The New Orleans Saints have been a tough team to watch this year. Another year of Dennis Allen at head coach with a $150 million quarterback next to him in Derek Carr has the team right back where they were at the end of last season: praying for help from other teams to get them to the playoffs.
Allen is knocking on the door of his first winning season in five years as a head coach, which wouldn’t be enough to get the team to the playoffs — where Derek Carr is still looking for his first career postseason win after a decade in the NFL. Changes may be on the way for the Saints if they can’t win the NFC South and get into the playoffs, but Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reports that Allen and Carr are here to stay.
Florio shares that Saints leadership (meaning some combination of general manager Mickey Loomis, team president Dennis Lauscha, and owner Gayle Benson) don’t view Allen as “part of the problem in New Orleans.” Nor his quarterback. Florio adds that, “The feeling is that too much blame is being placed on Allen and quarterback Derek Carr for the team’s struggles in 2023, and that Allen and Carr could be key components of a resurgence in 2024.”
That’s laughable, but the Saints have not conducted themselves like a serious franchise since Drew Brees and Sean Payton left them to fend for themselves. Allen and Carr are the most important people in the organization. Everything rides on the franchise quarterback taking up so many salary cap resources. All of the decisions are on Allen’s plate, whose defense has fallen into inconsistency when he hasn’t been able to manage it personally.
Giving them both a mulligan and hoping for “some cultural tweaks” as Florio mentions is, well, ridiculous. The Saints had built a winning culture that demanded accountability of its best players during their franchise-best run from 2017 to 2020. When Allen took over, they’ve fallen into the same losing culture he installed with the Raiders a decade ago that Carr perpetuated after he was let go. Whether Allen is feuding with big egos on the team or Carr is barking at his teammates and coaches, it hasn’t been pretty. But more of the same appears to be Loomis and Lauscha’s vision for this team in 2024.
