The New Orleans Saints ended their 2023 season in style with a 48-17 win over the Falcons, but it was still the end with another postseason missed by tiebreakers.
Still, there's no denying that the improved play of the offense is a major bright spot heading into the offseason, particularly as it pertains to young skill players in A.T. Perry, Kendre Miller, Rashid Shaheed and Chris Olave, all of whom scored touchdowns in the rout of Atlanta. Dennis Allen got into that subject and more when he spoke with Bobby Hebert and Mike Hoss on WWL this week.
"That’s one of the things that excites you about the potential that we have offensively," Allen said. "The first touchdown to A.T. Perry, you look out there on the field and it’s A.T. Perry and it’s Chris Olave and it’s Rashid Shaheed and it’s Kendre Miller, like, that’s the skill group that’s out there on the field and all of those are rookie and second-year players, and so that gets you excited to see what this offense can be.”
The biggest boost came in the form of Miller, who hadn't played since Week 9 as he battled a lingering ankle injury. He showed no signs of an issue in Week 18, running for a game- and career-high 73 yards on 13 carries, including his first career touchdown. He made defenders miss multiple times and showed a burst that has seemed to be lacking at times this season in the run game.
For Perry it was a continued progression that began when he made his season debut in Week 9. His season-long numbers of 12 catches for 246 yards and 4 touchdowns won't jump off the page, but he clearly became a trusted target of Derek Carr's as the season progressed, and that helped spur an impressive final four games for the Saints QB.
Related
Add that to the continued growth of second-year receivers Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, both of whom set new career highs in catches, yards and touchdowns, and you have an offense that suddenly feels like it has a youth movement around a quarterback that can get them the ball. A 9-8 finish and playoff miss still stings, but not quite as much as it could've based on where things were after a three-game losing streak to drop to 5-7.
Carr's final four games: 96-126 (75%), 998 yards, 12 TDs, 1 INT
“I don’t think there’s any question [that Derek Carr will be the starting QB going forward]," Allen said. "The way that he performed down the stretch I thought was outstanding, and I thought, you know, I thought the players around him executed at a high level, also. And so, you know, those numbers that you just rattled off, I mean, those aren’t … just like hum-ho numbers, these are numbers in an elite category. And so look, I think building this thing around what he can do and continuing to try to, you know, put him in the best position for success, I think, leads to a lot more success for our football team. And I think we all understand the importance of the quarterback position.”
━━
MORE FROM DENNIS ALLEN
What are the next steps in Saints offseason process
“The process right now is, look, I’ll have plenty of opportunities over the next few days to kind of sit down with Mickey and kind of evaluate, get his thoughts on the season, him be able to share with me, me be able to share with him. We’ll kind of evaluate everything and then I want to take all the emotion out of any decisions that get made, whether it be player evaluation or staff evaluations or any of those types of things, take all the emotion out of it, you get a chance to really sit back and evaluate and so coaches will be off. We’ll be back in next week and we’ll go through the evaluation process starting next week.”
Related
━━
On not taking advantage of weak schedule
“You never know what the schedule is really going to be until you start playing these games, so records from previous years don’t really have any bearing on what the record is going to be for the next year, and so, look, I know that we’re going to be playing some teams that have shown to be productive teams in our league, and so we’re gonna have to do a good job — we’re gonna have to win some of these games against the better teams, and I think, you know, look, five of the eight losses were against teams that are in the playoffs. So, regardless of what anybody might think about how they’re in there, why they’re in there, any of those types of things. Five of the eight losses came against teams that made the playoffs last year, and we’re gonna have to win games against good teams, and that’s what we’re going to need to do to improve our football team.”
━━
On blown lead vs Packers
“I think we all knew at the time that there was a chance that this one could come up and bite us, and it did, and it was a game that we had in hand and it’s a game that we should’ve won, and we didn’t do that, and so that’s why we’re sitting in the predicament that we’re in, and certainly there was other opportunities throughout the season that we could’ve taken advantage of that we didn’t. And so we all recognize that, you know, this is the bed that we made and we’ve got to lay in it. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept that that’s gonna be our reality going forward and we need to do what’s necessary to improve as a football team.”