Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

As far as the Oline goes there are obviously going to be a lot of new parts. I don’t know if lack of experience is a bad thing. That means getting younger. Especially when we’re switching to a new blocking scheme this off-season anyway. Penning will be more experienced and hopefully healthier. They brought in guys from other teams with experience but past health issues. I’m sure they could have signed Peat had they wanted to. They feel good about moving on. The key is always is going to be health. Can Ram play at all? I heard some of the guys we brought in as free agents had promising starts to their career, but were sidelined by health issues. Can they stay on the field?

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Our Super Bowl Win was in 2010. It’s 2024, and y’all still willing to sit back and watch to see if we stink bad enough through another season, to hopefully draft better for the following season? Or is it to sit through another mediocre season to watch a team in “rebuild” mode for a few more seasons? I haven’t bought a jersey in quite a few years, so are they mailing y’all opium with a your Derek Carr jerseys? I don’t get it. Help a Brother out here.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

I kind of wonder what if Rattler turns out to be a Teddy Bridgewater level QB. Like not great, but pretty good. If that happens, which is definitely possible not just either great or worthless, its possible we could take a new QB in the draft at some point and get a good draft pick for Rattler to down the line to help our oline. Or if our defense is great in the future, maybe a good but not great QB will be good enough.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

At the very worst Derek Carr himself is "good but not great". Why look elsewhere? And that said, you'll never convince me that either Haener or Rattler can give us more than Carr anytime soon, if at all. I can't see either as more than a serviceable backup.

Oh, and as far as we know we already have all the help we need for our o-line in the house right now. Of course, seeing the possibility takes an open mind and some optimism.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

I am willing to watch a rebuild if it is done right. I don't know how rebuild became a dirty word. It's a false premise that we have been 'stuck' in a rebuild and it isn't working. We have been stuck in the opposite of a rebuild since before Brees retired, going all in, maxing out future salary caps more than any other team, trading future draft picks and trading up to win now. Only in this 2023 offseason did we slowly begin to detatch the first brick from the pile on the bad pedal and possibly start looking to order the bolts to reattach the brake pedals.

We are ~$85 million over the 2025 salary cap already in 2024, the most in the entire nfl by just over double with the Browns ~$42 million over. That is a lot of things, but it is not a rebuild. It is more like a financial crisis. Will the imaginary analyst who says we can't get under the 2025 salary cap be wrong? Yes. But, will we have to make some dubious contract restructures with struggling, injured, and aging players? Yes. But finally this offseason we did not restructure more than the 75% or so of key vets we had to restructure. So, that means in the 2025 offseason we can cut or trade players we didn't just restructure, and actually reduce not increase our cap with releases. We could see players go like Kamara ($19 million cap savings), Lattimore ($11 million cap savings), Hill ($5 million cap savings), Ram ($6 million cap savings). If two are designated Post-June-1 cuts the savings may be even greater.

We are not yet in a rebuild. We are in the first year of a sort of pre-re-build slowing of insanity hopefully. If we continue on this route, we could be in a rebuild next year. We could lead the NFL in dead cap in 2025 but also potentially set sort of record for the biggest improvement in future cap deficit ever in a two year period if we continue to make cuts to bad contracts with aging players.

I am not against rebuilds, because rebuilds work. The Bucs could not have won a ring with Brady if they didn't come in with a monster stockpile of salary cap space to sign Brady, Gronk, and a supporting cast. The Rams could not have stockpiled the talent for their ring if they did not start way under the cap. The Lions would not have the talent they do if they did not lose before they one. We are in cyclic league and if you try to buy your way out of ever having a losing season, you will get stuck at 9-8 or 8-9 until your stars get grey hairs on their 5th restructure and then you will lose anyway.

The only way to win without a rebuild in this league is to have a generational QB like Brady or Maholmes, a generational coach like Belichick or Reid, and having both of those to be incredibly disciplined and trade away or let walk very talented players like Tyreek Hill, Tyrann Mathieu, Chandler Jones, Ty Law, etc so that you never get in salary cap debt and can constantly surround your star QB and coach with a good but perhaps not great supporting cost and let them carry the weight without getting in the kind of cap and draft pick debt that create long term problems. The Saints briefly tried this model at least in terms of trading expensive non-qb stars in the era where we traded players like Jimmy Graham and Brandin Cooks but Sean Payton was not quite on Belichick or Reid's level, could not quite hang in the biggest games, and could not do as well to bring in the right people to maintain minimum standards on the opposite side of the ball from his expertise. Therefore we abandoned this model, went all in to win now in Brees later years, came up short, and now need to rebuild.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Hey, sinner guy, if you're so unhappy with the Saints why don't you just move on to another team? I doubt you'd be missed.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Speaking on the o-line ...

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Why do you get so upset about people talking about the Saints on a Saints web site? Honest question, why are you here? If the team disappoints you so much and you have nothing positive to say and you can't understand why people follow the team, then GTFO. It's pretty simple. You are the polar opposite of Guido but you won't admit it.

I don't undwerstand. Help a brother out.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Sometimes good but not great QBs become not even good around Carr's age. While some generational QBs have played at a high level into their 40's like Brady, Brees, Favre, and Manning, sometime the next tier down hits a brick wall a bit earlier. Carr is 33. Jim Everett was 31 when he joined the Saints. Drew Bledsoe was 30 when he joined the Bills and 33 when he joined the Cowboys. Donovan McNabb was 33 when he joined the Redskins. Carson Palmer was 31 when he joined the Raiders and 33 when he joined the Cardinals. Andy Dalton was 32 when he lost his starting gig with the Bengals and became a backup for the Cowboys. Joe Flacco was 33 when he was replaced by Lamar Jackson after injury and was never counted on as a season long starter again. Jimmy Garappalo turned 32 last season with the Raiders.

While I agree that Carr is a lot better than any of our other QBs now, and any mid-round QB like Haener and Rattler is more of a lottery ticket than a sure thing to ever produce, I do think its very realistic that we may need to scratch off those lottery tickets and see what we have soon because it would not be surprising for Carr to decline at this stage in his career to the point that we do start trying other options. It takes a lot more insane committment to keep up the physical and mental work to remain elite in the mid and late 30's for a QB. Sometimes, great success may facilitate extra motivation to do that, so thats why we may see the greats often able to play until 40. But the next tier down may not have the motivation to work harder than ever before and become smarter on the field than ever before to make up for their bodies starting to slow down, and instead as their bodies slow down they may throw in the towel.

Re: Saints 2024 Projected Win Total 7.5
 

Of course you take the glass half empty view. Not unexpected. :D