https://sports.yahoo.com/despite-short-term-challenges-saints-014209212.html
Six of the seven head-coaching openings are filled. One remains, in New Orleans.
That lingering vacancy, which by all appearances is being held for Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, has prompted some to argue that the Saints’ job is the least appealing from the current cycle.
It’s not.
Do the Saints have short-term challenges? Yes. So do the other teams that fired their coaches. Rarely does a great job with a great team pop open. Owners fire coaches because their teams aren’t good. Even if, as Bill Belichick argues, it’s about the players not the coaches, the coach of a group of bad players takes the fall.
The most common immediate concerns about the Saints are: (1) salary-cap challenges; and (2) quarterback situation.
The Saints always have cap issues. And G.M. Mickey Loomis and his staff always find a way to solve them. Yes, they’ll have to slash roughly $50 million from a roughly $275 million spending limit for 2025. They’ll restructure some deals. They’ll cut some players. They’ll make it work.
As to the quarterback situation, Derek Carr’s contract guarantees him $10 million in full for 2025 with another $30 million that becomes fully guaranteed in March. If his hand injury has healed before the third day of the league year, the Saints can cut him with a post-June 1 designation and avoid $30 million in 2025 salary.
If they decide to keep him, they’ll have to deal with the $30 million salary. (He has already said he won’t take a pay cut.) If they move on, they’ll have a clean slate and $30 million extra in cash and cap space.
Is it perfect? No. Again, find a team that has hired a new coach in recent years that handed the coach a perfect situation.
The Bears have a very good overall situation, since they have a young potential franchise quarterback and an otherwise solid roster. The Patriots have the quarterback; the rest of the roster needs work.
But consider the other teams that made coaching changes. The Jets have been continuously dysfunctional under the ownership of Woody Johnson, with a 14-year playoff drought. The Jaguars have been one of the worst teams in the league since Shad Khan bought the franchise more than a decade ago. The Raiders have two foundational pieces (Maxx Crosby and Brock Bowers) and not much else. They also compete in one of the toughest divisions in football. And the Cowboys are the Cowboys — there’s talent to compete but an owner who creates more roadblocks than on-ramps.
What do the Saints have? An owner who is patient and doesn’t meddle. A General Manager who has built teams that consistently contended, when they topped off the rest of the roster with a great coach and a great quarterback.
While neither are easy to find, that’s arguably all the Saints are missing. And so they hire a first-time coach in Moore (like they did 18 years ago with Payton) and they find a quarterback, like they did 18 years ago when Drew Brees was a free agent and the Dolphins didn’t want him.
The fan base is zealously supportive. The division isn’t chock full of juggernauts.
The Saints are a far cry from the pre-Payton Aints. In the short term, it’ll take work. Over the long haul, and assuming the new coach gets time to turn things around, it could work.
That doesn’t mean Moore will get it done. It means that a coach looking for a new job could do a lot worse than the Saints. Despite the glass-half-full vibe that every franchise with a new coach tries to create, it’s impossible for the NFL to have 32 good teams. And the bad teams tend to stay bad.
Over the past 18 years, the Saints have not been one of them.
https://sports.yahoo.com/despite-short-term-challenges-saints-014209212.html
