You could argue, following last night’s humiliating 33-3 home loss to former coach Sean Payton and his 3-3 Denver Broncos, that the New Orleans Saints’ current five-game losing streak is really just the product of a debilitating rash of injuries.
You wouldn’t really be wrong about that. The Saints are in considerably worse shape health-wise than most teams around the league, having lost three starting offensive linemen, their two best wide receivers, their quarterback, both cornerbacks and a starting linebacker. It’s a lot of injuries.
But injuries are part of football. Everybody has them.
And without accusing anybody of malingering, here’s something I’ve noticed as a long-time observer of football teams, and especially bad ones – injuries have an uncanny way of syncing up with poor morale. It’s amazing how many bumps and bruises guys get when things start to go south on a team.
Now – some of these have been serious injuries, like for example what happened to Paulson Adebo last night. He was carted off the field with an air cast on his leg, and that’s not something which is a question of morale. The fact Adebo was the most penalized player in the NFL this year has perhaps more to do with morale and leadership than his almost-certainly-season-ending injury did.
But on the whole, bad teams who don’t want to play for their coach will have a lot worse problems with injuries than motivated, well-led teams do.
Know what else you see from unmotivated, bad teams who are trying to get their coach fired? Piss-poor effort.
And that’s exactly what you saw from the Saints last night.
Forget about the practice-squad offensive personnel. Forget about the mounting lopsided score. Nobody on that team had any interest in hitting anybody or getting hit. Alvin Kamara runs out of bounds rather than trying to break a tackle. Multiple receivers give up on routes. Defenders barely bother trying to make a tackle and certainly don’t take on blockers or running backs in the hole.
All night long that’s what you saw from this team. They’ve given up.
The Saints gave away games to the Eagles and Falcons late, which squandered their 2-0 start, and they’ve now been blown out by the Chiefs, Bucs and Broncos – with things getting worse each week.
And yes, the injuries have mounted. That’s part of it.
What else is part of it is this is an organization which badly, badly lacks leadership. Derek Carr isn’t a bad quarterback when he’s healthy, but he’s had real problems getting the rest of the offense to buy into his leadership and now he’s out with an oblique injury which could persist for…who knows how long. On defense, Demario Davis, Tyrann Mathieu and Cameron Jordan are very well-respected players, but they’re also clearly on the downhill side of their careers.
And the players all know Dennis Allen is not a top-level NFL coach.
Where is the alpha dog who carries this organization like Payton and Drew Brees did?
It isn’t Mickey Loomis, the general manager who put this mediocre crew together. And, sadly, it definitely isn’t Gayle Benson, who is a very nice lady but whose knowledge of football isn’t very playable and whose leadership skills don’t appear to be in evidence.
Allen was a lazy hire. Everybody understands this now, just as they understood it when he was hired in 2022. When Payton left, the Saints needed a complete restart and makeover with new leadership on the field and on the sidelines. Brees was gone, and with him the team’s brand was also gone.
Loomis tried to keep the machine running with a collection of spare parts. It took two years for the Saints to trade out Pete Carmichael as the offensive coordinator, for crying out loud. And Carmichael’s replacement Klint Kubiak is trying to operate a run-heavy scheme with an aging lead back in Kamara who has a history of nagging injuries and what was a suspect offensive line even before the injuries hit.
The Saints are covered with contracts that are far too expensive for the cap hit they present. The roster is loaded with high draft picks Loomis refuses to cut loose despite it being obvious they’re busts.
And there’s no accountability.
Loomis keeps saying “you have to look beyond wins and losses” when evaluating Allen, but there isn’t anything beyond the wins and losses. He’s in his third year and he’s lost the team. Five straight losses, three of which are blowouts, makes this a wasted season.
Coaches in their third year whose teams have become completely uncompetitive before the season’s halfway over are coaches who will never be successful.
Is anybody on this team playing at an elite level? No. There are a few players who are better than average, and there are some who have some promise of becoming good players on a better team, but the Saints are every bit their 2-5 record right now.
What you’d do, if you were a responsible steward of a team in circumstances like this, is to hold a fire sale. You’d unload as many veterans as you can, dumping their future contracts and, in the case of a Mathieu or Davis, giving a good player an opportunity to catch on with a playoff team. Maybe pile up some draft picks while you’re unloading players.
And then just rummage around on other teams’ practice squads for the rest of the season to see if you can find some quality players you can build around for future years.
Take the 3-14 or 4-13 season which will inevitably come, unload Allen and the coaching staff, rework the roster to go younger and cheaper with a new head coach who hopefully will be an X’s and O’s savant but far more importantly is a charismatic and inspirational leader, suffer through a rebuilding year in 2025, and emerge in 2026 with a ton of cap space you can use to buy a few star players to sprinkle around the young talent you’re grooming.
This is how NFL franchises build championship teams. The Saints under Loomis have done the opposite, and as a result they’re within a game or two of .500 every year. Until the bottom falls out like it’s doing now, that is.
It’s played out. It’s done.
From Loomis on down, everything needs a housecleaning. But Benson shows no sign of giving up on Loomis.
So maybe Loomis isn’t the problem. Maybe Benson is the problem.
This franchise needs an energetic, driven, no-nonsense owner. So far, she isn’t it.
What she brings to the table is a commitment to keep the team in New Orleans. But who cares if the Saints stay in New Orleans if they’re going to be one of the league’s worst teams?
Besides, while Louisiana doesn’t have a lot of billionaires, it does have enough investors with the means to fund a purchase of the team that the Saints can be kept. It’s not a done deal that the Saints would be off to San Antonio or San Diego or Memphis or whatever other not-so-lush locale you might dream up should Benson sell the team. In fact, given the gorgeous redesign of the Superdome it’s fair to say you’re not getting a better facility in any of those markets, and you can’t find a more loyal fan base. No, the Saints aren’t going to sell as many suites as some larger markets might afford, but in every other respect the fact Louisiana’s economy is a joke doesn’t negatively affect the franchise’s profitability.
Losing affects that. Get somebody who can lead a quality rebuild, and the Saints will be as healthy as any franchise in the NFL.
And it’s time to have these conversations. Because there are far larger problems than the size of the disabled list in black and gold.