Tag: Gayle Benson

Gayle Benson presents Pope Francis with personalized Saints jersey

New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson presented Pope Francis with a personalized Saints jersey while visiting Rome:

There aren’t many New Orleans Saints jerseys to be found in Vatican City, and one of the few you’ll see there is personalized for the Pope himself. Saints owner Gayle Benson received a personal audience with Pope Francis this week, in which she gifted him a custom No. 1 jersey emblazoned with “Papa Francesco,” as seen a photo shared by WDSU’s Fletcher Mackel.

Mackel reports that this was just one stop on Benson’s 10-day trip in Europe. She also petitioned the Papal Foundation and other business and tourism groups for investments in New Orleans and renovations to the iconic St. Louis Cathedral. She’ll visit Italy and Germany as part of this tour before returning to Louisiana.

Benson has deep ties to the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese in New Orleans; it’s where she met her late husband Tom Benson, and she maintains a close friendship with Archbishop Gregory Aymond. But that relationship has drawn scrutiny between Benson donating tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and the involvement of Saints executives in assisting the church with damage control during its clergy abuse crisis.

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PFT: Saints feel too much blame is going on Dennis Allen and Derek Carr

PFT’s Mike Florio reports that Saints leadership feels too much blame is going on Dennis Allen and Derek Carr, the most important people in their organization:

The New Orleans Saints have been a tough team to watch this year. Another year of Dennis Allen at head coach with a $150 million quarterback next to him in Derek Carr has the team right back where they were at the end of last season: praying for help from other teams to get them to the playoffs.

Allen is knocking on the door of his first winning season in five years as a head coach, which wouldn’t be enough to get the team to the playoffs — where Derek Carr is still looking for his first career postseason win after a decade in the NFL. Changes may be on the way for the Saints if they can’t win the NFC South and get into the playoffs, but Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reports that Allen and Carr are here to stay.

Florio shares that Saints leadership (meaning some combination of general manager Mickey Loomis, team president Dennis Lauscha, and owner Gayle Benson) don’t view Allen as “part of the problem in New Orleans.” Nor his quarterback. Florio adds that, “The feeling is that too much blame is being placed on Allen and quarterback Derek Carr for the team’s struggles in 2023, and that Allen and Carr could be key components of a resurgence in 2024.”

That’s laughable, but the Saints have not conducted themselves like a serious franchise since Drew Brees and Sean Payton left them to fend for themselves. Allen and Carr are the most important people in the organization. Everything rides on the franchise quarterback taking up so many salary cap resources. All of the decisions are on Allen’s plate, whose defense has fallen into inconsistency when he hasn’t been able to manage it personally.

Giving them both a mulligan and hoping for “some cultural tweaks” as Florio mentions is, well, ridiculous. The Saints had built a winning culture that demanded accountability of its best players during their franchise-best run from 2017 to 2020. When Allen took over, they’ve fallen into the same losing culture he installed with the Raiders a decade ago that Carr perpetuated after he was let go. Whether Allen is feuding with big egos on the team or Carr is barking at his teammates and coaches, it hasn’t been pretty. But more of the same appears to be Loomis and Lauscha’s vision for this team in 2024.

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How long of a leash does Dennis Allen have with Saints ownership?

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler thinks the Saints don’t want to make a change at head coach after the season, but Dennis Allen’s poor performance is hard to ignore:

Who is going to be coaching the New Orleans Saints in 2024? Could Dennis Allen return after struggling to reach (much less hold on to) a winning record in either of his two years as their head coach?

That’s no sure thing, but some recent scuttlebutt suggests the Saints are at least hesitant to consider making a move from Allen just yet. The latest buzz comes from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, who shared what he’s hearing in a back-and-forth with his colleague Dan Graziano:

“I don’t think the Saints want to make a change on Dennis Allen, but another losing season would mark two in a row, which wasn’t the norm in the Sean Payton era (though he did have a stretch of three consecutive 7-9 seasons from 2014 to ’16). It still needs to be seen how much grace New Orleans’ front office and ownership is willing to apply.”

Honestly, it’s odd that the situations would be compared; Payton earned his goodwill with a Super Bowl XLIV championship and a record-setting run with Drew Brees, helping the quarterback not just reinvent himself after a career-threatening injury but build a Hall of Fame resume.

Allen fixed Rob Ryan’s mess of a defense, which was no mean feat. Then he developed it into an elite unit. That was enough to give general manager Mickey Loomis and team president Dennis Lauscha the confidence to back Gayle Benson’s decision to hire him despite his historically poor run as a head coach a decade earlier with the Raiders. But when you look at the Saints’ fortunes since Allen was promoted to head coach, there’s little logic behind sticking with him.

An admittedly injury-ridden Saints team limped out of their Week 14 bye last year with a 4-9 record. They gave Allen free rein to recruit Derek Carr, investing $60 million guaranteed in a passer whose last team ditched him and whose free agency experience was lukewarm at best. What does Allen have to show for it a year later? The Saints are coming out of Week 14 with a 6-7 record. They’ve improved by just two wins.

There’s no valid reason to stick with Allen. His defense — his defense, the unit he’s drafted and developed and filled with veteran free agents — is eroding by the week. What was supposed to be the strength of the team has allowed the seventh-most rushing yards and tied for the third-fewest sacks in the NFL this season. They can’t stop the run or rush the passer. Allen’s offense still can’t score points between Carr panicking in the red zone and rookie kicker Blake Grupe shanking 29-yard field goals. Visiting fans are taking over the lower bowl in the Caesars Superdome, and Carr is being met with boos whenever he jogs off the field after another stalled-out drive. The team is in a bad place even after a lopsided (yet unconvincing) win over a division rival last Sunday.

So we’ve got two reasons for the Saints to keep Allen. In the first scenario, they’ll outlast their rivals in the NFC South and win the division to host a home playoff game (likely against a Super Bowl contender like the Dallas Cowboys), which likely won’t go well. It’ll also drop their first-round pick in the 2024 NFL draft away from the best prospects, which could be devastating when bad trades from Loomis cost them their second-, third- and fourth-round picks. But, Loomis can say, they did reach the postseason after falling short last year. And that’s tangible progress.

What if the Saints miss the playoffs and still keep Allen? That’s when the excuses might start rushing out: injuries to star players like Michael Thomas and Marshon Lattimore (just like last year) plus Carr, who is valiantly playing through a sprained throwing shoulder, three injured ribs and two concussions. That’s an easy way to wave off his poor performance this season.

The rebuttal to that is the Saints having the healthiest roster in the league through the first 10 weeks and still idling at 5-5 before the injuries hit. But if the team leadership group has seen Allen’s team get worse by the week and find new ways to lose football games into mid-December, odds are strong that Benson, Loomis and Lauscha aren’t going to acknowledge that criticism in January. It would take something drastic to convince them that hiring Allen and committing harder to his vision for the team was the wrong move.

Allen is two years into his four-year contract. Carr’s heaviest guarantees extend into 2024. Maybe the plan all along has been to give Allen those two years with his quarterback and see if he can make something happen before kickstarting a reboot in 2025 (maybe without Loomis, the longest-tenured general manager in the NFL) once the salary cap has skyrocketed to wipe out years of financial maneuvering and cost deferments. All fans can do is stand by, see how this all plays out, and hope the team gives them a product worth cheering for.

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Saints award Mickey Loomis a game ball for his 200th win as their general manager

The New Orleans Saints awarded Mickey Loomis a game ball for his 200th win as their general manager after taking down the Carolina Panthers:

The New Orleans Saints recognized Mickey Loomis for his 200th career win as their general manager on Sunday after taking down the Carolina Panthers, and it’s quite an achievement. Loomis is the longest-tenured general manager in the league (not counting owner-GM’s like Jerry Jones and head coach-GM’s such as Bill Belichick), and he’s joined rare company after seeing the team’s he’s built win 200 games.

Look at the names on the list of executives to see 200 wins: Tex Schramm, Bill Polian, Kevin Colbert, and Ozzie Newsome, plus Jones, Belichick, and Al Davis. That’s the kind of company Loomis keeps with his impressive longevity.

Saints owner Gayle Benson awarded Loomis a customized game ball for this achievement in the locker room after Sunday’s win.

“We’ve been waiting a little while to get this done,” said Saints head coach Dennis Allen in the locker room after the game, leading up to the presentation. The team first put out notice of Loomis closing in on this accomplishment after their Nov. 5 win over the Chicago Bears (his 199th victory), so they’ve presumably been waiting for a month during their three-game losing streak and bye week to put a pin in it.

So how much longer will Loomis lead the organization? Most executives retire or step into less-prominent roles at this stage in his career, but it’s anyone’s guess when Loomis will be ready to make a move. With promising GM candidates in the building like Khai Harley and Jeff Ireland, it feels like the Saints risk losing some talented people if this decision is put off for too long.

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Dennis Allen’s 5-7 record is the best he’s ever had after Week 13

Dennis Allen’s 5-7 record is the best he’s ever had after Week 13. The Saints must acknowledge that this is his ceiling and take meaningful action, but will they?

The latest New Orleans Saints losing streak extended to three games after the black and gold fell short to the Detroit Lions. It’s disappointing, but not surprising: this is what a Dennis Allen-led team looks like. The Saints’ 5-7 record is the best Allen has ever had after Week 13 in his five years as an NFL head coach.

Look at his resume. The Saints were 4-9 at this point last season. Allen went 3-9 and 4-8 in his first two years with the Raiders, who dismissed him before he could reach this point in his third season. Five wins in a dozen games is the ceiling for what Allen is capable of.

So much of that is due to an underperforming offense, but Allen has to take the blame for that. He made the decision to go get Derek Carr as his quarterback. He wasn’t able to recruit an upgrade at play caller and believed Pete Carmichael could get the job done. That hasn’t been the case. This year’s offense is not appreciably better than the product the Saints rolled out last year.

And Allen’s defense, the reason he was promoted to this job, has fallen off. They can’t stop the run or pressure the quarterback. It’s a unit relying on too many aging veterans without enough up-and-coming young players ready to sustain success. They’ve lost defenders who were drafted and developed year after year, replacing them with subpar free agent pickups. Allen hasn’t accomplished what he was trusted to do.

So where does that leave the Saints? It’s never easy to fire a coach midseason, and it’s not something they’ve done in decades, not since the Tom Benson bought the team. Odds are Allen will remain in position for these last five games. If the Saints keep fighting (and they will), there’s a good chance general manager Mickey Loomis and team president Dennis Lauscha will make excuses for him and bring Allen back for 2024 to ride out the second year of Carr’s contract, which was already guaranteed against the salary cap when he signed it.

That isn’t what they should do, though. If the Saints were committed to long-term success they’d pull the plug on this experiment now. It’s beyond clear that Allen won’t take them where they want to go. What they should do is thank him for what he’s done in the past, show him the door so he can get a jump on job hunting in the next hiring cycle, and focus on what’s next: locking in a top-10 draft pick (if not top-5) to spend on a real quarterback to lure a new coach who can run an offense in the spring.

But don’t count on it. The efforts of proud veterans and the still-weak schedule left this season mean the Saints aren’t about to go in a new direction. They would rather project patience and stability than take action to give fans something to cheer about. It’s going to take more than a close loss to a better team (coached by a popular former Saints assistant they let get away…) to spur Loomis, Lauscha, and team owner Gayle Benson into changing course now.

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Saints’ tough loss to the Vikings forced Cameron Jordan to change his tune

The Saints’ tough loss to the Vikings forced ever-optimistic Cameron Jordan to change his tune. He’s feeling the pressure to improve:

Well, they did it: the New Orleans Saints broke Cameron Jordan. The team’s ever-optimistic defensive captain has sworn by the “24 hour rule” for years, but Sunday’s gut-punch loss to the Minnesota Vikings is tough for even him to withstand. After falling short in Minnesota, he’s ready to do away with that practice altogether.

A popular tool in youth sports, the “24 hour rule” is often used to prevent discussion of negative feedback until 24 hours have passed since the last performance, so all sides can have dialogue with clear heads and calm minds. But Jordan says the time for patience has run out. The Saints could probably use some emotional energy right now.

This game was frustrating for everyone, but Jordan in particular saw some positive plays wiped out by his teammates’ mistakes. He sacked Joshua Dobbs in the red zone but an illegal contact penalty on Pete Werner erased it, and Dobbs ran into the end zone for a lead-extending touchdown a couple of plays later.

It’s time for tough conversations on Airline Drive and inside the offices at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center. It’s past time. The Saints are going into their bye week lucky to have a 5-5 record, and that’s the best thing to be said about their results since Dennis Allen was hired as head coach. He and his staff have not gotten the job done or prepared their players to go out and compete against good teams. They’re wasting the careers of great players like Jordan and Alvin Kamara and Demario Davis. They invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Derek Carr without appreciable improvement on offense.

And players are feeling the pressure. The clock is ticking, and even optimists like Jordan are acknowledging it. How much longer will team decision-makers like Mickey Loomis and Gayle Benson delay in doing something about it?

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Forbes raises Saints’ valuation by half a billion dollars going into 2023

In the wake of several franchise sales, Forbes estimates that the New Orleans Saints’ valuation has risen by half a billion dollars going into 2023:

Several NFL franchises have sold recently, with the Denver Broncos selling for $4.65 billion and the Washington Commanders selling for a whopping $6 billion. Those exchanges have helped Forbes’ Mike Ozanian and Justin Teitelbaum estimate franchise values for all 32 teams in the league on the eve of the 2023 NFL season, including the New Orleans Saints.

And it’s a big number: Forbes estimates that the Saints are now valued by as much as $4.08 billion. That’s a climb over their $3.575 billion valuation by Forbes this time last year, but it reflects something the league is acutely aware of: business is booming.

Forbes says the average NFL team is worth $5.1 billion, an increase over the $4.43 billion valuation they suggested last year. With new broadcast rights deals padding out the league’s pockets, that number is expected to continue to climb. The Saints certainly helped raise their valuation by inking a long-term naming rights deal with Caesars Entertainment for the Superdome, which is entering the final stage of widespread renovations in advance of Super Bowl LIX in 2025 (preceded by a record-breaking three-day Taylor Swift concert tour in 2024).

What does it mean for the Saints and New Orleans, though? Team owner Gayle Benson, 74, has made it clear she has no plans to sell the team. She also has no heirs. In 2021 multiple local outlets reported her succession plan in the event of her death: any buyer would be contractually obligated to keep the team in Louisiana, with proceeds from a sale to go to local charities in the region. Team president Dennis Lauscha is to serve as the executor of her estate, with senior executives like Mickey Loomis and Greg Bensel also involved, if need be.

Hopefully that isn’t something we’ll need to worry about for a long time. Benson has been quick to invest in the Saints’ team facilities and her willingness to regularly cut large checks for signing bonuses has allowed Loomis and his chief assistant Khai Harley to restructure contracts as often as they have (something other small-market teams haven’t enjoyed).

Still, Forbes’ valuation ranks the Saints all the way down at No. 27 among their peers. At the end of the day they’re not based in one of America’s largest or most affluent metro areas. New Orleans punches above its weight class, and that isn’t something fans should take for granted.

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Saints among teams that voted against Thursday night flex scheduling

The Saints are among the teams that voted against Thursday night flex scheduling at spring NFL owners meetings:

The New Orleans Saints are among the teams that voted against Thursday night flex scheduling at spring NFL owners meetings, as first reported by NBC Sports’ Peter King. Notably, Saints owner Gayle Benson was not in attendance, having instead made the trip to New York City for NBA Board of Governors meetings to fulfill her responsibilities as owner of the New Orleans Pelicans.

Maybe Benson will vote differently than team president Dennis Lauscha did (as her representative) when NFL owners regroup for another roundtable in May, but it’s more likely they are both on the same page here. The Saints could have chosen to abstain altogether, as the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos did, but they decided to vote against the proposal outright. NFL bylaws needed 24 votes for the Thursday night flex scheduling rules change to pass, but it came up short.

It’s been a divisive topic. Thursday night games haven’t done as well with ratings as traditional Sunday and Monday night prime-time games, so from that perspective moving better matchups into that time slot makes sense. But it asks a lot of the players and coaches to switch up their preparation schedule even on two weeks’ notice — to say nothing of the tens of thousands of fans who have to make expensive travel arrangements in the event of a flex. We’ll see if this passes eventually or if there’s enough opposition to shelve it altogether.

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How Saints players graded the team’s travel strategy, training staff, and more

How Saints players graded the team’s travel strategy, training staff, and more from the NFLPA team report card:

We’ve already gone over the strangely-low grade that New Orleans Saints players gave their team for its cafeteria and nutrition options, but that’s just one area they were surveyed about on the first-ever NFL Players Association team report cards.

Ultimately, the Saints have built a great place to work, with players rating them 10th-best out of the league’s 32 teams — putting an emphasis on quality travel arrangements for road games, an intelligent and resourceful training staff, and good facilities at the team headquarters in Metairie.

But let’s go under the hood on each of the eight categories and where Saints players ranked their workplace around the NFL:

NFLPA releases team report cards; Saints players grade team cafeteria an F-minus

The NFLPA released team report cards. New Orleans Saints players graded their team well, but the cafeteria and nutrition program somehow got an F-minus:

This is cool: the NFL Players Association released its first-ever report cards assembled from player surveys for their current teams. And for the most part, the New Orleans Saints drew rave reviews. They’re ranked 10th out of the league’s 32 teams.

Saints players graded the team with an A-minus or better in the weight room, strength coaches, training staff, locker room, and team travel (which got an A-plus, tied for first place around the league). They also awarded New Orleans with grades of B or better in its training room and treatment of players’ families. It’s a little odd to see the training staff and trainers’ room graded so highly in the wake of last year’s injury bug, but players have only spoken glowingly of sports science director Matt Rhea, strength and conditioning coach Matt Clapp, and their assistants after the Saints hired them. If the players are frustrated, they aren’t taking it out on their trainers.

But there’s one area in which the Saints were found lacking, and it’s shocking: food service and nutrition, which got a rare F-minus. From the NFLPA report card: “The most common concern for Saints players is the cafeteria, as they are only one of three teams in the NFL that do not provide three meals per day to their players, and the food is rated as the 4th worst in the NFL.”

Now, how is the NFL’s team based in the greatest food city in the country going to rank among the worst in the league for its team cafeteria and pro nutrition program? There are award-winning gas station deli counters a stone’s throw from Airline Drive, for goodness’ sake. And it’s inexcusable that a billion-dollar operation like the Saints can’t find room to offer its players three nutritionist-approved meals a day.

So it’s a good thing they know where they need to improve. And this problem could get addressed quickly. The NFLPA report added that, “93% of the players believe that owner Gayle Benson is willing to spend money to upgrade the facility and improve things, ranking them 16th overall in this  category.” Benson hasn’t been shy about spending on upgrades in the past, and making improvements to the team cafeteria and nutrition program to at least match league-averages could get the Saints ranked among the best operations in the NFL.

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