Tag: Pete Carmichael

4 things we learned about the Saints through their first four games

The Saints sit at 2-2 after their first four games. We’ve seen player development continue and old concerns come back. Here are four things we’ve learned | @southexclusives

We’re about a quarter of the way through the 2023 season, and we have learned some things about the New Orleans Saints. The team currently stands at 2-2 on the season after losing the last two games. The season has already seen its fair share of ups and downs and turmoil.

Saints fans collectively held their breath when Derek Carr went down with a shoulder injury. Alvin Kamara served his suspension while Marcus Maye is in the midst of one of his own.

Here are the four things we learned about New Orleans Saints through four games

Dennis Allen says Saints aren’t making any coaching changes after disappointing start

Dennis Allen won’t make any coaching changes after their disappointing start. He says he feels fans’ frustration, but so far it hasn’t spurred him to take action:

Dennis Allen isn’t exactly inspiring confidence in his staff. The New Orleans Saints head coach acknowledged his offense’s struggles in moving the ball and putting points on the board after a stunning 26-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, as well as the criticism targeting offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael.

But Allen is determined to prove Carmichael was the right pick for the job. He announced that Carmichael will remain the play caller on offense during Monday’s media session.

“No, we won’t make any coaching changes,” Allen told NewOrleans.Football’s Mike Triplett. “I’ve never seen that to be the right answer, particularly when we’re four games into the season. And yet we have to be better. I understand everyone’s frustration because everyone in the building feels it.”

Carmichael’s version of the offense was league-average last season with Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton under center, but it’s plummeted to rank among the worst units in the NFL now that Allen has brought in his handpicked quarterback Derek Carr. They ranked 15th on third downs, 16th in passing yards and 19th in rushing yards last season, but 22nd in points scored. Through four games this year they rank 18th on third downs, 21st in passing yards, and 25th in both rushing yards and points scored.

That much regression is concerning. Especially when Allen and the Saints spent all summer talking up their new additions: Carr was an upgrade over the quarterbacks he preceded, the offensive line would be better with Trevor Penning starting at left tackle, their stable of running backs was clearly better after signing Jamaal Williams and drafting Kendre Miller, and how could they not make plays with so much talent at receiver? But the offense hasn’t lived up to expectations, and there needs to be some accountability.

Well, there needs to be accountability, but there isn’t any. The same people are going to remain in the same places on staff, including Carmichael. They’re going to keep doing things the same way until they get different results. We’ll see how that works out.

Allen is stubbornly sticking to the plan. It hasn’t worked yet, but maybe it will if they just keep trying. Allen was adamant that the offense must get better, outlining several areas they can improve: putting guys in better position to make plays, executing assignments more effectively (he pointed to two throws by Carr that could have been completed with better ball placement), and obviously scoring points, adding “Everybody knows that.”

Those would all do a lot to help improve the offense’s standing, sure. But they’re also all minor concerns compared to the big-picture issues plaguing the unit. Carmichael hasn’t shown any regard for down-and-distance, leading to their low conversion rate on third down. When they’ve needed three yards he’s flushed all the receivers downfield with no safety valve underneath. This has been a recurring problem for him.

There are always times where people have to learn on the job and adapt to what they have to work with. Learning what works and what doesn’t is part of that process, and it’s fine to practice some patience — to an extent. If Carmichael had just come up from the college ranks this would be much more excusable. The fact that he’s been in the building for 15 years and is still figuring these things out is beyond frustrating.

Allen says Carmichael hears those frustrations from fans and analysts just like everyone else in the building, and that the veteran offensive coordinator is working to improve. All we can do right now is take Allen at his word.

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Dennis Allen not making rash decision on Saints’ offensive play caller

Fans won’t like the approach, but Dennis Allen isn’t making a rash decision on the Saints offensive play caller. That doesn’t mean change is not on its way:

It’s important to remember that “fan” is short for “fanatic.” Fans want to see emotion and drama and high stakes discussion in the aftermath of a painful loss — so it’s easy to understand their frustration when New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen kept a cool head after Sunday’s hard-to-watch collapse against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Especially when the topic of the offensive play caller came up. Pete Carmichael has left a lot to be desired in that role. The longtime offensive coordinator became the primary play caller last season for the first time in years, and he didn’t have the benefits of Sean Payton’s input or Drew Brees’ execution like he had before.

With the offense averaging just 13.8 points per game through the first four weeks this season, a regression from their already-poor scoring output a year ago, it’s fair to wonder how much patience Allen has for him in that role. NewOrleans.Football’s Brooke Kirchhofer asked Allen whether he’d consider a change on the headset after the Bucs embarrassed the Saints 26-9 at home.

“I’m not going there,” Allen said during his postgame press conference. “You know, we’ll go and look and see what we could have done better — all of us, coaches and players — and then we’ll go from there.”

Allen offered Carmichael a vote of confidence, adding that he thought the play calling was much better against the Bucs than in past weeks. But that rings hollow in the face of results. This was one of the worst offensive performances we’ve seen from this team in years and Carmichael is responsible for a big part of it. He dropped the ball in too many situations to escape blame. It’s just one example, but the offense went 5-of-14 on third down with Derek Carr having no options near the first down marker; Carmichael repeatedly sent the receivers too far downfield, forcing Carr to try a difficult throw without the option for a layup. It’s okay to pick up a first down and live another day. Not every swing needs to be a home run.

All that’s said to say that Allen must make a change, whether he wants to acknowledge it immediately postgame or not. Fans aren’t going to want to hear this, but he’s taking the right approach. An emotional decision to dismiss Carmichael on the spot would have been cathartic for viewers but let’s be real: no one deserves to find out they’re losing their job like that. These are conversations that should happen in private before being leaked to the media or formally announced. There are right and wrong ways to treat people here like in any other business.

So if that’s the plan — for Allen and his staff to review the tape, sleep on it, and then make a tough decision to take play-calling away from Carmichael before going in a new direction — then it’s something we can stand behind. The problem arises if Allen does all of that but balks at the possibility of a switch. The Saints can’t keep doing the same thing, running the same plays that aren’t working with the same decision-maker on the headset who hasn’t performed through 21 games with three different quarterbacks, and expect different results. That’s a mistake they can’t afford to make. If Allen takes that path the Saints will likely be looking to replace him and Carmichael both in a few months.

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Derek Carr has been exactly the kind of QB his critics warned the Saints about

There’s enough blame to go around. Derek Carr has been exactly the sort of underwhelming quarterback his critics warned the Saints about:

There’s enough blame to go around after the New Orleans Saints’ hugely disappointing 26-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, and we’ve got to acknowledge a really uncomfortable possibility: Derek Carr’s critics appear to be right about him. He’s playing like exactly the sort of quarterback they lambasted when the Saints signed him this offseason. He’s struggling to manage an offense that has averaged just 13.8 points per game through the first four weeks.

Carr has not elevated the talent around him. In some ways he hasn’t gotten enough out of weapons who looked like obvious fits — big tight end Juwan Johnson broke out last season and was often compared to Carr’s favorite Raiders target Darren Waller but was targeted just a dozen times through the first three games, only once in scoring position inside the red zone.

On Sunday Chris Olave was held to single-digit receiving yards for the first time in his career, finishing with a single 4-yard reception on 5 targets. Michael Thomas didn’t catch his second pass from Carr until there were six minutes left in the third quarter. Carr funneled a ton of passes to Alvin Kamara (who caught all but one of his 14 targets), but they went nowhere, gaining just 33 yards.

Carr did lead the league in completions and yards gained on throws of 20-plus yards through the first two weeks, but that’s because he also led the NFL in pass attempts at that distance. He was being forced to do it against his nature. The Saints have been trying to make him someone he’s not and we’re seeing those limitations now. That might explain why offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael has dialed up so many plays with receivers streaking downfield and few safety valves underneath. They’re desperate for him to connect on those big play opportunities.

This all describes a quarterback who is too eager to check it down, who lacks accuracy and a willingness to attack downfield, and who isn’t a big upgrade over the passers who preceded him. Certainly not to the tune of $150 million, which is how much Carr can earn if he plays out his four-year contract. The Saints structured it without a viable off-ramp until 2025.

Look at what was being written about Carr over the summer. NFL.com’s Mark Sessler ranked him one spot ahead of Andy Dalton (Nos. 23 and 24) during his split with the Raiders, saying that Carr was “destined to be oversold to fans as a solution.”

CBS Sports analyst Will Brinson put Carr in the NFL’s fourth tier as someone who cannot be expected to “take you on a deep playoff run or win you a Super Bowl without a really stout defense/run game combo or the stars simply aligning.”

And Pro Football Focus summarized Carr’s recent performances as such: “Carr’s big plays declined and he was notably less accurate overall. His adjusted completion rate dropped by more than 6 percentage points from the year before to his lowest level since he was a rookie.”

That all lines up with what we’re seeing from him now, which is really unfortunate to admit. The Saints signed Carr believing he could singlehandedly fix many of the problems with their offense while keeping Pete Carmichael at offensive coordinator with the rest of the starting lineup intact. They appear to have lost that gamble.

That’s not to say there isn’t time for Carr to prove his doubters wrong. It’s a long season and he and the Saints still have 13 games to figure things out. But it’s about to be Week 5 and they’re already well behind schedule. Instead of sitting on top of their division after the first month their in a tie for second-place (if you’re generous; tiebreakers have them in third in the NFC South standings).

But this wasn’t the vision the team had. It isn’t what head coach Dennis Allen foresaw when he introduced Carr as their new starting quarterback early this year. Things have gone awry and a lot of people have their hands dirty: Allen, Carmichael, general manager Mickey Loomis, and Carr himself. All they can do now is work to clean up this mess. That might start with some uncomfortable conversations about some peoples’ job security. What they’re doing isn’t working and they can’t try someone besides Carr in his role. So another aspect of the operation is going to have to change if they want different results. Hopefully that all gets sorted out behind the scenes so Carr can put his best foot forward and prove those critics wrong in the end.

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Saints fans take aim at OC Pete Carmichael after blowout loss to Buccaneers

The Saints lost to the Bucs in a landslide. Fans and analysts had a lot to say about the team’s latest loss, and many focused on OC Pete Carmichael:

Things hardly went the Saints’ way on Sunday as the team recorded a 26-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the largest loss in terms of total margin of the season so far.

Outside of that, the Saints had kept it in the reach of single points in games that came down to the wire.

In what was still a respectable defensive performance and a continuously unimpressive offensive outing, here’s a look at what fans and analysts had to say across social media about the Saints’ performance:

Saints can’t afford to not make a change on offense amid historically-poor streak

The Saints can’t afford to not make a change on offense amid their historically-poor streak. They haven’t averaged so few points per game since 2005:

It’s tough to win football games when you can’t put points on the board, and it’s past time the New Orleans Saints address it. It’s time offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael step down into a lesser role, which is what he’s wanted all along. Dennis Allen’s failure to recruit a new play caller led to Carmichael taking a job he wasn’t prepared for, and the results speak for themselves.

The Saints haven’t scored more than 21 points in 10 straight games, going back to last season. Whether it’s Derek Carr, Andy Dalton, or Jameis Winston at quarterback Carmichael has not been able to get the offense moving and driving into the end zone. Carmichael is the common factor.

They’re averaging just 13.8 points points per game this season (not including Rashid Shaheed’s punt returned for a touchdown, and the ensuing extra point kick) which is the lowest since their 14.7 per-game average in 2005. That happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and led to sweeping organizational changes.

A team with so many weapons like this one shouldn’t struggle to score points. A receiving corps boasting Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, and Rashid Shaheed with Alvin Kamara, Taysom Hill, Juwan Johnson and Foster Moreau in the mix shouldn’t be struggling to score twice per game. Carmichael’s latest version of the offense has lost more turnovers (5) than they’ve scored touchdowns (4).

Dennis Allen deserves a lot of the blame. He may have a defensive background, but he’s the head coach, and he’s responsible for putting all of these people in their positions. He couldn’t replace Carmichael (assuming he even tried) in the offseason. He got the quarterback he wanted. Most of those skills position talents we just rattled off have been acquired during his tenure. This is his vision of the team, and it’s a squad that can’t even average 14 points per game, much less 23 points each week (which is league-average).

There’s a tough conversation centering on Allen’s own job security and future with the team. But don’t count on a change in-season. The Saints haven’t fired a head coach during the season since 1980, which was a long time and an ownership change ago. The only realistic “major” change would be demoting Carmichael and giving someone else the opportunity to call plays.

But who? The team has gushed about passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry at every opportunity. He’s called plays in two preseasons now. He may not be a better choice than Carmichael in that role, but he can’t be much worse. And there’s also the specter of Jon Gruden lurking around the team. Carr’s former head coach got more out of him than anyone else in the NFL, and we can’t rule out the possibility that the Saints would add him to the staff if they get truly desperate. Gruden comes with a lot of baggage, but so did Deshaun Watson, and Allen did everything in his power to go get him when he had the chance.

Change is inevitable. The only questions about it are when it will happen, and how it will manifest. Allen is running out of time to come up with an answer.

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Instant analysis from Saints’ Week 4 loss to Buccaneers

What went right? What went wrong? And what’s the bottom line? Instant analysis after the Saints’ Week 4 loss to the Buccaneers:

Well that wasn’t much fun. The New Orleans Saints lost an ugly game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, 26-9, and in a lot of ways it exemplified the style of football they’ve played under head coach Dennis Allen. This is how he wants his team to play. He has his quarterback, his play caller, his assistant coaches, and a roster largely made up of his handpicked players. What he doesn’t have are excuses.

So let’s break it down by answering three key questions:

  • What went right?
  • What went wrong?
  • And what’s the bottom line?

Saints offense showing creativity early in training camp

Rashid Shaheed lining up in the backfield. Alvin Kamara running routes with receivers. The Saints offense is looking creative early in training camp | @southexclusives

We are only a few days into New Orleans Saints training camp, but the creativity the Saints have shown on offense is encouraging. Proper execution is obviously required though the intention is the true story here. Stale play calling was one of the biggest causes of frustration last season. Early signs show offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. is making an effort to use his weapons in less-traditional ways.

Rashid Shaheed was one of the biggest victims of this a season ago. It’s just one example, but at a recent training camp practice Shaheed was seen motioning into the backfield to run a route on a play. That’s not something you likely would have seen last year.

When Shaheed first exploded on the scene, he was a dynamic player who showcased chess-piece versatility. The wide receiver’s first touch was a 44-yard touchdown around the end. We didn’t see him touch the ball in that way much more through the season, gaining just 13 yards on his other three rushing attempts. Seeing him run routes out of the backfield occasionally would be a welcomed addition to his toolbox.

Alvin Kamara ran routes with the receivers at camp which could be a sign of things to come. Jamaal Williams and Kendre Miller should lessen how much New Orleans relies on Kamara at running back. Having those two players frees up Kamara to move around the field. One could even argue it would be a good idea to try to get two of the three on the field together frequently. Kamara lining up as a receiver would be the most dangerous way to accomplish this goal. After catching 81, 81, 81, and 83 passes in his first four years, Kamara has totaled 47 and 57 receptions the last two seasons.

So you have a wide receiver lining up in the backfield and a running back lining up as a receiver. This is the type of versatility that favors both player’s skill sets. It’s also more creative than what we were accustomed to in 2022. Using your most dynamic players in different alignments to attack the defense from multiple directions makes your offense more lethal.

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Taysom Hill isn’t sure what his position is, but ‘I don’t think of myself as a tight end’

Taysom Hill isn’t sure what his position or label is, but acknowledged ‘I don’t think of myself as a tight end’ at Saints training camp:

What is Taysom Hill’s real position? He’s listed with the tight ends on the New Orleans Saints depth chart (and on many fantasy football platforms), but he’s thrown plenty of passes through the first week of training camp practices — despite not wearing a red no-contact jersey like the team’s quarterbacks. Last year, he logged more rushing attempts (96) than snaps at his listed position of tight end (51, per Pro Football Focus charting). He’s a fixture on the punt units and sometimes returns kicks on special teams.

With his specific role in the Saints offense seeming to change from one year to the next, Hill has busied himself with just doing what’s asked of him while trying to not think too hard about his formal designation.

“I don’t know, I don’t think of myself as a tight end, you know? I don’t think I had a single rep last year as an inline tight end,” Hill reflected after a July 26 practice session. “So when I think of a tight end that’s what hits my head. I don’t know how I would label myself. Obviously my background has been quarterback, so when I think about what I’ve done throughout my career I think of that. As far as what I’m doing this year, I don’t know.”

Hill said that he’s had conversations with offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. about his role to practice areas of his skill set that have been underutilized in recent years, particularly as a receiver. After catching 19 passes for 234 yards and 6 touchdown receptions in 2019, Hill has totaled 24 catches for 231 yards and 3 scores in 2020, 2021, and 2022 combined.

The flexible role Hill has earned for himself in the Saints offense isn’t something he takes for granted. If he can help the team by catching more passes, he added, then he’s all for it: “I hope to get more of those opportunities, obviously I need to do the right thing and take advantage of them. Yeah, I hope I keep getting those.”

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Saints resale ticket prices are some of the cheapest in the NFL

New Orleans Saints resale ticket prices are some of the cheapest in the NFL coming off a disappointing 7-win season:

The vibes surrounding the New Orleans Saints are great right now, which is a big improvement over the start of the offseason. Retaining Dennis Allen as head coach was an unpopular move with a vocal segment of the fanbase. So was the decision to keep Pete Carmichael Jr. at offensive coordinator. New Orleans didn’t exactly wow many fans while averaging their fewest points per game in decades and posting their first losing season in the first year without Sean Payton at the helm.

So it isn’t too surprising to see that the average Saints ticket price ranks low around the league. According to TicketSmarter, the average resale price of Saints tickets is $237, which ranks as the 6th-cheapest in the NFL.

Now, that isn’t a big drop from last season’s — on average, resale tickets were valued at $241. But only the Atlanta Falcons ($196), Houston Texans ($216), Arizona Cardinals ($220), Cleveland Browns ($228), and Tampa Bay Buccaneers ($234) cost less on average. Tampa Bay led that group with eight wins in 2022, but they’re actively sinking back where they belong without Tom Brady lifting them up to the surface.

Still, Saints fans are dedicated, and tens of thousands of them will be crowding the Caesars Superdome in the fall. After opening the season with the Tennessee Titans in September, New Orleans will host some high-profile matchups with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and New York Giants, in addition to their usual NFC South rivalry games. The Who Dat Nation is known for creating a raucous home atmosphere, and this season should be no different.

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