What's The Proper Pulse For The Saints Season?

How should you view the Saints this year?

Dec 17, 2023; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen looks on during the second half against the New York Giants at Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports / Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

In just over a week, we're going to be watching the Saints at training camp in California. This time of year is exciting, to say the least. There's a lot of things New Orleans needs to show everyone before they gear up in Week 1, and we asked a good bulk of those questions previously. Those answers are going to come in due time, and will ultimately dictate success or failure for the Saints this season.

We recently looked at a Taysom Hill question on Saints News Network, and we're back with another fan one that is surely on the minds of many. Dennis Allen is undoubtedly under a microscope this year and is facing a lot of pressure to deliver, and after some of the additions and subtractions made by New Orleans, what is the pulse on their season going into camp?

Is this a Saints season for fans to be excited about, endure or something in between?

It's a great question, and for a fan, what I'd say first is that you have a lot of reason to be a skeptic. We're at a point where the Saints need to go out there and do it on the field. The days of talking are beyond over, especially being three seasons removed from the playoffs.

The first year without Drew Brees seemed to be a little justified, but New Orleans came pretty close in Sean Payton's last season. They actually looked to be a team that was going to keep chugging along with Jameis Winston at the helm, starting off 5-2 in 2021. However, they dropped their next five games after the Winston injury and were able to rally at the end of the season, but that COVID game against the Dolphins ended up being a killer too. They did their job in Atlanta in the finale, but it was very short-lived. We all know the rest of the story, as Payton took the year off and continuity was something we were expecting with Dennis Allen stepping in.

In 2022, the Saints ended up turning in their worst season since 2016, finishing a very underwhelming 7-10. They fell into an early hole, then they'd get into this pattern where they'd win a game and lose two. Finally, they hit rock bottom in Pittsburgh, losing to a 2-6 team on the road. They responded the following week, but then went back to being an inconsistent team, getting blanked on the road in San Francisco and losing a game they had wrapped up in Tampa. The bye week produced a final push, but New Orleans had to rely on everything else to just get into contention.

Last season, the addition of a veteran quarterback in Derek Carr was what Saints fans were hoping would fix the offense, but again, the inconsistencies that have plagued the team in this three-year span showed up again. When the defense was playing lights out, the offense couldn't get there. When the offense did show signs of life, the defense couldn't get that one last stop or showed signs of faltering.

There was no quit in New Orleans, like previous seasons, but they dropped a crucial Thursday Night game against the Rams on the road that would have put them over .500 and would have helped them control their destiny. They ended their season on a very high note and looked like the team we were expecting all year, but the end result, although encouraging again, remained the same.

There's signs of encouragement for the Saints this season, but I'd say that you should be cautiously optimistic about their chances right now. However, I get the lack of expectations. People are higher on Atlanta this year than anyone and even think they should win the division, then it's the Bucs and the Saints. I still believe the NFC South is the Bucs division, and New Orleans has to prove everyone wrong. Personally, I'm excited about every Saints season, but I'm at the point where I need to see the offense offense and see a consistent team week after week.

The bottom line is that we're past the point of talking about all the doing, and it's all about executing. The Saints have to prove themselves, and the best way of doing that is by beating better teams. It's on them to silence critics, and the best way they do that is on the football field. Now, you ask those inside the building? They don't care about the outside opinion. They're just focused on controlling what they can control, but the pressure is on.

Sure, the 9-8 record looked good last season and was technically a winning season, but if you peel back the layers, you see that it might not have been as impressive upon further review. New Orleans is going to be tested right out the gate after their opener against the Panthers. If they could beat two of the league's better teams in Dallas, Philly and Kansas City in their first six weeks, then they could be taken more seriously, but that's also going to be a tall order. For now, we'll wait and see what type of product hits the field, and for everyone's sake we surely hope for a strong one in 2024.

The excitement for every year is there for just about every team. Saints fans have endured worse and have lived through a lot better. If they can get to 10 wins this season, then they should be in the playoffs. It's that simple. How they get there will take more than what we've seen out of the team in the past three years, and when that team shows up and establish consistency in that area, then we'll know things have changed.