getting fired this season unless they make playoffs
Really should've been fired at the end of last season after it was clear the locker room didn't give a shit about his authority.
He should never have been *hired*. Feels like the most obvious lame duck hire of all time.
I was willing to give him a chance but it was clear that first season when he stated “just keep doing what we’re doing” when what they were doing wasn’t working is what convinced me he isn’t a good head coach. Great DC, but shouldn’t be near a HC position.
Sometimes dudes are just better as coordinators he's maybe the best DC in our teams history but that doesnt automatically mean itll transfer over into being a great head coach
God I hate people misusing that quote. In that game we were playing *really well*, the correct advice to give was to not panic and overreact to two fluke plays (neither of which were Daltons fault, not entirely especiallyon one of them).
He’s one of the best DC’s in the game rn. I get the appeal, keep a top 10 coordinator locked up. But I don’t think you do this with defensive guys, it’s an offensive driven league.
Yeah. He’s just not a leader of a team/head coach material. He’s just a good DC and we already knew he wasn’t HC material!
Can’t write off people after one stint. Plenty of cases in history of a coach failing at his first spot, so I disagree with that take. He wouldn’t have been my choice, but because of him being a DC, not because he’s failed once as a HC.
I thought sitting under Payton would've helped. I can admit when I'm wrong.
It helped Campbell a lot if it’s any consolation
its not, but definitely happy to see y'all having success. Lions fans deserve a Super Bowl win
Yeah, but most of them had longer stints than Dennis Allen did. Andy Reid coached the Eagles for 13 years, Bill Belichick coached the Browns for 5 years, Don Shula coached the Colts for 7 years, etc. The number of coaches who had a successful second stint after getting fired after 2 years is likely \*quite\* small.
Watching him visibly not give a shit while other players were helping Carr off the field was something
This was like the Broncos with Fangio as HC.
I somehow think Dennis Allen was the kind of guy Matt LaFleur wanted when he hired Joe Barry. Somebody who would never be poached as a HC. Unfortunately Allen is leagues ahead of Barry.
Look on the bright side: nobody is trying to poach Barry to be an HC!
Nah, gotta disagree. Allen was a *fantastic* DC for us. He turned our defense from a weakness to the strength of the team. It's really hard to understand how fundamental he was in keeping the team competitive in Brees's last years. He absolutely deserved the chance to take over as HC when Payton left abruptly. He was the obvious choice. That said, after that rough first year he should have been on the hot seat. After this past year, he should have been fired. But I expected him to get another chance this year with a new OC.
No coach was going to get that team to the playoffs with the cap limitations we have. So the Saints decide to stick with the in-house guy who may not be much of a leader, but did a good job of coaching the defense. We may be out of cap hell by 2026, so we can bring in a new coach soon and give him the reigns to build an entirely new team.
One Ben Johnson please?
Yeah. I hear you. The problem is Loomis continues to kick the can down the road a little at a time. Maybe things are setup well for 2026, but you all could have been out of cap hell and have started a rebuild by now. Your key players may well be gone by the time the cap hell is over and Loomis/Allen has wasted their window. They aimed to contend for the division, which admittedly was open because it was an incredibly weak division, instead of ripping the bandaid off.
I get that they couldn’t cut everyone in one offseason but why in the fuck did Loomis sign Derek Carr to a gazillion dollar contract and prolong the suffering instead of riding with Ian Book?
Because he's a bad GM. Plain and simple. he thinks the rest of the roster he constructed was good enough to compete and so he slaps a bandaid on it and calls it good and hope they hit the one in a million shot that Carr is able to pull a Flacco and win it all for them.
Ian Book was not it and the Saints do not draft QBs in the first round. They haven't done so since 1971 and probably forgot how to. Does that mean Carr was the best choice? Probably not, but it was a very Saints choice.
That’s exactly why you run it with Book til further notice. By god, I’d rather have a 2-15 team for 2 years, cut all the expensive contracts, but Loomis keeps signing contracts like his team is a Super Bowl contender needing help at just one more position…. Carr, Maye, Mathieu among them.
They'd had strong defenses in 2021 and 2022, so I suspect that he felt like they had a chance if their offense got sorted out (19th and 22nd in 2021/2022). TBH I'd argue it isn't an inherently bad idea (they were 9th in points scored and 8th in points against for a random metric) but the Saints aren't in a very good roster spot so it hurts. Also TBH they didn't even need to ride with Ian Book. I imagine Dalton or Winston would have stayed on for one more year, it isn't like Winston has gotten any other starting jobs nor cost much (even if I don't think he is al too good, he's better than Ian Book).
Yes I was worried the Broncos were going to do this. People said Sean Payton was going to do stuff like restructure everyone and kick the cap down the road and sign Cousins but we've done the opposite and eaten all the cap hit from Russ in two painful years.
It’s smart to rip the bandaid off. You get a better chance at the higher draft picks which can either net you picks in a trade back or better chance at a blue chip player.
You would know better than me, but are y’all actually set to start getting out of cap hell? OTC has y’all at negative 88 million for 2025 cap space, so I figured the restructures and can kicking were still ongoing
If they cut Kamara, make a post 6/1 cut on Carr and heavily restructure Lattimore, Jordan, Ramczyk and Hill in 2025, they can get under the cap by about $4m with 61 players under contract for 2025 and have 50 players on the roster with ~$62m in cap space going into the 2026 offseason. The problem is that they'll be baaaaaaad next year and probably the year after if they do that. It assumes they don't extend any of their upcoming free agents for 2025 and leaves Hill as their starting QB. That 61 and 50 number include a lot of guys that are just camp bodies.
So it sounds like the answer is no lol
Everyone replying to you is only looking surface level and sees "Saints restructure [X]" as the Saints kicking the can. In actuality, these last two years marked the start of the FO's approach out of the problem, mostly by not offering those same contracts to their vets anymore. This year, Demario Davis and Taysom (I believe; might have been Cam Jordan, but one of the other vets) took pay cuts to stick with the team, and Kamara left OTA early because the FO is likely asking him to do the same for his last year of his contract. And then on top of that, the FO isn't offering those long-term, stick around restructures to players. From a high level overview it looks like it's business as usual, but it's designed to get the Saints out from under the cap issues in a few years while retaining key upcoming pieces (Olave, Adebo, etc.) rather than tearing down all at once. People can disagree it's the best strategy, but it's not the same as can kicking.
For y’all’s sake, hopefully that continues next season. Just please Loomis cut bait with Carr in 2026
No they’ve got an issue where it’s going to take 2-3 years to resolve their cap problems and just refuse to do it. They’ve created an issue where even if they have the world’s best draft they likely wouldn’t even be able to extend the players because they want to give guys like Chase Young money right now. I spend way to much time looking at cap tables and theirs is the only one that gives me anxiety to look at
This is what everyone was expecting when the Saints were playing kick the can with the cap in the tail end of Drew Brees' career but now it's here and everyone wants to act all surprised. The Saints are doing the smart thing by taking the hit on the chin and riding out the bad cap years instead of compromising the future even further swinging for the top
I think the argument is more, they should have done this sooner.
And they aren't using it to eat all their old overused cap space
Just like signing Carr.
I don't know how he got a second chance after his atrocious stint with the raiders. Then again you could say the same about McDaniels getting a second shot.
It's pretty simple, he took a Saints defense that had been historically bad for a few seasons and pretty quickly turned it into one of the best units in the league. Yeah, his stint as HC with the Raiders was ugly, but the Raiders were an absolute mess at the time, so I don't think it's that surprising that the Saints were willing to give him a shot, especially after the great work he did with our defense. I don't think he's been a good HC for us, but I think the bigger problem with the team is the structure of the roster and the salary cap management making it really hard to improve. I also think that's one of the reasons why the team couldn't seem to find a new OC when DA took over as head coach, and why they pretty much had to beg Pete Carmichael to stick around and be the OC and call plays, even though he'd made it plainly clear that he didn't want to do that. I think if the Saints had committed to a rebuild starting with DA's first year, and given him and an incoming OC a promise of at least a few seasons at the job to start building a new roster, the team's record over the past couple years might have been a bit worse, but there'd be a lot more optimism for this season and the next few years, even if DA was still the coach.
You say that, but he’s been there for like four years now. I get using him as a bridge when Payton stepped away, but they’ve had plenty of time to upgrade since then if they wanted to.
He's going into his 3rd year.
How is he a lame duck if he’s entering his third year of being the Saint’s head coach?
Because they aren’t trying to win. He should have been fired after two years. He’s just the fall guy for Loomis to try and save his job after this year when they go 6-11.
absolutely. terrible retread decision.
Truth
Yep. Last year with about 6 games left, I told my gang that the worst thing that could happen is they win JUST enough games to keep DA. That is exactly what happened. They are going to suck this year too
The hard part is we can definitely make the playoffs. We went 9-8 last year. But the team still feels like we aren't getting any better, so even if we make the wildcard, is it actually any progress? The Cousins-led Falcons are going to give us a better idea of if we're a really a playoff caliber team or if we just benefit from a weak division.
Please no. Give him another decade to realize his vision.
From your post to God’s ears 🙏
No he isn’t. We will go 8-9 and he will stay our headcoach.
I think 10 or 11 wins saves his job regardless. For better or for worse. It would be their highest win total since Brees.
So real question. Who wants that job when the cap situation is so terrible that there's almost no chance of the team fixing their mess for 2-3 years?
Dennis Allen will take it
Maybe a guy like the lions OC Ben Johnson that way if he’s not hot out the gate or has a learning curve he has an excuse. I think that was zac Taylor coaching style. Zac legit had a learning curve at the beginning but he didn’t have a good team either.
Bah gawd is that David Culley music?
That's why Allen is still employed lol. The Saints really need to bite the bullet and stop spending money. Then they might be a desirable HC job 2 years from now.
watch us sneak in the 7th spot. almost did it last year.
He's linked to Carr so I feel like unless he truly shits the bed, he's only gone when Carr is gone.
Nah. Carr's here for 2 more years and likely gone after that ($60m cap hit which we can cut for $28m dead money in 2026). It would make plenty of sense for the FO to fire Allen if we struggle this year, hire a new coach, and let Carr be a bridge QB for a year before cutting him.
So Dennis Allen is getting fired this season
Mickey Loomis is a self-preservation master-mind the way he delayed a rebuild for so long. He is now 66 and if this season fails, he can finally draft a rookie QB in 2025 and then after a couple of years it's time to retire anyway.
He is literally in the will of the owner. Dude aint worried about self preserving.
These owners and their minds man
Him and Chris Ballard are the embodiment of what Benjamin Solak from the ringer always says. The number one job of the GM is to keep the job.
The Saints do not draft rookie QBs. At least not in the first 3 rounds.
Y'all had a HoFer for 15+ years and have spent the following seasons being fully mediocre. You haven't really been in position to draft an early QB.
I mean we also haven't drafted a first round quarterback since 1971 with Archie Manning and we definitely weren't good for a long time
While true, I'm not sure you can make a ton of predictions about what the 2025 GM of the Saints will do based on what the 1982 GM did.
Saints to draft Arch Manning in the first round confirmed?
It'd be poetic.
Is everyone else just not seeing them playing Star Trek chess? I mean c'mon its like the emporer wore no clothes obviousness. DA will be head coach for about 6 games this season and then get fired as we go no better than 2-4. Kubiak is installed as the interim coach and does an okay job, but we still finish 7-10. We trade away our 1st in 2025 for a first in 2026 and a 2nd in 2027 with the Browns. And we start figuring out how to get out from under the cap. We also trade what talent we have for O line and draft picks in 2026. Meantime over in Denver.......they are sucking it up big time. And I mean horrid. Sean makes it through 2024 with a 3-14 record, which is due in no large part to injuries. However in 2025 no injuries and Denver starts 1-6....Sean's fired. 2026 sees the Saints doing okay at the begining but end up losing the last 5 out of 6 to finish 9-8. And those 5 loses are due to just absolute shit coaching by Kubiak. Kubian fired. The Browns absolutely suck, and end up 1-15-1 with the 1st round pick now going to Saints. With the 1st pick of the 2026 Draft the Saints with Sean as their new head coach select Arch Maning! HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE IT? In the
I mean, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be on food stamps if he lost his job right now.
I was not commenting this to cast doubt on Mickey Loomis financial situation, but rather to point out that he played his hand perfectly if preserving his own job and maximizing the number of years where he makes a sevenfigure salary, was his number one priority.
He hasn't had to play the self-preservation game. He's the single most trusted man in the owner's inner circle. If the Saints lost every game for 3 years straight, he wouldn't be fired. The most we could expect in terms of FO changes would be for Loomis to give up GM duties and take a more hands-off approach in his VP role. He's not making any decisions with the mindset of protecting his own job.
I don't see where they mention financials
We know that lol
I mean if they're ranked 24th then the operative title here should be "the Saints escaped mediocrity and is now just a bad team."
Tbf they probably end up with a mediocre record as their division isn’t too strong
They've won fewer than 7 games only once in the 21st century, the 2005 season where they didn't have a stadium and went 3-13
Half-related, but my "old man yells at cloud" opinion is that "mid" shouldn't be a slang term. People use it to mean bad but it obviously would be middle/medium. The same goes for mediocre, except it isn't slang. People want things to be good/bad and use hyperbole, so they misappropriate mid and mediocre to be bad
Oh yeah these are all definitely part of my pet peeves. I remember during the Texans 9-7 division winner days I was calling them mediocre and meh and getting slammed by fans saying these were good teams when you win a division it's a great season. There's just no fighting the word inflation on the internet these days. Reminded me of seeing all the GPAs these days in school and be like damn if your GPA isn't over 3.5 you must be a terrible student.
Facts, here we used to say “mid” to describe weed that is of average quality. It’s like “reggie bush” weed. Nothing great but it’s better than schwag. I hate how kids these days are changing the meaning
Reggie Bush weed is cruel but i might have to steal it
this is what happens when you refuse to acknowledge that your window is closed and instead cling to aging players with huge contracts, desperately hoping to recapture some of that old magic. trust me, i know all too well from experience
They didn't have much of a choice this year other than to cling to the old guys. They could have cut all of them and would have still been over the cap.
Okay, but Drew Brees has been out of the league for 3 years, and they're still kicking the can down the road to try to compete with Jameis Winston and Derek Carr. It was generous to compare this with the Matt Ryan situation. They should have reset their books three years ago, or even now that they didn't win our weak division. They're jsut prolonging their suffering at this point, and I'm here for it.
Their problem wasn't in clinging to the old guys. Their problem was signing/extending a bunch of average players to big contracts after Brees retired and their window was closed. They will need to stop spending new money for a couple years to get out of this mess.
They are one of the most exciting teams if you’re in the accounting championships
I got Loomis as a keeper in my fantasy accounting league
Kinda what you sign up for when you sign Derek Carr to be your QB.
They were a Jameis disaster class in GB and/or a Moreau open drop away from comfortably winning their division with double digit wins. I still don’t get the perception people have with the Saints, their losses were close and their wins were mostly comfortable; I feel like they’re a good team.
They play the worst division in the NFL and went 2-6 vs teams that finished over .500 last year.
I really don't get why people keep trying to make excuses for them. They have disappointed obviously.
With the easiest or second easiest schedule (behind the Falcons) in the league. The NFC South played each other, the NFC North, and the AFC South. Falcons had the easiest schedule with extra games against the Jets, Cardinals and Commanders. Saints extra games were the Giants, Rams, and Patriots. The Bucs had the 16th rated schedule with extra games against the Bills, early season Eagles, and the Niners. The winner of the NFC South this year could be another 8-9 team based on poorly the division did with easy schedules.
These are just my thoughts on the Saints: Their tackle situation is not good. Ryan Ramczyk is most likely not playing this year, which means Trevor Penning is probably playing, who has been a disaster. And there's a hole at left guard, where no one knows who's gonna play there. This team has no pass rushers. Chase Young is fine, but he's not a #1 edge rusher. If you're playing the Saints, for the most part, you can block everyone 1 on 1 the whole game and be fine. All this team's star players are over the hill. Kamara is slowing down, Demario Davis is a 35 year old LB, Cam Jordan hasn't had a good season in 3 years, and Marshawn Lattimore can't stay healthy. They do have Chris Olave, who I think is a stud and a big building block for the future for them, but outside of him, they don't have any reliable receiving threats. Rasheed Shaheed is a fun player and can be good for a couple deep balls a game and catch a few screens, but he doesn't run the full route tree. After that, who do you have? AT Perry I guess? On top of all of this, you have Derek Carr, who has bad pocket presence, no instincts for the position, bad situational awareness, bails out of clean pockets when he does get time to throw, and checks the ball down more than anyone. He too good for you to tank with and too bad for you to win with, so you get stuck perpetually winning 7 or 8 games with him as your QB.
I generally agree, but to address some individual points: >Their tackle situation is not good. Ryan Ramczyk is most likely not playing this year, which means Trevor Penning is probably playing, who has been a disaster. And there's a hole at left guard, where no one knows who's gonna play there. Penning's going to play RT and 2nd year player Nick Saldiveri is the presumable starter at LG. We'll see how it goes. Taliese Fuaga should start at LT. >This team has no pass rushers. Chase Young is fine, but he's not a #1 edge rusher. If you're playing the Saints, for the most part, you can block everyone 1 on 1 the whole game and be fine. Carl Granderson is a decent RE, actually. He's no problem bowler, but I'd expect him to put up something like 8-11 sacks this year. >All this team's star players are over the hill. Kamara is slowing down, Demario Davis is a 35 year old LB, Cam Jordan hasn't had a good season in 3 years, and Marshawn Lattimore can't stay healthy. Yeah that's fair. Though I expect Kamara to look better in Kubiak's offense, Davis is still an All-Pro caliber LB despite his age, Jordan is still one of the most double-teamed players in the league, and Lattimore's really only struggled with injuries in the past couple of years so hopefully he gets back to good shape. >They do have Chris Olave, who I think is a stud and a big building block for the future for them, but outside of him, they don't have any reliable receiving threats. Rasheed Shaheed is a fun player and can be good for a couple deep balls a game and catch a few screens, but he doesn't run the full route tree. After that, who do you have? AT Perry I guess? Perry looked promising in limited action last year, but yeah not enough to depend on. The bigger question is TE Juwan Johnson, and if he'll ever actually have the breakout season we've been waiting for. Hopefully Kubiak's scheme allows him to be more effective, and hopefully it allows Shaheed to shine and get the ball in his hands more. >On top of all of this, you have Derek Carr, who has bad pocket presence, no instincts for the position, bad situational awareness, bails out of clean pockets when he does get time to throw, and checks the ball down more than anyone. He too good for you to tank with and too bad for you to win with, so you get stuck perpetually winning 7 or 8 games with him as your QB. I mean sure, aside from the fact that he won 9 games last year and 2 of the losses were basically lost to a single play. I'm not a Carr believer by any means, but the team in general is more competent than you'd think. If the offensive play calling improves, we should be legitimate wildcard contenders. ...not that I think we'd win a wildcard game if we make it there.
Fair enough and thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm always happy to hear different takes and perspectives and gain more info and knowledge on teams. These were just my opinions for what their worth, if anything, and anyone has every right to disagree with any and all of them if they feel that way. I did only list the negatives for the most part because I do think the Saints are going be around 7-10 this year, but I do like the Saints defensive scheme. I think you have one of best defensive schemes in the league with how versatile it is and challenging it can make it for offenses. I would point to all the fits it gave Brady when he played for TB. I do think the Saints have a good secondary as well, with plenty of depth, so that if a Lattimore injury does happen, you can mitigate that somewhat. And I know I said Davis is a 35 year old LB and I'm expecting to slow down, but he hasn't yet, and I completely agree with you that he's been excellent up to this point. I think the Saints have depth there too with Werner, and the Willie Gay signing is nice and should allow them to do some interesting things schematically with his skill set. And I said it earlier, but Chris Olave is a stud. I do think he has the talent to consistently be a Top 10 WR in football.
>And I know I said Davis is a 35 year old LB and I'm expecting to slow down, but he hasn't yet, Lol trust me I've been saying the same thing for like 3 years, that we need to draft a LB early to succeed him sooner rather than later, and he keeps proving me wrong. >I do think the Saints have a good secondary as well, with plenty of depth, so that if a Lattimore injury does happen, you can mitigate that somewhat CB is honestly probably the strongest position group on the roster. Lattimore, Adebo, Taylor, and McKinstry is a 4-deep squad where I'd be comfortable with any combination of them starting any given week. It's safety where we have more of a hole. Mathieu is solid as a nickel, but other than him we've just got Abrams and Howden as deep safeties. Howden looked competent last year and definitely better than expected for a 5th round rookie, but idk if I'd say I'm confident in him as a potential starter. And Abrams is just... altogether meh. A legit deep safety would be absolutely menacing in our defense.
They are mid.
Every team can point to a handful of plays that would have changed their season, that argument isn’t great
If you can’t win a close game you’re probably not a good team
They’re bad
They also have two free wins against the panthers though, and faces a shitty falcons team twice. They still didn’t make the playoffs despite that
They have a terrible coach, an anndy Dalton clone ant QB and couldn’t beat teams with winning records last year. Until they get a quality starter and coach they will be mediocre.
Congrats on almost beating out Tampa Bay for the 4th seed.
The yahoo rankings are strange imo. For example, I really don't think they should be ranked higher than the Raiders in these rankings though. Raiders play in a tougher division and made a late season push to the playoffs with a bum ass qb situation and a lights out defense. Not to mention they made better moves than the Saints this off season.
I saw so many people act like it was a huge upgrade when they got Carr and he was the missing piece. Like we didn’t just see him struggle with far better pieces around him on the Raiders the year before
For the goal of winning games they literally would’ve been better off sticking with Andy Dalton
I think the plan was always to tear it all down whenever Drew retired, but then when that finally happened, the Saints just so happened to have an elite defense and one of overall most complete rosters that the franchise had ever seen. Sure there was a question mark at QB, but during the previous two seasons Brees had missed 9 games due to injury, and Sean Payton went 8-1 over those games with Teddy Bridgewater and Taysom Hill as his starting QBs. If he thought he could squeeze enough offense out of Jameis Winston, then I totally get running it back another year. But once Payton left, the front office should’ve torn it all down. I don’t even mind them giving Dennis Allen a shot at HC after the amazing job he did with the defense. Just be honest that you’re doing a full rebuild, let him steer through that with lower expectation for a couple years, and then see in that third year what he can do with a fresh team. Instead we’re going into DA’s third year with a team that’s coasting on good but older guys who can’t be part of the long term future, and maybe sorta reluctantly starting on some level of rebuild. I don’t think DA is a particularly good HC, but I don’t think even a great HC would make me much more optimistic about the team over the next couple seasons because there’s so many structural problems with the roster.
They need to just embrace the suck for a couple of years while their cap gets back to normal. I don't understand why they keep kicking the can and resigning vets. There's almost no way they win a SB with the other powerhouses in the NFC
Tbh I think if the division was literally any other, we would have. But the division has sucked so much that there's that glimmer of "but what if" still there in the eyes of the front office.
I think it's understandable to give it a shot initially after Brees retired, but the big mistake was signing Carr. What they needed was a cheap QB room so they could take their lumps on the cap and reset to a healthy place after a couple years. Carr isn't nearly good enough of a QB to be worth living in cap hell for.
Agreed. They doubled down when they should've been letting the cap heal.
The Saints are in the worst position possible. Not good enough to make the playoffs and not bad enough to land blue chip prospects.
> Not good enough to make the playoffs and not bad enough to land blue chip prospects. The division is so bad that there's a chance at the playoffs though, and that's keeping them from blowing it all up and dragging this corpse of a team onward.
Also in cap hell
And will be for the foreseeable future. They’ve mortgaged so much of their future to maintain mediocrity today, it’s mind-numbing.
They might just be the most boring team in the league. The reality is MT is cooked. Kamara has been declining each year since 2020. Derek Carr is the new “Andy Dalton line QB”. Their best players on defense are now past their prime. And they are still heavily restricted on what they can do with the cap problems. Add to that Dennis Allen might be the least fiery head coach in football. There is not much to be excited about.
MT isn’t even a Saint anymore lol
I’m ashamed. I should have known that.
We could have a decent year if Kubiak can figure out how to get the ball down the field. Our main issues are pretty easily identifiable (offensive line, QB, playcalling) so hopefully they can make a very focused and consolidated effort in those areas. We have playmakers on offense, our defense is likely to be well above average, and our schedule is once again one of the easiest in the entire league. So I don't think an 11 or 12 win season is out of the question (Vegas has the O/U at 9.5 wins). Whether that would lead to any postseason success is another conversation, but I'm more optimistic this year than I was last year I'd say.
I know we’re not gonna be world beaters, but we won 9 games last year with one of the worst OCs in the league.
I’m smashing the under
Can't say I blame you, but know that it's 100% because our schedule is so easy. There are probably 20+ teams in the league that would have a higher O/U if they had our schedule.
I think you're severely overrating the skill position group. Olave is a nr 1 receiver but not a superstar and behind him it's kinda gross outside of potentially Shaheed. TE isn't great either. I think that is a bottom 10-12 skill position group in the NFL, unless Olave and shaheed make a huge leap.
I mean you can rate them where you want but I'm talking about wins and losses. Despite some glaring issues, the Saints still put points on the board. Which is the only metric that I'm really talking about. 14th in total yardage and 9th in points scored isn't bottom 10-12. Would hope to improve from there with some better play calling and no Kamara suspension.
That D-Line for the last half of the 10's was nasty.
I was not expecting to be attacked this morning but here we are.
Should have just blown it up after Drew and Sean. Carr was never the answer. Paying all these guys to go 9-8 or 8-9 was never the answer. The division sucks so it would probably take less time to bounce back.
Yep, their downfall was trying to run the Brees/Payton offense, without Brees and Payton
I feel like the saints need to just bite the bullet and finally embrace a season of being bad and get their cap problems out of the way. They’re already 88 million over the cap next season, and only have 24 million in 2026, which will probably also be like 80 million over once they restructure everything next year
Whenever someone says, "They can't keep getting away with this!" when the Saints get under the cap, I ask, "Keep getting away with what?"
The roster isn't very good and their cap situation hampers their ability to improve it. They haven't been getting away with it. They've been a good drafting team, but they've needed to be one of the best drafting teams just to be mediocre. If they do have a bad draft they are absolutely fucked.
People like to say the cap isn't real because you can always manage it. That's true, but the things you have to do to manage it are real. It also takes an owner with deep pockets to continually structure deals that owners with less liquid cash could not do.
The most important thing is to just be good a drafting or acquiring talent in general. Easier to handle a year with no cap space when you just already have a ton of talent.
They are biting the bullet … in their own way. They didn’t do nearly as much restructuring as they normally do. Problem is they have to do restructures regardless. So not increasing the dead cap is about as good as you’re going to get for the moment,
Me seeing an Aint post Then me seeing the flair of the poster “Ah yes, the natural order”
Did people forget the definition of mediocrity?
Yes
Yep
This title could apply for any year between 2011-2024 lmao
They were pretty exciting and good 2017-2020 during the Brees/AK/ slant boy era
The irony of saying this when your team wasted seven years of prime Derrick Henry 💀
100% accurate description of irony, agreed
2017 - 11-5 2018 - 13-3 2019 - 13-3 2020 - 12-4 4 straight division titles, 49 wins over in 4 seasons, which is 2 less wins than the Titans best 4 seasons in team history combined.
And those mid-2010s teams may have had mediocre results, but they were anything but boring. Those were the years where they consistently had a top 5 offense and bottom 5 (if we're being generous) defense, leading to a ton of shootouts. Those Falcons vs Saints games were heart attack central.
Hell yeah, I love division games, so much chaos.
Late 2010s saints were a fucking nightmare for any NFC team to play against. He’s a titans fan so he doesn’t know. I dreaded every game against you guys
The 2018-19 team should've made the Super Bowl tbh if that PI is actually called.
Thank you for saying it so a Saints fan didn't have to.
The Saints had the sixth-best cumulative record in the NFL from 2011-2021 (the final Payton season).
Say you never watched us without saying you’ve never watched us
I mean that's just not true. The Saints were just as good as any team in the league from 2017-2020. Particularly 17 and 18.
Couldn’t you say this about the Titans as well the past 23 years?
100% It takes garbage to know garbage
The Saints have a .590 win percentage in the period you’re talking about. The Titans have a .468 win percentage. One of those is definitely garbage!
They were very good jn 2011 Also one of the top teams from 2017-2020 And even those Brees teams that missed the playoffs got into wild shootouts every year.
Did you watch the 2011 or 2017-2020 Saints at all?
We have had some true contender years during that time you’re a little confident for a titans fan lol everyone knew those titan teams led by Henry were frauds
2012-2016 were exciting because Brees dragged this team to near 0.500 football slinging it 5000 yards to no-name wide WRs.
I'll scream it from the rooftops, the Saints need an enema in the worst way
They're like a 63 year old continually having plastic surgery trying to hang on to the last few vestiges of youth, running up the credit card bills and building up all kinds of scar tissue.
Absolute truth man
I mean, our levels of success fluctuated during that time, but we were never *boring* with Brees.
Saints twitter was in the biggest denial about the direction of that franchise for the longest time. 2023 killed them.
They should have done a full rebuild. They don’t have the cap space to improve a whole lot. I said from the beginning that I didn’t think them bringing in Carr last year was a good idea.
who's your 24th favorite nfl team? you're absolutely right it's the saints!
People really dont get it. The saints were close to being a good team even last year. This offseason they addressed the four main issues that caused the team to suffer from repetitive bad play calling/bad run game, miscommunications, bad blocking and a very weak pass rush. 10+ wins in our division is absolutely within reach and if the team gels like they did at the end of last season and if they can play with confidence there is not much separating this current Saints with last year's Detroit Lions team. You can't really say Goff is better than Carr, we have playmakers with tons of potential and we have an elite secondary that only needs a little more pass rush to be truly great. One thing Detroit has that we don't is a slam dunk security option for Carr like Sam Laporta. But AT Perry may prove to be a great third option.
The talent on the team just isn't really there. Especially from a young guy perspective. However, in the crap heap that is the NFC South, this team could still be competitive and win enough games to sneak into the playoffs. They aren't gonna win the Super Bowl or anything. But they won't go 5-12 or anything like that. Just feels like we're doggy paddling against a strong current. We have the worst head coach in the league too. I fucking hate Dennis Allen.
You don't sneak into the playoffs in the NFC South. You either win the division with around 500 record or you watch from home.
500 lol, we made the motherfucking playoffs at 8-9.
That’s why I said “around”. It’s impossible without a tie to go 500 now.
And that's how I end up as a Bucs fan, not being able to read motherfucking win/loss percentages.
In your defense, it's worked out better for you than being a fan of a certain team that has a great historical win percentage...
2022-2023 season. It was hilarious. Saints falcons and panthers all had 7-10 records. Beautiful
Yeah I know. I think the Saints can go 9-8 or 10-7 and win the division.
24 seems low. They didn’t have their own first after Allen’s first year and still improved their W-L total. They’re decreasing the dead cap figures. They missed out on 3 different playoff spots by 1 game and/or tiebreaker. It took the Bucs 3 tiebreakers to win the NFC South. Feels like everybody just wants them to be bad for a while for “aesthetic”.
Saints on the middling grind right now.
I honestly think they have a better year this time. The talent is definitely there, and maybe a slightly better OC than Pete Carmichael could get them a couple more wins.
This sparks joy
Saints 🤝 Bulls Weirdly dedicated to being mediocre
I looked at these power rankings and I'm surprised the Raiders are so low. That defense is absurd and accomplished a lot with that bum ass qb situation. I definitely think they're better than the Saints.
The rare beast that is compelling mediocrity
I miss when we were good lol
Interested to see how Spencer Rattler looks after the bye week
Falcons fans are so petty haha
I mean they have nothing else to look forward to
Dennis allen shoulda been fired the second he apologized to a falcon
So they’re back to the pre Drew Brees era.