HANAGRIFF: A crucial six months await Gayle Benson

By Charles Hanagriff

Since her husband’s passing in March of 2018, Gayle Benson has mostly been a good NFL/NBA owner. 

What makes an excellent owner?  A winning owner is one who hires top executives and allows them to do their jobs while spending at least at a market level pace and not meddling in the on-field operations very much. 

When Tom Benson bought the Saints, he hired Jim Finks and let him work.  Aside from twirling an umbrella when the team won, the fans didn’t see or hear very much from Benson where the day-to-day operations of personnel were concerned. 

Tom Benson was not one of the league’s wealthiest owners, and there was no salary cap back then, so the Saints lagged in the spending department, but that would slowly improve over the course of his tenure. 

Tom Benson’s Saints enjoyed success at a rate his predecessor, John Mecom, never came remotely close to.  It was a rocky start when he purchased the Pelicans, but gradually that improved as well. 

Gayle Benson has mostly tried to follow her late husband’s blueprint.  

She hired David Griffin to run the Pelicans while retaining Mickey Loomis to lead the Saints.  Both men own championship rings and have long resumes at their respective positions. 

What is the difference between a championship owner and one that is just good enough to avoid the bad headlines and stay out of the basement?  They know when to move, or at least challenge, their top executives. 

The next six months will likely define Gayle Benson’s tenure as owner of the two professional teams in New Orleans.  That’s because the decisions made in that time period will be far-reaching, likely to influence the success rate of the Saints and Pelicans for years to come. 

First up is hiring a head coach for the Saints.  

This won’t be easy, and not just because of the lengthy list of conditions the NFL requires to be met, as outlined here in the excellent piece by nola.com’s Matthew Parras.

The Saints have a roster that is old, expensive and lacks playmakers, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  The coach that takes this job will have to be confident in management’s trust in him to have enough time to be successful.  

There are other, more attractive, openings in the NFL.  All of them, probably, except maybe the Jets.  

The Saints have to dig themselves out of a Grand Canyon size salary cap hole and figure out what to do at quarterback.  There are not easy solutions, and the problems will be compounded if Loomis insists on trading draft choices away and restructuring contracts that delay, but do not solve, the team’s cap crisis. 

Right around the time the new Saints coach is moving into his office comes the NBA trade deadline (Feb 6).  The Pelicans must decide what to do about the expiring contract of Brandon Ingram while keeping an eye on the luxury tax, which the team has never paid. 

Any deals the Pelicans might have made for Ingram in the last two years are going to be much harder now.  Keeping him, which was always an option in the past if they didn’t get a trade they liked, now seems like a longshot.  They have not been able to agree on a long-term contract, despite a lot of negotiating.  

A trade involving Ingram would likely involve more than just two teams, as the CBA of the NBA now has much tighter restrictions on deals.  The more teams involved means more players, so the Pelicans roster could get a major shakeup.  The alternative is letting Ingram go in the offseason for nothing.  Ingram’s current injury is keeping him off the court, further complicating things. 

Following that is March 13, the start of the new league year in the NFL.  The Saints are currently about $50 million north of the salary cap (according to overthecap.com), and they must be in compliance by this date.  Decisions on Derek Carr and many others have to come by then. 

The NBA season ends exactly one month later.  The futures of Griffin, head coach Willie Green and Zion Williamson are all in question.  Will Griffin oversee this offseason, or will Mrs. Benson make a move?  Remember, she made wholesale changes with the Pelicans very early in her tenure as owner. 

On April 24, the NFL Draft starts, and Saints fans will be hoping for better results than the recent past.  Since the 2017 bonanza, New Orleans has drafted 41 players.  Only about a third of them have worked out, and not all for the Saints (Zack Baun, Kaden Elliss). 

Frankly, if a thorough re-evaluation of the Saints’ scouting department is not done and a long look at the recent track record of Loomis himself isn’t taken into consideration, it won’t matter much which coach they hire. 

By May 1, New Orleans must decide whether to extend Chris Olave and Trevor Penning, first round picks in the 2022 NFL Draft.  Olave is a yes, provided there are no complications from his injuries.  Penning is a tougher call.  After looking like a complete bust, he made a ton of progress in 2024. 

Somewhere in the middle of May (date not yet set), the NBA Draft Lottery will be held, and the Pelicans will be in attendance.  Who will be rooting for that ping pong ball? Who will make that pick near the end of June? That remains to be seen. 

That’s a lot.  

Gayle Benson has been mostly able to stay out of the way of her chief executives, but they have failed her.  The Saints were 13-3 in her first year as owner but fell all the way to 5-12 this season, their worst in nearly two decades. 

The Pelicans, despite seemingly always riddled by injury, improved their win total each of the first five seasons she owned the club.  That’s what makes this season’s bottom out (currently the second worst record in the NBA) so disappointing.   

Record aside, the Pelicans seem to be in better shape than the Saints.  There is more talent on the roster, as Griffin has drafted infinitely better than Loomis, but they just can’t seem to put it all together, and Williamson simply can’t be counted on to carry a heavy workload long-term.   

The Saints just need more good players.  A lot of them.  They are not a one-year fix. 

For Gayle Benson, it’s a 180-day plan for the future.  Who is in charge of the change?