It’s been a surprisingly controversial offseason for the New Orleans Saints. A lot of NFL media prognosticators went ahead and wrote them off as a team that’s going to be bad this year, suggesting that the Saints should lean into it and sell off their good players so they could kick off a miserable rebuild.
But the Saints didn’t do that. They spent more money than almost any other team in the league to recruit a new starting quarterback and reinforce their depth in free agency while holding onto some key contributors. But it wasn’t enough to impress CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin, who graded the Saints a C in his 2023 offseason grades:
No one refuses to rebuild like the Saints. New QB Derek Carr is a gutsy leader who might have a deep playoff run in him, provided he’s got an all-star setup a la Matthew Stafford with the 2021 Rams. That he does not. New Orleans is essentially just buying another year or three of wild card flirtation by doubling down on veterans like RB Jamaal Williams and WR Michael Thomas.
It’s kind of a bad take. The Saints don’t lack for talent. They didn’t lose games last year because they didn’t have competent players. The bigger question and cause for concern centers on their coaching staff. Dennis Allen made poor in-game decisions on fourth down and in scoring position that didn’t turn into points on the scoreboard. Pete Carmichael Jr.’s shortcomings as a play caller were highlighted far too often. The larger issue is that both coaches are going to have the same roles in 2023 that they struggled to hold down in 2022.
Teams that often tank and go into a rebuild rarely climb back out of it. The Jets, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Texans, Bears, and Dolphins wasted years of their fans’ time promising that they just needed to bottom out and get another quarterback with the first or second overall pick before they’d turn it all around. In many cases they never improved, and the coaches and general managers tasked with pulling off the tank-and-rebuild were fired by frustrated owners who didn’t enjoy the process as much as conventional wisdom suggests they would.
The Saints have more work to do before they’ll win back the confidence they lost from fans last season. But again, the more pressing issue than how many free agents they sign or draft picks they nail is whether the coaches making decisions are the right people for those jobs. That’s the same now as it was a year ago.
