Given the New Orleans Saints’ lack of success in recruiting head coach candidates, a lot of fingers have been pointed at what makes their job opening so undesirable. Maybe Aaron Glenn and Joe Brady didn’t want to come here because of the state of the roster, or the salary cap situation, or having a mediocre quarterback locked in for the foreseeable future — or maybe it’s because Mickey Loomis isn’t seen as a good boss. Maybe it’s a combination of those variables.
Not many of those variables can be changed. But the biggest (or at least the loudest, and most persistent) criticism of how the Saints do business might fall on their salary cap management. The team has a lot of resources tied up in contracts with older players and they already lead the league in dead money left over from expired contracts with guys like Marshon Lattimore, Michael Thomas, and Jameis Winston. And that’s before Ryan Ramczyk’s retirement has been processed with more dead money hits coming for free agents like Chase Young and Juwan Johnson.
So there’s a compelling argument to be made that the Saints should blow it all up. Trade whoever they can. Cut whoever they can. Take their medicine this year and try to compete in 2026 or 2027, whenever the roster has turned over and they can afford to sign new talent.
But that doesn’t sound like the path they’re taking based on this report from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. He characterized their interest in former Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy as a way for the Saints to compete right away.
“Mike McCarthy, I’m told, is expected to interview with the Saints probably around the middle of this week,” Pelissero said Sunday morning, pointing to McCarthy’s history as an offensive coordinator with New Orleans from 2000 to 2004. Pelissero added, “He’s also got a lot of success in his past, 12 playoff appearances in 18 seasons, potentially a really good fit for a Saints team that is very much built to win right now.”
That sure doesn’t sound like a team preparing to cut a lot of veterans and reset the salary cap accounting books. If the Saints don’t see a viable way out of their cap crunch without restructuring Derek Carr’s contract or moving on from defensive cornerstones like Cameron Jordan, Tyrann Mathieu and Demario Davis, maybe bringing in McCarthy and continuing to kick the can down the road until those guys simply age out is the best path forward. Maybe it isn’t.
Maybe McCarthy’s two 6- and 7-win seasons with the Cowboys are a stronger indicator of what the Saints should expect than the three 12-win years sandwiched in-between. We’ll just have to see how Loomis and Co. get out of this mess they’ve made for themselves.
