Doug Nussmeier is Offensive Coordinator , Saints officially finalized hire per Underhill (9 Viewers)

[greatshow25]

Carr will be the quarterback this year. Getting rid of him will slow down the cleanup of the roster and the cap.

I think the goal of this year is to make the team younger, to have building blocks at both units for years to come. Let's be patient and forget the nonsense that we are close.

We have 6 picks in the first 4 rounds. We have to make the most out of them, not thinking about next year but planning for seasons to come.

Time to get the best players we can get, to solidify our lines.

I am not sure that our current draft strategy is working. We need better profiles of the players Moore wants.

All teams have hits and misses, but this time, we need more impact than what we got on early picks like Penning, Ruiz, Turner, Foskey, etc.

Derek Carr Contract Details, Salary Cap Charges, Bonus Money, and Contract History | Over The Cap

Derek Carr contract and salary cap details, including signing bonus, guaranteed salary, dead money, roster bonuses, and contract history

overthecap.com

You do realize keeping Carr causes more cap problems down the line. The Saints will have to restructure his 30 million salary this year pushing that down the line on top of last years restructure. It also includes another 10 million dollar roster bonus. So with the 61 million cap hit and restructure and he will have close to 75 million cap hit next year. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/14445/derek-carr

 

[AARPSaint]

The defense was worse than the offense last season, taking injuries into account. CKM needs to get a Defensive Coordinator in place before the combine begins, and the combine is imminent. Also, it’s clear that the Defensive Coordinator will be responsible for hiring his staff, as someone pointed out in another thread.

Time (combine) is pressing. Moore has pretty much chosen his offensive staff, which is excellent in more ways than one. It’s the defensive staff that needs to be assembled, and soon.

 

[St. Widge]

The questions you have to ask yourself here is, is the upgrade from Derek Carr to Sam Darnold worth the Carr cap hit, Darnold’s salary, and handcuffing yourself financially, along with is going from Carr to Darnold (minus Jefferson) even an upgrade at all.

Yeah, I'm on board for moving on from Carr with his $40 million salary, but not if the plan is Darnold. I'm not sure if he's a upgrade from Carr and even if he is, he's not likely to be worth the money he is going to get after a good year with the Vikings. We would essentially be back in the same situation only with a younger player on a longer contract.

If they move on from Carr I would either give Ratter a shot, bring in a young vet like Fields, Lance, Daniel Jones, Milton, or Willis who will be cheap but have high upside to go with their high bust potential, or draft a young QB. I don't see a guy worth taking a shot on in this draft outside of Cam Ward, but I'll trust Moore and his staff of former NFL QBs to figure out if that guy is in this draft.

 

[sfidc3]

As critical as I have been of Nuss' play at LSU last year. I really hope he takes the next step and is in the conversation as a high pick in the draft next year.

I'm a fan of the Saints and LSU but I have a very strong feeling that if Nuss played for any other school this would not come up quite so much....

I hope he improves as well but I really don't see him take a Burrow/Daniels type of leap....we will see...

 

[guillermo]

If I had to bet the house, I would bet that Carr will be cut.

Derek Carr Contract Details, Salary Cap Charges, Bonus Money, and Contract History | Over The Cap

Derek Carr contract and salary cap details, including signing bonus, guaranteed salary, dead money, roster bonuses, and contract history

overthecap.com

You do realize keeping Carr causes more cap problems down the line. The Saints will have to restructure his 30 million salary this year pushing that down the line on top of last years restructure. It also includes another 10 million dollar roster bonus. So with the 61 million cap hit and restructure and he will have close to 75 million cap hit next year. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/14445/derek-carr

I listened to the explanation of Mike Triplett about Carr's salary and the possibility to be cut this year.

To cut Carr, and absorb the cap hit, we would need to re-negotiate almost every single contract of other players. These extensions will slow down the process of rejuvenating the process.

Carr right now is willing to modify his contract, but not to take a pay cut. He also has a no trade clause.

For that reason, I think Carr will stay for 2025, and most likely, to be cut in 2026, when the cap hit is manageable.

This is the problem of how we have been managing the cap, we don't have flexibility to move the best way possible. We are constrained to move according to what we can afford.

It seems we made the right move by hiring the coach, I hope this trends continues and we change the way we draft and the way we handle our money.

 

[St. Widge]

I'm a fan of the Saints and LSU but I have a very strong feeling that if Nuss played for any other school this would not come up quite so much....

I hope he improves as well but I really don't see him take a Burrow/Daniels type of leap....we will see...

I'm not sure anyone ever has a Daniels type leap. That guy was unstoppable for an entire year. Maybe the best year I have ever seen from a college QB. But I also don't see him having a Burrow year. I can see him having a Mettenberger type year. That would likely make him a 1st round pick and the way NFL teams reach for QBs, he could end up going in the top 10.

 

[sfidc3]

I'm not sure anyone ever has a Daniels type leap. That guy was unstoppable for an entire year. Maybe the best year I have ever seen from a college QB. But I also don't see him having a Burrow year. I can see him having a Mettenberger type year. That would likely make him a 1st round pick and the way NFL teams reach for QBs, he could end up going in the top 10.

Maybe, but I think what bothers me the most is he played really poorly against the better SEC teams.....you can say that the entire offense was the problem but he made a number of unforced errors, maybe he turns it around this year....

 

[Elvis]

I listened to the explanation of Mike Triplett about Carr's salary and the possibility to be cut this year.

To cut Carr, and absorb the cap hit, we would need to re-negotiate almost every single contract of other players. These extensions will slow down the process of rejuvenating the process.

Carr right now is willing to modify his contract, but not to take a pay cut. He also has a no trade clause.

For that reason, I think Carr will stay for 2025, and most likely, to be cut in 2026, when the cap hit is manageable.

This is the problem of how we have been managing the cap, we don't have flexibility to move the best way possible. We are constrained to move according to what we can afford.

It seems we made the right move by hiring the coach, I hope this trends continues and we change the way we draft and the way we handle our money.

I've already outlined in another thread how it's possible to move on from Carr, have cap money available in June and be clear of ALL of the bad contracts by next spring. The restructures aren't that severe when taking into account many of the largest ones are for good players that are under contract for several years. The mid-sized ones are for the older vets and get taken care of next year by the savings gained from Carr not being on the roster. It is not as hard as it appears on paper, but you have to be ok with the team not making any significant moves between March and June. I and many others are willing to accept that in order for things to be cleaned up for the future. Others are not.

 

[St. Widge]

Maybe, but I think what bothers me the most is he played really poorly against the better SEC teams.....you can say that the entire offense was the problem but he made a number of unforced errors, maybe he turns it around this year....

I think he needs serious work on staying in rhythm, his pocket presence, accuracy, and needs to stop forcing balls. But I do think he has talent and at times he looks really good. But that is all to often broken up by a terrible interception or a long streak of inaccurate passes and taking sacks he should not take.

He's just very inconsistent which makes him all the more frustrating because you see glimpses of his talent but he hasn't put it all together and I'm not sure that he ever will. People seem to assume he will make the Daniels or Burrow leap but I have seen far too many LSU QBs fail to make that leap for me to be sure that Nuss will. I hope he does and he had a good bowl game, but he's going to need to show he can do that consistently. Even in the bowl game, he started great and then started making mistakes later in the game.

Anyway, I also think that Kelly's offense is pretty bad and outdated. And the inability to run the ball consistently is not doing Nuss any favors. They break some big runs from time to time, but they can't consistently run the ball. I tend to think that Kelly's offense only really works with a QB that is more mobile than Nuss.

 

[sfidc3]

I think he needs serious work on staying in rhythm, his pocket presence, accuracy, and needs to stop forcing balls. But I do think he has talent and at times he looks really good. But that is all to often broken up by a terrible interception or a long streak of inaccurate passes and taking sacks he should not take.

He's just very inconsistent which makes him all the more frustrating because you see glimpses of his talent but he hasn't put it all together and I'm not sure that he ever will.

Anyway, I also think that Kelly's offense is pretty bad and outdated. And the inability to run the ball consistently is not doing Nuss any favors. They break some big runs from time to time, but they can't consistently run the ball. I tend to think that Kelly's offense only really works with a QB that is more mobile than Nuss.

Agree with all of that, and the inability to run the ball consistently is spot on....which is why I added you could blame the entire offense.....specifically the highly overrated offensive line, they were a huge disappointment especially in the running game....I've been an LSU fan all my life but I would not take Will Campbell in the 1st round, don't care where he is projected in the draft, he woefully underperformed .....

 

[3ParStillDriver]

Maybe, but I think what bothers me the most is he played really poorly against the better SEC teams.....you can say that the entire offense was the problem but he made a number of unforced errors, maybe he turns it around this year....

Nuss has Mutiple issues going on. More so, I think it's correct to say LSU has multiple issues going on with its offense. For starters, the play calling was bad. Last season I got the feeling that the players had to significantly out play the play calling. Another issue is their WR corps were greatly overrated. Even Mason Taylor really struggled to get separation against man to man, and against zone he wasn't finding the soft spots. Throw in Nuss trying to "make things happen" and it's a recipe for exactly what happened all year. Nuss has to learn to often take what the defense gives him. That's the 1 thing I that really drove me nuts about him. He was always trying to force plays, some because of play calling, some because of lack of receiving talent and some because of "trying to hard".

On the flip side of that, he's also done some things you don't often see QB's in college do, like throw open receivers. He did that several times which unfortunately played into his daring role of forcing things.

If he can learn when to force and throw open receivers vs when to (and often) take what the defense gives him, I think we'll see big leaps this year. If he can get some better receiving talent around him also that would be extremely helpful for his progress in learning when to force things. But as of the end of the year, they didn't have any receiving talent that's worthy of a 1st or 2nd round pick in the draft. Which is insane considering every single draft the best 5 QB's typically have 1 guy going in the 1st round or high 2nd round.

 

[TalleyHo1]

Is n

I think he needs serious work on staying in rhythm, his pocket presence, accuracy, and needs to stop forcing balls. But I do think he has talent and at times he looks really good. But that is all to often broken up by a terrible interception or a long streak of inaccurate passes and taking sacks he should not take.

He's just very inconsistent which makes him all the more frustrating because you see glimpses of his talent but he hasn't put it all together and I'm not sure that he ever will. People seem to assume he will make the Daniels or Burrow leap but I have seen far too many LSU QBs fail to make that leap for me to be sure that Nuss will. I hope he does and he had a good bowl game, but he's going to need to show he can do that consistently. Even in the bowl game, he started great and then started making mistakes later in the game.

Anyway, I also think that Kelly's offense is pretty bad and outdated. And the inability to run the ball consistently is not doing Nuss any favors. They break some big runs from time to time, but they can't consistently run the ball. I tend to think that Kelly's offense only really works with a QB that is more mobile than Nuss.

It's Joe Sloan's playcalling more than Kelly's offense. BK had to step in during those last few games to supervise what Sloan was calling and the offense along with Nuss got better. Remember...they had A&M beaten but the defense collapsed. It was Sloan's first year calling in the SEC. Nothing wrong with BKs offense when Denbrock was here calling.

 

[St. Geezy]

I listened to the explanation of Mike Triplett about Carr's salary and the possibility to be cut this year.

To cut Carr, and absorb the cap hit, we would need to re-negotiate almost every single contract of other players. These extensions will slow down the process of rejuvenating the process.

Carr right now is willing to modify his contract, but not to take a pay cut. He also has a no trade clause.

For that reason, I think Carr will stay for 2025, and most likely, to be cut in 2026, when the cap hit is manageable.

This is the problem of how we have been managing the cap, we don't have flexibility to move the best way possible. We are constrained to move according to what we can afford.

It seems we made the right move by hiring the coach, I hope this trends continues and we change the way we draft and the way we handle our money.

It’s not the cap style itself; there’s gotta be a consequence to signing a player to a contract as large as Carr’s then coming to regret it, especially when you do so at a time we didn’t have “cap dollars.”

Teams are moving on from quarterbacks and other highly paid players and suffering the same fate…a large cap hit.

When we signed him, we didn’t have the money and had to borrow from the future…you can’t just get off scot free from that.

Anytime you sign a player to a huge 100+ million dollar deal and regret it, you pay a harsh consequence to rid yourself of it, regardless of how you manage the cap.

The acquisition of the wrong player at a super high cost is the problem, not the cap spreadsheet.

 

[sfidc3]

Nuss has Mutiple issues going on. More so, I think it's correct to say LSU has multiple issues going on with its offense. For starters, the play calling was bad. Last season I got the feeling that the players had to significantly out play the play calling. Another issue is their WR corps were greatly overrated. Even Mason Taylor really struggled to get separation against man to man, and against zone he wasn't finding the soft spots. Throw in Nuss trying to "make things happen" and it's a recipe for exactly what happened all year. Nuss has to learn to often take what the defense gives him. That's the 1 thing I that really drove me nuts about him. He was always trying to force plays, some because of play calling, some because of lack of receiving talent and some because of "trying to hard".

On the flip side of that, he's also done some things you don't often see QB's in college do, like throw open receivers. He did that several times which unfortunately played into his daring role of forcing things.

If he can learn when to force and throw open receivers vs when to (and often) take what the defense gives him, I think we'll see big leaps this year. If he can get some better receiving talent around him also that would be extremely helpful for his progress in learning when to force things. But as of the end of the year, they didn't have any receiving talent that's worthy of a 1st or 2nd round pick in the draft. Which is insane considering every single draft the best 5 QB's typically have 1 guy going in the 1st round or high 2nd round.

I agree playcalling played a role, I also agree Nuss has some talent and he did try to do too much.....but I think the main issue was the play of the offensive line....they got manhandled in the running game way too often, losing man on man.....it sucks because we also had a FR RB that was uber talented....

 

[Hedon James]

I agree with most of this. I feel like this is the time to take bold risks and try to build a championship team. I'm no longer interested in going all in and hoping for the best. No more trading away draft picks willy nilly. They need to run from that approach. Get the cap sorted out, make the tough decisions, and take a risk or two. Try something different. Even if it ends in disaster, at least you tried. At this point what do we even have to lose? Lol we won 5 games last season. Bending over backwards and jumping through hoops to win the Offseason Olympics and we didn't even reach mediocrity.

But I think you are dismissing division championships. I understand what you're saying but a division championships mean something. You get banners and T shirts for division ships and it puts you in a better spot in terms of the playoffs. It's a great goal to accomplish. Only two teams are going to the Super Bowl and only one team wins the whole thing so if you can finish the season with the NFC South crown, I don't know, at least you achieved something. .

I like the way you said this, and I can support that perspective.

I'm with Elvis in that I get frustrated with talk of winning the NFCS, as it almost always sounds like that is the objective to be achieved. It's not. It's simply a means to an end. The goal IS...and always has been, Lombardi! Division champs just means you earned a shot to achieve your objective. I hear the argument that 31 teams fail to achieve their objective every season. This is true, but it doesn't mean your season wasn't successful?! I don't see the measure of success as an "all or nothing" metric. The Lombardi....yes, that's all or nothing....your 1st place or your place doesn't matter. But when it comes to a successful season, I think there's a spectrum there.

And speaking for me personally....winning the NFCS is nice, but it's a means to an end....it isn't the end itself. In football terms, we have a 17-game preseason to see who is qualified to play for the crown. Make no mistake....the goal isn't simply to qualify....it's the crown! Maybe splitting hairs here, but i think it's a very important distinction. JMO...