Pro Football Rumors
The Saints’ stay as an NFL middle-class bastion ended last season. Two Derek Carr injuries helped sink a 2024 edition that had already seen HC Dennis Allen fired. Mickey Loomis was believed to be against an in-season Allen ouster, but ownership kept the enduring GM on to make a third coaching hire. Kellen Moore is now in command, marking a full separation from the Sean Payton era.
Ensuing developments brought the Saints closer to the elusive rebuild Loomis has delayed for years. Although another batch of restructures took place — three involving players who later retired — the team enters the 2025 season with expectations lower than anything in the Payton or Allen eras. Tyler Shough will be favored to make the bulk of the quarterback starts after Carr’s retirement, but the topic of a potential QB investment in 2026 looms as well.
Even as the Jaguars’ search drifted off track, the Saints were the last team to hire a head coach in this year’s cycle. They waited on Super Bowl LIX for Moore, and the field thinned by that point. New Orleans initially sought an Aaron Glenn reunion. Glenn had been the Saints’ DBs coach from 2016-20; that would have brought Loomis another Payton assistant — albeit one he passed over for Allen in 2022.
The team then considered a Mike McCarthy Louisiana comeback; the former Packers and Cowboys HC had been Jim Haslett‘s OC from 2000-04. Loomis overlapped with even that tenure, beginning as GM in 2002. Kliff Kingsbury also drew Saints interest, but he has been understandably hesitant given his current setup and his swift unraveling in Arizona. Ex-Payton assistant Joe Brady also came up during this process.
The Jets’ Glenn hire preceded McCarthy, Brady and Kingsbury withdrawing their names from consideration. New Orleans did not present an ideal setup for a new coach, seeing as the team’s annually dicey cap situation accompanied a middling quarterback (at the time) and Loomis’ overarching presence. The New Orleans fixture has managed these yearly odysseys toward cap compliance, yet serious firing rumors have never cropped up — even as four straight non-playoff seasons have occurred.
This did not present the greatest job profile, and a handful of candidates opted to stay put rather than seriously commit themselves to a fixer-upper. Moore also interviewed for the Cowboys’ HC job, but Jerry Jones made the odd decision to promote Moore’s OC successor (Brian Schottenheimer) despite the second-generation coach not generating interest elsewhere for HC positions in over a decade.
Even as options narrowed, Moore’s decision was somewhat surprising. While the “there are only 32 of these jobs” cliche applies, Moore...
