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JOHN HENDRIX
UPDATED: 16 HOURS AGO ORIGINAL: 17 HOURS AGO

Saints general manager Mickey Loomis lended the media some of his time on Wednesday to talk about the state of the team and where they're at after the midway point of the season. Here's some of the biggest takeaways, notes, and quotes from our talk with him.

ON OFFENSE NOT CLICKING YET

Loomis agreed with the way fans have felt about the offense out of the gate, saying that, "It's never fast enough." The team is still looking for that 60 minutes of offensive football that they've been used to seeing. That's the bar for the Saints.

"I think some of it is, look, we've got a lot of new parts offensively, right? We haven't had a game where you walked out of the stadium and sit down and say, 'Man, we did well on offense. We did well on defense and we did well on special teams. All three.' No game's perfect, you're always going to find faults in every game. But even in the New England game, I felt like we left some stuff on the field offensively."

"We've had halves where we've played well on one side of the ball or the other, and then the other half we didn't. We just haven't had those games that we've all become accustomed to over the last 16 years where we've had a really good game in all phases of the game. I think it's coming because I think we're capable. We've seen stretches where we've done well in each phase and yet, we haven't had a game in where we've been able to say that. Part of that is that we have a lot of new parts, particularly on offense."

Loomis cited the offseason preparation as a point to look at to figure out where they could do better early in the season, but also was quick to point out that Derek Carr is just getting started and drew a parallel to another Saints quarterback's first years.

"We're nine games into the Derek Carr era here. So, it's no surprise that we're not always on the same page. Go back and look at Drew's (Brees) first 10-12-16 games, I think you'll be a little surprised at, 'Oh, wasn't as good as I remembered,' but we won right? We won right out of the gate. But then look at the next year and the next. It wasn't perfect. That was an evolution."

STATE OF THE OFFENSIVE LINE

Loomis didn't shy away from saying that they expect more from the group. The team has really focused on trying to build from the inside out and have invested a lot of draft and cash capital in the group.

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