Pete Carmichael – Page 5 – Syndication Server

Studs and Duds from Saints’ 27-19 loss to the Vikings

It was too little too late, but you can’t say the New Orleans Saints didn’t try and rally back against the Minnesota Vikings in Sunday’s 27-19 loss. The defense fought hard in the second half and the offense made enough plays to cut into a huge first-half deficit. They showed some grit in the face of adversity with injuries stacking up. It just wasn’t enough to steal a win.

But who made a difference on Sunday afternoon — for good or bad? Who stood out for positive and negative reasons? Let’s break down this week’s Studs and Duds:

Halftime report: Saints down 24-3 in most embarrassing first half of Dennis Allen’s tenure

Yikes. The New Orleans Saints went into halftime down 24-3 against the Minnesota Vikings in the most embarrassing first half of Dennis Allen’s tenure. They’re 2-8 in games when trailing by 10 or more points with Allen as head coach, and if things don’t turn around rapidly in the second half they’ll be even worse.

Allen can’t point to health as a problem. 21 of the 22 players from the Week 1 two-deep roster were available. Michael Thomas exited the game early with a knee injury but young stars Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed combined for 3 targets, 2 receptions, and 3 yards in the first half. Derek Carr did a bad job responding to pressure and looking for his weapons.

But the defense bears the brunt of responsibility here. The Vikings offense is missing its best quarterback (Kirk Cousins) and wide receiver (Justin Jefferson) with multiple starters playing through injuries like tight end T.J. Hockenson and left tackle Christian Darrisaw. Joshua Dobbs was acquired in a trade last week and carved the Saints up to the tune of 220 passing yards and 40 rushing yards in the first half alone.

And penalties have been a major problem. After drawing just one foul for a loss of 5 yards a week ago, the Saints went into halftime with four penalties for 25 yards with two other infractions declined. And almost every penalty wiped out a big play — a Paulson Adebo interception, an Alvin Kamara first-down run, and a Cameron Jordan sack. The Saints couldn’t get out of their own way.

This first half encompasses the criticisms that have dogged Allen’s team for two years. They’re sloppy and penalty-prone and can’t function consistently enough on offense to keep up with even a league-average outfit. Everything is difficult. There is such a heavy responsibility on the defense to carry every game that the margin for error is so thin and every mistake matters. The Saints must get out of their own way before they can even worry about competing.

The good news is that the Saints will receive the opening kickoff in the second half. Let’s see if Derek Carr and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael can do something with that opportunity.

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3 things we know about the Saints, 3 questions that still need to be answered

Three things the Saints have made clear and three questions that need to be answered heading into the remainder of the season.

The New Orleans Saints were one of the NFL’s most intriguing teams with a sky-high ceiling heading into the 2023 season.

But they’ve fallen flat in a number of areas that need some notable adjustments for them to get where they need to be on all three cylinders as a team, falling by a touchdown or less in three of their four losses this year.

Even with an overall record of 3-4, the Saints are still in the hunt to win a division that the Atlanta Falcons currently lead (4-3). Here’s a look into three things we know and three things we need to know seven games in.

Dennis Allen says to expect few changes coming out of Saints’ post-TNF breather

Dennis Allen says to expect few changes coming out of the Saints’ post-Thursday Night Football breather. They’ll keep doing what they’ve been doing:

If the New Orleans Saints were going to make any big changes to get their season back on track, this was their best chance. But it doesn’t sound like Dennis Allen views the post-Thursday Night Football break that way.

The Saints had ten days between last week’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars and their next matchup with the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. If they were going to make any substantial changes offensively — like naming a new play caller or benching struggling starters — it would have made the most sense to do so when this extra rest time gave them a window to do so.

“No, no, no. If we decide to make some changes we’ll let you know,” Allen said when asked if the team had made any personnel changes. So offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael is still calling plays, and the rest of the offense should look like what fans have seen thus far.

Additionally, Allen said that the team wouldn’t be bringing in any outside candidates, which squashes the speculation from fans about a team-up with Derek Carr’s old coach Jon Gruden: “You get in the middle of the season and there’s generally not a lot of people from outside your building that are coming in that are making significant changes. We’ve got our guys and we’re going to be hard at work trying to fix our issues.”

So the Saints are going to keep doing what they’ve been doing. They’ve lost four of their last five games while struggling to end drives with touchdowns, convert third downs, and do other things that successful offenses expect to achieve each week. We’ll see how that works out for them.

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What went right, what went wrong in Saints’ Week 7 loss to Jaguars

Instant analysis from Saints’ Week 7 loss to Jaguars: What went right, what went wrong, and what’s the bottom line?

The New Orleans Saints played just well enough to give fans hope before things fell apart in Thursday night’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. But these things happen when a legit playoff team matches up with a squad that isn’t quite ready for prime time.

So what can we learn from Week 7’s game? What went right for the Saints? What went wrong? And what’s the bottom line? Let’s break it down:

Saints show too little, too late in disappointing loss to Jaguars

The Saints offense showed too little, too late in Thursday night’s disappointing loss to the Jaguars. This team has signs of life but they might just be walking dead:

You can’t say they didn’t try to rally back. The New Orleans Saints offense found some life in the second half of Thursday night’s game with the Jacksonville Jaguars, with Taysom Hill and Michael Thomas scoring a pair of badly-needed touchdowns to help tie the game up — and Alvin Kamara came through on a crucial two-point conversion to put a pin in that effort.

But it was too little, too late. The offense couldn’t get out of their own red zone and a bad punt by Lou Hedley was returned back into New Orleans territory. Their defense caved in on a long touchdown pass to Christian Kirk, and that was that. The Saints’ final possession ended with an incomplete pass on fourth-and-goal. The Jaguars will go back to Jacksonville with a win, leaving the Saints at 3-4.

Nobody expected the game to come down to the wire like this. The Saints defense and special teams coverage units did their jobs by forcing a couple of early takeaways, but the offense wasn’t able to get going until the second half (helped, maybe, by a halftime talk with Ronald Curry). Derek Carr had too many miscommunications with his receivers — not helped by Chris Olave quitting on his routes at a couple of critical moments — and they failed to execute in scoring position at the end of the night. Carr’s receivers were either covered too tightly or they dropped the would-be touchdown pass, as Foster Moreau did at the end. It’s dispiriting.

Getting down to the 6-yard line with all three timeouts, only to fail to score a touchdown after four straight shotgun passes, is a questionable decision. But that’s how the Saints have operated all season. They haven’t done anything in phase with the offense, defense, and special teams complimenting one another. Dennis Allen’s squad is all out of sorts, and losses like this are proof of it.

Carr isn’t a talented enough quarterback to elevate those around him (or at least he hasn’t looked like one so far). His receiving corps has not met expectations and Olave’s effort level is becoming a serious problem. But they aren’t the only issue here. Pete Carmichael’s play calling has done them no favors. Why is Olave the target on a fade route with the game on the line instead of Jimmy Graham? Why was Graham essentially brought out of retirement to watch moments like that from the sidelines?

This is still a flawed team. But this isn’t the end of their season. Lesser squads than the playoff-bound Jaguars are lined up in front of them and it’s very feasible for this Saints team to go into their bye week with a winning record. With that said, it’s beyond obvious now that they need to make some changes to correct the course and get there. What they’ve done to this point in the season has not worked.

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Dennis Allen says Ronald Curry addressed offense at halftime vs. Jaguars

Dennis Allen says Saints passing game coordinator Ronald Curry addressed the struggling offense at halftime vs. Jaguars

It’s no secret that the New Orleans Saints offense didn’t do enough with the opportunities they were given on Thursday night — especially in the first half, when they managed to score just six points against a couple of Jacksonville Jaguars touchdowns.

They went into halftime facing a steep deficit in a high-stakes situation. The team needed leaders to step up. And Saints head coach Dennis Allen shared a message from passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry after the break.

“It’s all about execution,” Allen told Amazon Prime Video sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung. “It’s like R.C. said in the locker room to the offense, ‘Let’s go out there and make plays that we’re capable of making.’ That’s what it’s about.”

Now, that doesn’t exactly sound like a big rah-rah speech or fire-and-brimstone sermon, but it’s notable that Curry was so vocally involved. Saints fans have been calling for Curry to have a shot calling plays instead of offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael early and often this season. Curry has been repeatedly spoken of highly by other members of the coaching staff and he’s called plays in each of the last two preseason series, so he has some experience.

The offense might not be better with Curry at the controls, it’s theorized, but it can’t be worse. Maybe Curry is more involved already than we’d be led to believe. Or maybe Allen’s comments shouldn’t warrant such a deep dive.

What’s important is that the team do what they can to win this Jaguars game, and Allen has a list of areas they can improve in the second half: “We’ve got to win situational football. Third down, red zone, we’ve got to be able to score points. We’ve got to be able to convert on third down, we’ve got to be able to kick a field goal. I mean, it’s the little things like that we’ve got to be able to do to give ourselves an opportunity to win a game.”

Facing a two-score deficit and the threat of a losing record for the first time this season, it’s obvious that pressure is building for Allen and his staff. This isn’t the outcome the Saints expected when they hired him last year or pursued his choice of quarterback this offseason. He’s running out of time to return the results they anticipated.

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Podcast: Saints’ offense a sinking ship with Pete Carmichael at the wheel

The Saints Wire podcast is live with managing editor John Sigler (@john_siglerr) and our host Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG). You can subscribe for new episodes released each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your podcast service of choice.

This week we’re recapping the Saints’ step back offensively against the Houston Texans and previewing what they must do to defeat the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars. The outlook is grim with Pete Carmichael struggling to string positive drives together as their play caller, but there’s nowhere to go but up. Derek Carr isn’t going anywhere at quarterback and Dennis Allen won’t be let go midseason as head coach. The only realistic change is on the headset.

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A competitive NFC South is a gift and curse for the New Orleans Saints

Playing in the NFC South is a gift and a curse. It allows the Saints time to get themselves together, but it also remains competitive without improvement

Every team in the NFC South lost this past week. Back in Week 4, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the only team in the division to win when they faced the New Orleans Saints, a fellow member of the NFC South. The division isn’t that impressive, which was expected before the season. The state of the NFC South is a gift and a curse for the New Orleans Saints.

At this current time, New Orleans isn’t a good team. Fingers can be pointed in many directions, but the final conclusion is this team isn’t that good. The struggling division, however, gives them time to figure it out. As draining as this season has been, the Saints only have one more loss than the division leading Buccaneers. This division can still be taken by anyone other than the Panthers. New Orleans fixes prominent issues on their offense, and it feels like they should be able to win the division.

The problem is it doesn’t feel like the Saints will fix those issues. Another problem is the Saints could not fix those issues and still somehow stumble into a divisional championship. While a division title sounds great, that would be the wrong circumstances to win the title.

New Orleans could use an early draft pick to reload the team. They could also potentially use a change of leadership. A playoff berth could secure the job of coaches who have underperformed for another year.

This is not rooting for the Saints to be bad and lose games. It’s rooting for the Saints to leave the purgatory they are currently in. The Saints need to either figure it out or reload. Winning the division without fixing issues could leave the Saints complacent and thinking they can run it back with the same crew. That would just leave next year being a frustrating rerun of 2022 and 2023.

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Saints OC Pete Carmichael enters a make-or-break week for his job

With a long week looming after the Jaguars game, the Saints have the perfect opportunity to make a change. Pete Carmichael must prove he’s the right fit for the job:

New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael should be entering a make or break week versus the Jacksonville Jaguars. Play calling has been an issue for the majority of the season.

After a good game against the New England Patriots, the Saints stumbled in a major way versus the Houston Texans. That killed any optimism from New Orleans’ 34 point performance a week prior. The red zone play calling specifically on the final drive should cause nightmares for Carmichael.

Having a strong performance this week shouldn’t secure his play calling duties for the remainder of the season, but it might earn him some more time. With another poor performance, it’s time to pull the plug. The long week after a Thursday Night Football game would provide the perfect opportunity to get another coach, likely Ronald Curry, acclimated to the role. The extra time takes away the excuse of not wanting to do this midweek.

The reason for change has been here, but now the opportunity is right there too. Dennis Allen must know a struggling offense reflects on him as the head coach as well. He isn’t just the defensive coordinator any longer. He needs the offense to be fixed for his sake. If Pete Carmichael has another bad game against the Jaguars, a change of play-caller is mandatory.

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