The Bayou Casuals

Gulf Coast Sports with a Whole Lotta Lagniappe

Category: Saints

  • The Saints Are Rebuilding the Culture

    As someone who is both a Spencer Rattler and a Tyler Shough apologist – but mostly a Kellen Moore apologist – let’s talk about some things.

    • Anyone who has paid genuine attention to the Saints draft knows this is a sleeper class. I already discussed why Kelvin Banks was a smart pick, and I stand by that. Kelvin Banks looks like he could push the team plane out of the next freak snowstorm on his own.
    • Kellen Moore has taken the Saints krewe (we need to reclaim the “krewe” term from the Bucs, it’s almost worse than the Bungles stealing “Who Dat” for “Who Dey”) on a Tour de Fun. The last coach to take guys on a paintball excursion was Sean Payton in 2006. I think we know how that worked out.
    • EVERYONE LOOKS HAPPY IN OTAS. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Chris Olave, a man whose jersey tee I’m wearing as I write this, smile as big as he has in the past week. Nobody has looked this happy to be there since Breesus was in the house.

    Various sports outlets (read: betting-sponsored sites) have put the Saints at 5.5 wins on the odds. I firmly believe that I could have a decent payday on the over if betting were legal (or at least not supremely difficult) in Texas.

    [The following is copied and pasted from a social-media comment, so I apologize for any typos or odd formatting. But here are my thoughts.]

    “Floor is 8-9, ceiling is 12-5. We’ll have some missteps along the way, and may end up shifting QBs mid-season no matter who the starter is. What we have in our favor is that our draft will turn out to be highly underrated by many outlets – we were given anywhere from a B+ by those who did extensive, unbiased analysis to a D- by the notoriously clickbaity PFF. Since nobody is paying attention to us, and they haven’t since Brees retired, Kellen Moore and company are able to quietly rebuild the culture, especially on the offense.

    I’m watching Kellen make smart moves that will pay off in the long term. On the defensive side, nobody can deny that we have an aging class. But Justin Reid was a great pickup who works extremely well with Mathieu (they were a great duo on the Texans), and the mentorship of people like Cam is still really important to the team. Demario has yet to truly fall off despite all his years. It’s exciting to pay close attention and watch all the pieces come together.”

    We have a fresh staff, and we’ve gone from one of the oldest teams in the league to somewhere in the middle! We have the current youngest coach in the league (take that, Miami Mike). Anyone who says the Saints are “two years away from a rebuild” is ignoring Saints practices right now in 2025.

    We’re coming at it hard. The Texans did it in 2023. The Commanders did in 2024. Who counts out the Saints in 2025? Might be cooler if you didn’t. To quote Winston Zeddemore in “Ghostbusters II”:

    “It’s always the quiet ones.”

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  • Kellen Moore whipping up an interesting gumbo on Poydras

    Forgive me, this analysis will take a few posts. And I know I’m late on it, but there are more than ten new Saints coaches and staff members to analyze, so I’ve had to separate it into several posts. Let’s start with the Big Two on offense.

    Only two days after walking out of the Superdome a Philadelphia hero, Kellen Moore walked right back in as a potential savior in his new hometown of New Orleans. The majority of Saints fans have embraced him with open arms – possibly because we were riding the high of a coach with a fresh new Lombardi, or possibly because we’ve been through three seasons of Paper Bags 2.0 and just really needed the hug. Unfortunately, opinions on his coaching staff have been a little more…varied (at least if social media is the true arbiter of the pulse of Who Dat Nation).

    You can’t really blame the fan base for circling these guys suspiciously like a pack of tweaked-out coyotes with an interloper on their turf. In the past three seasons alone, we’ve been told that Dennis Allen was the answer, that Pete Carmichael was doing just fine as offensive coordinator, that Derek Carr was the best option under center, and that we needed to “look beyond the results” (Mickey Loomis, you’ve really outdone yourself recently). The Saints’ front office’s wild universe of Alternative Facts has left us feeling gaslit and shook. And the name Brandon Staley doesn’t leave the best taste in the mouths of many NFL fans in general.

    That’s why we’re here to help. Let’s break down the Geauxvengers, hire by hire.

    Doug Nussmeier, Offensive Coordinator: This one seems like a no-brainer. A Saints fan since childhood, he was drafted by them as a quarterback in 1994, and spent four years in the building – the largest chunk of his playing career. Although he was a reserve during that time, he was there long enough to absorb the culture and meet his future wife (then a Saints cheerleader). Besides the baked-in love for the team, he has history as a quarterbacks coach alongside Moore going back to the Cowboys, through the 2023 Chargers and then getting their rings with the 2024 Eagles.

    (Bring over the entire 2024 Eagles staff, Kellen. Inject it directly into my veins. And Nuss, give us the full Adam Sandler feel-good sports-movie arc. I want to be able to make a custom Beware of Doug t-shirt by the end of the season.)

    He also has a son who might be interesting in 2026. If you’re am LSU fan, you may have heard of a young man named Garrett…

    Brandon Staley, Defensive Coordinator: This is the most contentious hire so far, and another of Moore’s trusted comrades. People are already on the ledge because Staley was pretty much the worst as the head coach of the Chargers. However, as a defensive coordinator for the 2020 Rams, he led arguably the best defense in the league, which earned him enough buzz for the Chargers to grab him.

    There are Saints fans complaining about the Staley hire who – with zero irony – had previously said “I wish we could have just kept Dennis Allen and put him back at DC.” I mean… congratulations? That’s literally what we just got: a guy who is an excellent defensive mind but is pretty much buns at HC. And, he’s not our HC, so, problem solved.

    To be continued…

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