By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Although the New Orleans Saints haven’t finished worse than a tie for second in the NFC South since 2016, the last 3 years haven’t been to the standards of the “fleur-de-lis”.

With a pair of 9-8 finishes in 2021 and 2023 sandwiched between a 7-10 debut season for Head Coach Dennis Allen in 2022, Saints fans have been looking to find the answer to get back to the offense they’re accustomed to with a run of four consecutive division championships from 2014-2020.

After a 2022 season where quarterback play left much to be desired, Saints fans were hopeful last season with the signing of veteran quarterback Derek Carr, but it did not pan out like the savior of the offense that Saints fans had hoped for.

Carr turned in a season with 3,878 passing yards, which turned out to be the fourth lowest in his eleven-year career (ten previous with the Raiders), and the lowest total in a season where he played more than 15 games (17 in 2023).

Although the yards were a low point in the career totals for Carr, he did throw 25 TDs, which were the most Carr had thrown since 2020 with the Las Vegas Raiders.

The biggest question mark I think leading into 2024 for New Orleans is can Carr be “the guy” for the Saints, or do the reigns get handed off to the next in line.

Entering 2024, one of the biggest question marks is going to be “what does the offense look like this year?” Everyone across the league knows and has heard thru minicamp and OTAs that it will be different under first year Offensive Coordinator Klink Kubiak.

Kubiak takes over his 4^th ream in the past four years after serving as the OC for the Vikings in 2021, Pass Game Coordinator & QBs coach in 2022 for the Denver Broncos, and with San Francisco in 2023 as Pass Game Coordinator under Kyle Shannahan, but early indications from pre-season work between Kubiak and Carr seems to be positive coming out of the Saints practice facility.

One eye-brow raiser from Saints early pre-season work has been the selected workload of a few different players because of contract negotiations. Most notably, Alvin Kamara has attended most walkthrough portions of practice, but when full practice that is open to media comes around, Kamara heads inside.

Kamara’s deal expires after the 2025 season, but the way the deal is structured, none of the 2025 money is guaranteed. All indications say that Kamara intends on continuing with the Saints and would like to get a new deal done before kickoff of the 2024 season to extend the current deal.

One thing that raises concerns of the Saints is a couple of key injuries on the offensive side that are expected to be key targets for Derek Carr.

Tight End Juwan Johnson looked to be a big part of the success of the Saints in training camp last year, but it didn’t pan out how anyone in the black and gold had hoped, with just 368 yards on 37 catches for the year.

While Kubiak had hoped to get Johnson more involved in the offense, at least for the first part of the season, Johnson will be rehabbing from a foot surgery. While the timetable for the Johnson return is unclear, the tight end for New Orleans to start will be some combination of their Swiss-Army knife Taysom Hill and former LSU Tiger Foster Moreau.

The other key injury is also unclear, but standout playmaking receiver Chris Olave suffered a shoulder injury in his off-season weight room work that has kept him in a non-contact jersey in pre-season work.

Early indications don’t seem to have Olave missing much if any time, but how much does it affect what he’s able to do?

At the end of the day, this Saints team is a HUGE swing team depending on how the offense clicks (or doesn’t), especially in an NFC South that has struggled as a whole the past few seasons.

Realistically I could see the Saints winning the South with as many as 11 or 12 wins, but I could also see this team struggling in year one under a new offensive coordinator while 5^th Round pick Spencer Rattler matures into hopefully the QB of the Saints future.