METAIRIE, La. - The New Orleans Saints (5-4) are leading the NFC South division midway through the season, and general manager Mickey Loomis sat down with reporters for a question and answer session about the state of the Saints' offense, what he thinks about some of the new additions and what the future looks like.
Q: What do you think is holding the team back from playing up to its potential?
Loomis: Look, we've got a lot of new parts offensively, right? When I say it hasn't clicked, we haven't had a game where we walked out of the stadium and said man we did well on offense, we did well on defense and we did well on special teams. ... No game is perfect. You're always going to be able to find fault in every game. But even in the New England [Patriots] game [a 34-0 win], I felt like, 'Man we left some stuff on the field offensively.' We've had halves where we played well on one side of the ball and then the other half we didn't. We just haven't had those games we've all become accustomed to over the last 16 years, where we had a really good game in all phases of the game. I think it's coming because I think we're capable. We've seen stretches where we've done well in each phase and yet we haven't had a game where we've been able to say that.
Do you expect more out of the offensive line after investing so much in that unit?
Yeah. We expect more from that group. ... We try to build inside out right? We've got a lot of draft capital, a lot of cash capital invested in that group and we expect it to be better. But look, there's some things here. [2022 first-round pick] Trevor Penning was hurt all last year and didn't really have much of a camp. He didn't start playing until halfway through last season. He was hurt this offseason. He hasn't had the time on task. It's probably unfair of us to just throw him in there, sink or swim. We've had this rotating group of injuries. We miss Terron Armstead's leadership, I think last year in particular, so there's factors there.
Do you think the criticism of [offensive coordinator] Pete Carmichael is fair?
If you're not playing really well, I think the blame for that is everyone. Everyone has a piece of it. I don't know what the criticism is. Depends on what the criticism is and who's giving it. ... Ultimately it's all our responsibility. He's a good coach. He's had a lot of success. That hasn't changed. He's still a good coach. Now whether or not it's the right playcall at the right time, that's all fair. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of our roster, I expect him to do that and he can do that and has done that. I'm not trying to evade the question, I'm just saying there's a lot of factors that belong to all of us and not to Pete exclusively.
How big of an adjustment is it for him to work with Drew Brees his entire career and now have a new quarterback?
It's two years, it's not like he left last year or this year. But yeah, you get used to a certain thing and doing things a certain way and have expectations about how a quarterback's going to react in a certain circumstances and then ... it's different. We're nine games into the Derek Carr era here. So it's no surprise that we're not always on the same page. Look, go back and look at Drew's first 10, 12, 16 games. I think you'll be a little surprised at, 'Oh, wasn't as good as I remembered,' but we won, right? We won right out of the gate, but then look at the next year. The next day. It wasn't perfect. That was an evolution. And look, let's face it, the expectations and the bar was way lower than it is now of the New Orleans Saints.
Have you seen the progress you want to see on offense?
It's never fast enough ... and look, we haven't ... had 60 minutes of offensive football that you felt really good about. But we've had 15 minutes and 25 minutes and 30 minutes, but we haven't had 60 minutes. So that's what we're waiting for right? Because that's what we're used to here, let's be honest. For 10 of those years that Drew was here, it was like, OK, we're gonna have 400 yards of offense, and we're gonna score a lot of touchdowns in the red zone. You get used to that, and that's the bar that we have. It didn't exist before he started hitting the strike. Now that bar is still there and what we measure again, we haven't hit that yet.
How do you feel now about reworking Michael Thomas' contract to bring him back after he missed most of three seasons?
I feel really good. I feel really good for Mike because I know how important it is for him to not just play, but contribute and be the player that he was. I think he's working toward that. He's one of those guys you probably don't realize how much you missed that guy who can just go out there and make a contested catch and be physical as a receiver until you don't have him, and we haven't for part of three seasons, and that's really hard. So it's good to have him back for sure.
What's your confidence in rookie kicker Blake Grupe?
We're confident. He beat out Wil [Lutz]. ... But he's a rookie kicker and we're going to have to go though some growing pains. We know that.
Is it hard to be patient?
Yeah it's hard to have that patience, yes. When you lose a game in Green Bay maybe you could've won if you'd made that field goal. Yes, it's hard to have that patience, but we see the talent. .. Every kick he kicks is a touchback. That's valuable. He can kick a long, long field goal. He gets it elevated quickly, it's not gonna get blocked.
What about rookie punter Lou Hedley?
He's unorthodox, but the results this last game were spectacular. ... This is what's hard to get used to, typically with [Thomas] Morstead for sure and even with Blake [Gillikin] every once in a while you get one of those 60-yard beautiful spirals that go forever. Lou doesn't do that, but what he does do is he kicks it 40 yards and there's no return. We've had a lot of that, and he's been really good kicking the ball inside the 20. ... So we've got to get used to kind of that unorthodox look and see whether or not it's good enough.
The team has gone through stretches of missing the playoffs before. What gives you confidence this team is close?
In [20]15, '16, '17, we had some flaws. Our defense in particular had gotten old, we probably hung on to a couple of those guys a little longer than we should have. We didn't replace them. A couple kind of got away on the character stuff. I didn't emphasize it as strongly as I needed to. We had a lot of really good guys in there, but we had a few that weren't the right guys to handle adversity. That's not the case here. I think we've got a lot of really good players on defense, some good elements on offense. We've got to get ... everybody on the same page -- quarterback, coaches, receivers, all that. The elements are better.
With some of your key defensive players getting older, how do you feel about the future of the team?
On the other side of that, we've got Paulson [Adebo], we've got Marshon [Lattimore]. We've got [Jordan] Howden, who we like a lot. We've got Carl [Granderson]. Khalen [Saunders] is a younger player. Bryan [Bresee]. We've got some guys on that side of the ball, Pete Werner, who we can count on. ... I think we've got a good mix there. I think offensively we're pretty young outside of Alvin [Kamara]. Because the quarterback is what, 32? That's young for a quarterback. It's like being 25 in another position. So I feel pretty good about that. Two of our receivers are young, young guys. I like A.T. Perry, Shaq Davis. We've got some prospects. I feel pretty good about that.