Could this be the year Dennis Allen gets the New Orleans Saints out of their funk? Or will they be find themselves in another waking nightmare? Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon described nightmare scenarios for each team in 2024, summing them up into one sentence. The New Orleans Saints’ nightmare comes in the form of an all-too-familiar outcome:
A team with enough talent to compete but not enough to contend competes without contending and continues to refuse to commit to a rebuild.
This is the place the Saints have rested in the Dennis Allen era. Moving into Year 3 of this era, it can’t be accepted any longer. The reason this is such a nightmare is that outcome could lead to New Orleans keeping a coaching staff full of underachievers in place. Hovering around .500 and missing the playoffs in a bad division would be an indictment coaching.
A team that can compete but not contend will defeat teams on their level and struggle against those with playoff ambitions. New Orleans was that team in 2023. If that continues into this year, the Saints’ front office will likely still see the potential of success. It begs the question, though, is potential enough three years into Allen’s second chance at being a head coach? Just how many years can they stay stuck in the mud? Let’s hope for fewer nightmares and more success in 2024.