Had they been re-signed, everyone would be complaining again that “Loomis keeps destroying the cap by re-signing declining, aging, past their prime players to ridiculous contracts!!” by year 2 or 3 of their contracts.
Not re-signing Hendrickson was a legitimate error. Elliss and Baun were not going to start in New Orleans based on several good starting LBs playing in front of them. Their window of being successful LBs may also be very small based on their ages.