Tag: Pete Carmichael

Did Texans coach DeMeco Ryans take a dig at Saints?

Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans is excited for joint preseason practices with the Miami Dolphins — and the New Orleans Saints, too, he adds:

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Yikes. New Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans is excited to share the practice field with Mike McDaniel’s Miami Dolphins later this summer, having scheduled a couple of joint practice sessions with Miami before their preseason game in August. He’s also looking forward to meeting Dennis Allen and the New Orleans Saints, but it’s pretty clear which matchup he’s more eager about.

“Excited to go against the Dolphins. We can get a lot out of joint practices, especially against a team as good as Miami,” Ryans said, via KPRC 2 Houston’s Aaron Wilson. He added: “Saints as well. Different philosophies.”

Look, it’s tough to read that as anything but a diss against Allen and the team he’s built. And it’s harder to blame him. Despite their 9-8 finish last season in the wake of a series of concussions and injuries at quarterback, the Dolphins were one of the most exciting teams in the league under McDaniel’s coaching (and even then, they lost by three points in the playoffs with Skylar Thompson at quarterback). They’re flush with talent on both sides of the ball.

By contrast, the Saints were crippled by an offense that never got off the ground with either Jameis Winston or Andy Dalton under center, and now they’re pushing all their chips in on Derek Carr. Allen and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. burned a lot of goodwill in last year’s disappointing 7-10 finish, and Ryans might feel like he knows what he needs to know about them after his San Francisco 49ers defense beat New Orleans in a 13-0 shutout. Hopefully the Saints can prove their doubters wrong and teach Ryans a thing or two when they meet for joint practices later this summer.

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B/R lists the Saints among teams under the most pressure in 2023

Bleacher Report listed the New Orleans Saints among teams under the most pressure in 2023. It’s playoffs or bust for Dennis Allen and Pete Carmichael, via @DillySanders:

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The New Orleans Saints are entering a key season for future of the franchise. After the disappointing 2022 season, everyone can be looked at as on the hot seat. They made some big moves, such as adding Derek Carr, but after going all-in again they must be competitive this season.

Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski shared this sentiment after naming the Saints as one of the teams that can’t afford to miss the playoffs. Here is his reasoning:

Carr was their guy. He signed with the team prior to the start of the new league year. The NFC South is also a down division, with no clear top quarterback after Tom Brady’s retirement.

Failure to make a run to the postseason and possibly even capture a division title with the likes of Cameron Jordan, Demario Davis and Tyrann Mathieu on the roster should be considered unacceptable.

With the outlook of the division, it really does give the Saints no excuses if they miss the playoffs. It’s by far the best roster in the division, not to mention they’re the only team with a proven veteran quarterback. Because of this, they’re also facing one of the easiest overall schedules in the league.

There is one positive that would come from missing the playoffs this season, in a roundabout way. It would give a clear answer on whether or not this is the staff to bring this team into the future. If Dennis Allen and Pete Carmichael can’t win the division with this discrepancy, the team will have have to moved on. But that’s a conversation for another day.

The pressure is clearly building for the Saints, but another way to look at it is that opportunity to win over the fanbase with a good season is also there for the taking.

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Experts predict the New Orleans Saints’ 2023 record

Experts predict the New Orleans Saints’ record in 2023; how many wins do you see on this year’s schedule?

We’ve had a week to digest the New Orleans Saints’ 2023 schedule, and opinions vary quite a bit on just how good the team will be this year. There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on about how high Derek Carr can elevate their struggling offense (if at all, to hear some experts spin it) as well as whether Dennis Allen is the right head coach for this team after an unimpressive debut ten years after his Raiders stint went up in smoke.

All of the turnover and free agent departures hasn’t instilled much confidence, either, but this is still a team that can compete in a weak division and maybe make some noise if things go their way. Here’s what’s being written about the Saints and their fortunes for 2023:

3 questions the Saints must answer on offense

The New Orleans Saints head into the 2023 season with multiple questions on offense, starting with their play caller, via @crissy_froyd:

The New Orleans Saints undoubtedly have some work to do after finishing out the 2022 season with an overall record of 7-10, despite the fact that tied every team in the NFC South for the second-best within a disappointing division that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-9) ultimately came out on top of.

Many of the team’s woes are centered around offensive performance that leaves much to be desired to say the least as the Saints came out at 19th in total offense at the conclusion of the season with an average of just under 334 yards per game.

Here’s a look into three questions the team needs to answer on the offensive side of the ball:

CBS Sports offseason grades aren’t a fan of Saints’ refuse-to-yield strategy

CBS Sports criticized the Saints for refusing to rebuild in their 2023 offseason grades, saying the team has spent a lot of money to buy nothing but time:

It’s been a surprisingly controversial offseason for the New Orleans Saints. A lot of NFL media prognosticators went ahead and wrote them off as a team that’s going to be bad this year, suggesting that the Saints should lean into it and sell off their good players so they could kick off a miserable rebuild.

But the Saints didn’t do that. They spent more money than almost any other team in the league to recruit a new starting quarterback and reinforce their depth in free agency while holding onto some key contributors. But it wasn’t enough to impress CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin, who graded the Saints a C in his 2023 offseason grades:

No one refuses to rebuild like the Saints. New QB Derek Carr is a gutsy leader who might have a deep playoff run in him, provided he’s got an all-star setup a la Matthew Stafford with the 2021 Rams. That he does not. New Orleans is essentially just buying another year or three of wild card flirtation by doubling down on veterans like RB Jamaal Williams and WR Michael Thomas.

It’s kind of a bad take. The Saints don’t lack for talent. They didn’t lose games last year because they didn’t have competent players. The bigger question and cause for concern centers on their coaching staff. Dennis Allen made poor in-game decisions on fourth down and in scoring position that didn’t turn into points on the scoreboard. Pete Carmichael Jr.’s shortcomings as a play caller were highlighted far too often. The larger issue is that both coaches are going to have the same roles in 2023 that they struggled to hold down in 2022.

Teams that often tank and go into a rebuild rarely climb back out of it. The Jets, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Texans, Bears, and Dolphins wasted years of their fans’ time promising that they just needed to bottom out and get another quarterback with the first or second overall pick before they’d turn it all around. In many cases they never improved, and the coaches and general managers tasked with pulling off the tank-and-rebuild were fired by frustrated owners who didn’t enjoy the process as much as conventional wisdom suggests they would.

The Saints have more work to do before they’ll win back the confidence they lost from fans last season. But again, the more pressing issue than how many free agents they sign or draft picks they nail is whether the coaches making decisions are the right people for those jobs. That’s the same now as it was a year ago.

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Dennis Allen on Saints’ decision to retain OC Pete Carmichael for 2023

Dennis Allen sold Pete Carmichael as a ‘proven commodity’ at OC, maybe betraying a lack of confidence the Saints could upgrade in the ‘rat race’ hiring cycle:

It’s obvious to everyone that the New Orleans Saints need to improve in 2023 — general manager Mickey Loomis admitted as much in reviewing head coach Dennis Allen’s performance in 2022, saying that the team has some things to work on moving forward.

One of those areas the Saints can improve is getting more aggressive on offense. They ranked dead-last in fourth down conversion attempts (11) and second-to-last in successful conversions (4), posting the third-worst conversion rate (36.4%) when Allen did give his offense clearance to go for it. That poor showing in critical situations extended to red zone scoring percentage, where New Orleans ranked 20th by coming away with a touchdown on just 25 of their 48 trips inside the opposing 20-yard line (52.1%). Few teams were as predictable and less effective in running on early downs, setting themselves up for failure on critical third downs.

A lot of that blame falls on play caller Pete Carmichael Jr., who Allen chose to retain as offensive coordinator. Carmichael had to be convinced to take the job last year after initially asking for a lesser role, and he didn’t exactly rise to the occasion after stepping out of Sean Payton’s shadow. When asked why the Saints kept Carmichael in this position, after his offense ranked in the bottom half of the league in yards gained, points scored, first downs converted, and turnovers given away, Allen pushed back and claimed that performance is not indicative of Carmichael’s larger body of work.

Allen spoke at length about Carmichael’s performance in 2022 and the expectations moving forward during a conversation with reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine, as transcribed by SI.com’s John Hendrix.

When asked about Carmichael’s return for 2023, Allen pointed to his play caller’s resume: “The main reason why I wanted to keep Pete as the OC was just, go back and look at his track record. I think, look, Sean Payton, hell of a coach, great offensive mind. He’s been with this offense, he’s been the one common denominator with this offense the whole time. Even back to 2011 when Sean got hurt and Pete called all the offensive plays, I think it was probably one of the most productive offenses that we had here.”

Carmichael is the longest-tenured offensive coordinator in the NFL, but he’s only called plays sparingly over the years, and his results without Drew Brees at quarterback leave a lot to be desired. Allen is right to single out that 2011 team as one of the greatest in league history, but it boasted a bevy of All-Pro talent, and going from Brees at the height of his powers to a late-career Andy Dalton or banged-up Jameis Winston is about as far a descent as you can make in the NFL.

Maybe that’s why the Saints are chasing Derek Carr so doggedly. They see him as a clear upgrade over their options already in the building, and not just for 2023; general manager Mickey Loomis suggested Carr could be a long-term fix at quarterback for the next three or four years, if not longer. They’ve already chosen to keep Carmichael on the headset. Now it’s time to get him a quarterback.

But Allen may have betrayed a lack of confidence the Saints could upgrade over Carmichael in meditating further on the questions around his return. He mused, “So when you have a proven commodity that you know is good and can do the job, well why would I make a change and go through this rat race of the 13 or 14 offensive coordinators that — ended up looking for 16 offensive coordinators. We’ll see how those 16 do, you know what I mean? That remains to be seen. But I think we have a proven commodity in Pete, and I’ve got all the confidence in the world that he’ll be able to do the job.”

You never want to admit that you’re scared to compete. And Allen didn’t necessarily do that here, instead praising how great of a job Carmichael did a decade ago with a Hall of Fame quarterback directing the offense. He can spin it as not feeling like entering the mix when half the league is going through wholesale changes is worth it, but that’s a really tough sell. Reading between the lines, it suggests Allen didn’t believe he could lure in a qualified coordinator. So they’re running it back with Carmichael. Sink or swim, he and Allen are tying their careers together. They can’t afford another underwhelming performance like we saw last season.

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Saints among 16 teams without a new offensive coordinator in 2023

The Saints are among 16 teams without a new offensive coordinator in 2023. The other half of the league is busy installing these new OC’s:

Half of the NFL will be installing a new offensive coordinator this offseason, but the New Orleans Saints are not in that number. They’ve instead chosen to run it back with Pete Carmichael in his second consecutive season as their play caller after a decade-and-a-half of being Sean Payton’s wingman.

Only two of the sixteen bottom-ranked teams in both expected points added per play (read more about EPA/play here) and defense-adjusted value over average (read up on DVOA ratings here) are bringing back their 2022 offensive coordinator, including New Orleans. Time will tell if that was the right approach, or if they should have entered the fray to bring in a new shot-caller on offense.

In the meantime: here’s a very quick look at the new offensive coordinators being introduced for the NFL’s 16 teams who chose to make a change for 2023:

QB coach/passing game coordinator Ronald Curry to stay with Saints for 2023

QB coach/passing game coordinator Ronald Curry to stay with Saints for 2023, won’t join Buccaneers or Sean Payton on Broncos after interviewing for OC jobs:

Here’s some good news for the New Orleans Saints: KPRC 2 Houston’s Aaron Wilson first reported that quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator Ronald Curry is expected to remain with the Saints in 2023 after interviewing with both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos for their offensive coordinator vacancies. NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill confirmed that Curry will stay in town.

Curry, 43, is a coach on the rise who started his Saints career working with receivers before moving to quarterbacks, and now he’s responsible for managing multiple position groups in fine-tuning the passing attack. He called plays in a preseason game last summer and should continue to see his role expand in New Orleans.

Hopefully, anyway. Pete Carmichael struggled to maximize the talent available to him last year and some fresh insight is needed offensively. It’s tough to make waves with a backup quarterback and without three of your top five receivers (Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, and Deonte Harty missed most of the season with injuries) but Curry’s background as a position coach and familiarity with his players should be a resource the Saints draw from more heavily moving forward.

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Post-Super Bowl power rankings put the Saints among NFL’s worst teams

A major question mark at quarterback puts the New Orleans Saints among the league’s worst teams on these post-Super Bowl power rankings:

Sheesh. The New Orleans Saints finished their 2022 season strong, winning three in a row (two of them on the road in cold-weather environments) before a deflating Week 18 loss to the Carolina Panthers put a dampener on things. Now that Super Bowl LVII is behind us, the latest NFL power rankings from ESPN and NFL.com aren’t looking to favorably on New Orleans as they take stock of teams around the league.

ESPN ranked the Saints all the way down at No. 28 out of the 32 teams, circling on the major question mark at quarterback. ESPN’s NFL Nation reporter Katherine Terrell says the Saints must find an answer to the most pressing concern of their offseason:

“Jameis Winston? Andy Dalton? It’s anyone’s guess who could be the quarterback for the Saints in 2023. Their situation certainly looks a little brighter now that they’ll get back into the first round of the draft, thanks to the Sean Payton trade. Whether they try to package picks and move up or make magic work with their salary-cap situation in free agency, expect the Saints to be on the lookout for their next signal-caller.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Around the NFL writer Dan Hanzus, who writes for NFL.com that the while interest between the Saints and former Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr is intriguing, it’s hardly a landscape-changing move. Hanzus has the Saints ranked at No. 26:

“The Saints’ flirtation and visit withDerek Carr didn’t produce a trade, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out the veteran passer signing with New Orleans when he hits free agency, as is now expected. Carr would represent an upgrade over the likes of 2022 QBs Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton, but we’re not convinced Carr provides enough of a lift to move the needle in a substantial way for Dennis Allen’s team. Speaking of Allen, there is a connection between the coach and quarterback. Allen was head coach of the Raiders when Carr was drafted by the team in 2014.”

That’s honestly not a controversial diagnosis. The Saints offense has some serious structural problems that a new quarterback alone won’t fix — offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael struggled in the role calling plays last season, and a lack of depth at the skills positions puts a lot of pressure on young studs like wide receiver Chris Olave and Juwan Johnson (who is a restricted free agent). Star talents like Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill aren’t getting any younger and neither player was maximized fully under Carmichael’s direction of the offense.

If there’s any consolation, it’s that the rest of the NFC South isn’t well-received by either outlet. Here’s where they each clock in at ESPN and NFL.com. The Panthers are riding some momentum after assembling a well-respected coaching staff, but any of these four teams could run away with the division if they make the right moves this summer:

Team ESPN NFL.com Average
New Orleans Saints 28 26 27
Atlanta Falcons 26 27 26.5
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 25 23 24
Carolina Panthers 23 19 21

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Ronald Curry to interview for Broncos offensive coordinator job

Saints quarterbacks coach and passing-game coordinator Ronald Curry plans to interview for the Broncos offensive coordinator job, per Nola.com’s Jeff Duncan:

New Orleans Saints quarterbacks coach and passing-game coordinator Ronald Curry plans to interview for the Denver Broncos offensive coordinator job, per Nola.com’s Jeff Duncan. Curry took on an elevated role last season after previously working with the Saints wide receivers, and he’s widely respected around the league as a coach on the rise.

And he could soon be working for Sean Payton in Denver. Payton has started to build his Broncos staff by targeting multiple assistants in New Orleans: assistant offensive line coach Zach Strief is going to Denver, and he could be followed by offensive assistants Declan Doyle and Kevin Petry. Multiple former Saints staffers are also in consideration for jobs with the Broncos.

But Curry might be the biggest loss of them all. He’s played a big part in getting young players up to speed in the offense in recent years and helping multiple position groups remain functional as injuries hit the team hard. He isn’t exactly indispensable, but Curry is exactly the kind of talented young coach an organization would like to keep around. He wouldn’t be calling plays under Payton in Denver, but he would have a wider range of responsibilities and more opportunities for advancement than he’s seeing right now behind Pete Carmichael.

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