JACKSON: A failure brings new opportunity for Saints

By Ross Jackson

Whether talking to people outside the New Orleans Saints facility or to those on the inside, one prevailing emotion sums of the team’s 2024 regular season.

Disappointment.

From the fans to the players, coaches and staff, the Saints 58th NFL season failed to meet anyone’s expectation.

That was especially the case after a blazing 2-0 start. Over the first two games of the year, the Saints looked unstoppable. A 91-point output over the first pair of games combined took another six games to replicate over a seven-game losing streak that ended in former coach Dennis Allen being fired.

Injuries piled up on offense, and the production faltered while the defense crumbled without its architect. 

Fans wanted a better product, players believed they deserved it and the team’s leadership planned to provide something much better than the previous low of 2023. 

That plan failed.

“This is the worst Saints team since before [Hurricane] Katrina,” one fan told me.

Now, as the Saints face the closing weekend of their season, all eyes already feel like they are on the offseason. With a head coach search and likely additional changes on the way and free agency and the always-promising NFL Draft to follow, it’s hard not to jump focus to the opportunity for improvement that lies ahead.

But that is what New Orleans must do as a team this weekend when they travel to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the season’s merciful finale.

The game presents an opportunity for Saints players to close out the season with one more strong and promising performance, even if in a loss. 

But the game contest also presents a microcosm indicative of the turmoil of the year. Many fans would prefer a loss on Sunday to a win. That’s because the detriment the loss would bring the Atlanta Falcons – who would be eliminated from division contention with a Buccaneers win – would seemingly bring a fanbase more joy then the demonstrative and strong finish that a win would provide.

Whatever the result on Sunday, the approaching offseason presents an opportunity for change for the franchise. Even if that change were to be incremental in some areas, a major step in a new direction begins in a matter of weeks as the team will patiently interview and eventually select its next head coach.

If the Saints want to improve their situation and produce the quality of performance that they intended to field in 2024, they must get that hire right. The process of improving their situation begins with a lone decision that could dictate the entire trajectory of their upcoming success or failure. 

New Orleans is going to focus their most immediate efforts on their closing contest in Tampa. But the work drastically changes after the final seconds tick from the game clock. 

Just 60 minutes remain in a disappointing campaign for the New Orleans Saints. But the events that follow will are what will command the largest audience.