In the wake of a 5-12 season and last-place finish in the NFC South, it's now time for the New Orleans Saints to reflect on what worked and what didn't, and figure out where to go from here.
For Saints general manager Mickey Loomis, that involves extensive discussions about how much work or time is needed to get the team back into the upper echelons of the league. For his part, Loomis has a positive outlook on the situation.
"I'm positive. I'm glass half-full at all times. Even in a 5-12 season, I see a lot of things that were positive that we can build on," Loomis said on Monday. "So I'm on the side of, man, this thing can go the other direction pretty quickly."
After the team fired head coach Dennis Allen halfway through the season, the Saints' offseason journey back toward perennial playoff contention starts with the search for a new leader after missing out on the postseason in all three of Allen's seasons.
The 2024 season, though the nail in the coffin for Allen's tenure, didn't seem doomed from the start, as the Saints got off to a hot 2-0 start in which they outscored opponents 91-29. But it was all downhill from there, as the offense stagnated and injuries piled up en route to a seven-game losing streak that ended with a one-point loss to the Panthers and Allen's exit.
Loomis acknowledged that injuries specifically were a large part in the season falling apart and something the team needs "to get a handle on," with key pieces such as tight end Taysom Hill and wide receivers Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed missing significant time.
And that brings the discussion to what was possibly the biggest injury loss of them all, and the biggest question going forward for whoever earns the HC spot. What to do with Derek Carr?
In his two years in New Orleans, Carr has been solid, averaging 223.1 yards per game and a 98.8 passer rating in 27 starts. While he is 14-13 overall and was 5-5 this season, he missed a total of seven games due to multiple injuries and is approaching his age-34 season. However, Loomis dismissed any struggles by Carr this season as resulting from extenuating circumstances, reaffirming his belief in the quarterback.
"I have a high level of confidence in Derek. Listen, he did some really good things here, has done some really good things here," Loomis said. "When you don't have your top two receivers and you don't have that special weapon in Taysom Hill and we don't have the middle portion of our offensive line and we have a rookie left tackle, there are some tough circumstances for a quarterback. So I think he's done a lot of good things."
Complicating everything, as it often does, is the salary cap. New Orleans has become known for continually deferring salary-cap hits to avoid going over the limit while keeping the window open. Carr specifically represents a huge portion of the Saints' 2025 budget, carrying a $51.46 million cap hit that would need to be restructured in order for New Orleans to have any sort of flexibility in acquiring or retaining other talent this offseason.
The quarterback has already come out and said he's had positive discussions with the Saints' brass about a path going forward, though he is not open to a pay cut as an option to lessen the financial burden he represents.
His future will remain in limbo until a head coach is hired, as could the statuses of players such as defensive end Cameron Jordan ($20 million cap hit), Hill ($17.98 million), linebacker Demario Davis ($12.4 million) and safety Tyrann Mathieu ($11.3 million), all of whom are at least 32 and some of whom have production questions.
"I'm pretty comfortable with where we're at. I'm comfortably uncomfortable," Loomis said of the cap-space quandary. "It's something we have to manage, but there's a lot of teams that have to manage their cap that way. Some of the ones are going to have to at some point. I feel OK about where we're at. I think we're making progress from where we've been the last few years, and so I'm feeling better about it."
All of these questions about retention are merely hypotheticals up for debate until the point at which Loomis hires a new head coach, with the search fully underway with six interviews either requested or completed up to this point. Then, the rebuild, in whatever form it takes, truly begins.
