Rebuild or Reload (2 Viewers)

[Infoman]

 

[3ParStillDriver]

Reloading isn't going to work. We have zero up and coming young franchise players to reload and build around.

No franchise QB (Carr and Rattler are a suitable combo for a few more years)
No franchise RB under age 28 for the 2025 season (Kamara and Miller should be reliable for another season)
No franchise WR under age 28 for the 2025 season (Olave probably should retire)
No franchise DLineman under age 28 for the 2025 season (Bresee is the NFL's worst graded run defender)
No franchise LB under age 28 for the 2025 season (Werner is the best we got and he's average)
No franchise S under age 28 for the 2025 season (nadda)
Possibly 1 or 2 franchise CB's under age 28 for the 2025 season (Adebo is a question mark and Kool-Aid looks promising)

If that doesn't tell you what you need to do, nothing will. Mickey Loomis and Dennis Allen have absolutely wrecked this team from a playoff competitor to a top 10 draft picking team in a couple of years.

Bright spot? We have two promising young tackles and arguably the best Center in the NFL (if he can stay healthy).

 

[Cgrob81]

Rehire. This organization is failing on so many levels. We are nothing without Sean and Drew. Not until we get a coach and develope talent.

 

[saint_drago]

Reloading made sense once. Even after Drew and SP left, if you squinted hard enough you could see a contender type of roster. It was delusional to think that Winston and Dennis Allen were going to contend for anything but the front office (and many fans) felt like the roster was too talented to blow it up and start over. They had a window to rebuild when Drew and SP left but I fear that window is closed for now. To rebuild you need to be able to part ways with expensive vets. The Saints don't have the ability to blow it up and start over. They'll be forced to keep using the same cap tricks with the same players just to reach cap compliance.

The front office needs to do everything they can to clean this up and focus on the future. No more all in. No more yolo trading up. Take it on the chin for a few years and focus on acquiring young talent. Find a QB. Build up the trenches. That will take time. Hire a coach with that goal in mind. Building a contending roster is hard. Long time Saints fans know exactly how hard it is. Even with Drew Brees we saw how hard it was to build up the roster during those 7-9 seasons. A few great drafts turned it around though.

For some of us the Saints being not great is a return to normalcy. We can be patient during this much needed rebuild. We're in it for the long haul. But for the folks who grew up watching the Saints during this Golden Era, this is going to be rough. I fear we haven't even hit rock bottom yet.

 

[ShadowMan]

Rebuild or reload. This is the heading for a new Underhill article. For the Saints going forward, there is no bigger question.

I do not have access to NOF. My sense from reading the comments is that Underhill, along with many others, believes the approach will be to reload and that he may be generally supportive of that approach. (In the past, Underhill has favored the reload approach. I have not read his article. In fairness, it is quite possible that in this article his recommendations are different or more nuanced.)

Given that people like Underhill and Duncan are not even debating whether Loomis should be replaced, the likelihood seems high that the Saints will opt for a reload approach. Loomis has been the architect and proponent of reload over the last three seasons.

My own belief is that we should rebuild and should have begun that process earlier. I would like to see different and younger people in charge--what Brad Holmes in Detroit and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in Minnesota have done has been amazing. I do not see a talented roster or a substantial core of talented young players. And we need to turn salary-cap hell into salary-cap purgatory with a end to our misery in sight.

My fear: We are having this debate in January 2026 and January 2027.

If we "reload" with live ammo and not blanks I'm all for reloading, keeping our core of good players....if Loomis is in charge of the draft then more blanks are coming. If i were the new coach the one thing i would want is to do all the drafting, not LOOMIS!!

 

[Goatman Saint]

Who does this team have that is great and in their prime to reload around? As was pointed out how many good under 28 players do we have? That alone should tell you what we need to do. This isn’t a fill in the gaps situation, and if Loomis continues the path he’s on with trying to fill in gaps it’s not going to work as the gaps are too big. He’s either getting players with questionable drive, questionable talent or 1 year fill ins. Not how you build a team. He has to get a good coach then find players to draft with the same attitude to build around. Hopefully they will look closely at the sort of players drafted and actually get players rather than the leaders of the underwear Olympics it seems they like to choose recently.

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

Somewhere in the middle. To do a complete rebuild you'd want the ability to add 20+ players. Limited FA funds, dead cap land mines, and lack of trade assets minimizes that.

The next possible thing is to get 9-11 picks in 2025 draft by trading back, possibly more than once while aiming to add picks in 2026 and turn it into a two year job. The tightening of the belt strategy would be in place for another year in 2025 w/ another round of 3rd tier FA's and bargain bin shopping. You probably do keep some of your veterans and potentially you may trade another asset during the 2025 season similar to Lattimore (Olave maybe)

You'd ideally try to focus on those positions you're likely to replace in that time. LB, DE, S, WR, TE. Mostly skill positions, not the trenches. By the start of preseason in 2026 you've probably added about 30 new players that weren’t on the team that ended 2024 and moved on from all the aging veterans that were on the team during that same span.

 

[Joey bourque]

Rebuild or reload. This is the heading for a new Underhill article. For the Saints going forward, there is no bigger question.

I do not have access to NOF. My sense from reading the comments is that Underhill, along with many others, believes the approach will be to reload and that he may be generally supportive of that approach. (In the past, Underhill has favored the reload approach. I have not read his article. In fairness, it is quite possible that in this article his recommendations are different or more nuanced.)

Given that people like Underhill and Duncan are not even debating whether Loomis should be replaced, the likelihood seems high that the Saints will opt for a reload approach. Loomis has been the architect and proponent of reload over the last three seasons.

My own belief is that we should rebuild and should have begun that process earlier. I would like to see different and younger people in charge--what Brad Holmes in Detroit and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in Minnesota have done has been amazing. I do not see a talented roster or a substantial core of talented young players. And we need to turn salary-cap hell into salary-cap purgatory with a end to our misery in sight.

My fear: We are having this debate in January 2026 and January 2027.

Reload with what?

 

[kcirdor]

We've been doing a quiet rebuild the last few years, particularly when you look at non-QB contracts. Looking at contracts with an AAV of at least $2m/yr from 2021-2024, the Saints signed $70.6m worth of free agents while letting $120.3m of free agents walk out the door.

Year	Signed by Saints	Signed by Other	Net
2021	$7.2m	$40.7m	($33.5m)
2022	$25.3m	$29.0m	($3.7m)
2023	$17.2m	$43.1m	($25.9m)
2024	$20.9m	$7.5m	+$12.6m

Contracts don't always equal performance, but on net we have been losing talent based on market value. We added Carr while letting the rest of the talent around him walk out the door.

We did add on net in 2024, but since we didn't re-sign anyone to a $2m/yr+ contract, it doesn't look like we had much talent left to lose with only $7.5m in new contracts for Saints that had expiring contracts in 2023.

and we are still a head honcho over the cap?

 

[1K SPORT]

Sorry, how do you define "reload" vs. "rebuild"?

Isn't "reloading" replacing certain guys? Same for "rebuild"?

Does rebuild mean cut every player you can staying within the cap?

I don't think (I don't hope) when they say "reload", they mean kick every can down the road. I think it means (like last off-season) only kick the absolutely necessary cans to get cap compliant. Let any big (under producing) contract you can walk. Those need to be replaced which brings us around to "rebuilding"

Maybe I just need another cup of coffee...

 

[Rexman100]

We've been doing a quiet rebuild the last few years, particularly when you look at non-QB contracts. Looking at contracts with an AAV of at least $2m/yr from 2021-2024, the Saints signed $70.6m worth of free agents while letting $120.3m of free agents walk out the door.

Year	Signed by Saints	Signed by Other	Net
2021	$7.2m	$40.7m	($33.5m)
2022	$25.3m	$29.0m	($3.7m)
2023	$17.2m	$43.1m	($25.9m)
2024	$20.9m	$7.5m	+$12.6m

Contracts don't always equal performance, but on net we have been losing talent based on market value. We added Carr while letting the rest of the talent around him walk out the door.

We did add on net in 2024, but since we didn't re-sign anyone to a $2m/yr+ contract, it doesn't look like we had much talent left to lose with only $7.5m in new contracts for Saints that had expiring contracts in 2023.

Quick question, as it stands right now, (if we're 60 mill) over the cap for 2025, what moves/ restructures would make sense to get under the cap? Is there a way to get under the cap without restructuring Carr?

 

[BreesusSaves]

Quick question, as it stands right now, (if we're 60 mill) over the cap for 2025, what moves/ restructures would make sense to get under the cap? Is there a way to get under the cap without restructuring Carr?

Not really. Unfortunately the "creative" structuring of Carr's contract to get him here is a mess. $51.5m cap hit 2025, $61.5m cap hit 2026. Making him a post-June 1 cut would save a lot of money but getting under the cap without restructuring is borderline impossible. If Cam and Ram retire and pay back the guaranteed money from future years then it would change the Saints cap dynamic massively (in a good way).

 

[Rickboy]

 

[NatureBoy]

Reload? Hahaha. Yeah, lets not get to radical, we don't want to get too far below the 5 win team we are.

 

[SubmarineMike]

I don't think (I doubt any of us think) that, no matter what we do or how we do it, the Saints will have a good year in 2025. Missing too many pieces, way too thin at every position.

In my mind, the real question is what to do about Carr, which sums up the whole debate. Do we cut him THIS year, eating the 2025 money but saving the 2026 money? That move, to me, would be the only way to even think about a rebuild. Shoot, with our cap situation, I don't even know how we could "reload" with anything competitive.

Of course, I'm no cap expert.