If the New Orleans Saints were going to make any big changes to get their season back on track, this was their best chance. But it doesn’t sound like Dennis Allen views the post-Thursday Night Football break that way.
The Saints had ten days between last week’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars and their next matchup with the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. If they were going to make any substantial changes offensively — like naming a new play caller or benching struggling starters — it would have made the most sense to do so when this extra rest time gave them a window to do so.
“No, no, no. If we decide to make some changes we’ll let you know,” Allen said when asked if the team had made any personnel changes. So offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael is still calling plays, and the rest of the offense should look like what fans have seen thus far.
Additionally, Allen said that the team wouldn’t be bringing in any outside candidates, which squashes the speculation from fans about a team-up with Derek Carr’s old coach Jon Gruden: “You get in the middle of the season and there’s generally not a lot of people from outside your building that are coming in that are making significant changes. We’ve got our guys and we’re going to be hard at work trying to fix our issues.”
So the Saints are going to keep doing what they’ve been doing. They’ve lost four of their last five games while struggling to end drives with touchdowns, convert third downs, and do other things that successful offenses expect to achieve each week. We’ll see how that works out for them.
