Saints' roster-building strategy is hitting a wall, and there are no quick fixes in sight
The Saints have spent years trying to field the best roster that they can every single season, maneuvering around the financial burden of the late Drew Brees years without ever bottoming out or tanking. Their constant “all-in” attitude has helped them stay relevant within the landscape of the NFC South, but their roster-building strategy is starting to hit the wall — and their 31-24 loss to the Jaguars on Thursday paints a picture of how deep into no man’s land the Saints really are.
The combination of head coach Dennis Allen and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael hasn’t come anywhere close to replicating the success of the Sean Payton years, boasting a 10-14 record since the start of last season. New Orleans (3-4) still has high-end talent on its roster, but it doesn't have the level of depth that it had when it was a perennial NFC contender in the past.
When the Saints enter a game with a handful of important players missing due to injury, they don’t quite have the players to step up because their roster-building strategy has been so aggressive. Combine that with whiffing on the Trevor Penning pick in the first round of the 2022 draft, signing Derek Carr to a deal that already looks like a mistake, and an aging group of stars, the Saints’ outlook begins to appear more grim.
The reality of where they are right now sunk in during the dismal showing Thursday night, when they struggled to move the ball with Carr under center and trailed by 15 points entering the fourth quarter. The Saints rallied to tie the score and had Foster Moreau drop what might have been a game-tying touchdown at the very end, but it saved little face against a Jaguars team that wasn't playing its best either.
There are no quick fixes to get out of this mess, even after the season is over. According to OverTheCap, the Saints are currently projected to be $72 million over the projected 2024 salary cap and, unlike previous years, they haven’t given themselves that much wiggle room to get out of these contracts in the offseason. Most of their highly paid players for 2024 carry dead salary cap charges higher than their cap hits, only making it harder for them to move on from players if they were to be released or traded during the offseason. All they can really do is kick the can down the road and give this Derek Carr thing one more season, because they can’t really afford to get rid of him under the current rules of the salary cap.
Thursday night’s loss was an ominous foreboding in front of the football-watching world: The Saints that were presented on national television is the version of the Saints that’s going to be here for the next few seasons. No one is coming to save them on the Carr contract unless they’re willing to give up draft capital to go along with him. The roster is aging and expensive at the top and they’ve lost the ability to sign quality depth that can buoy their draft classes. They’ve actually put themselves into a bind as far as the cap is concerned by pushing out all the hits over the years, and this is what they have to show for it.
The Saints will likely be able to put together a couple performances that are more coherent and productive than how they played against the Jaguars, but this is not a team that has any hope of threatening the true powers in the NFC — which is what the goal is implied to be when the resource allocation leaves a team $72 million over their projected cap space for next year. “All-in” for this team looks like throwing for five yards a pass, converting three of 18 third-down attempts and having no consistent offensive performers outside of Alvin Kamara.
New Orleans' style of roster-building and talent acquisition is admirable to a certain degree because bottoming out and tanking is never enjoyable, but the bill has come due for the Saints, and they are facing a multiyear climb out of the hole in which they find themselves.
