Saints, Pelicans need structural change

For the third-straight season, the New Orleans Saints aren’t going to the NFL Playoffs – barring an NFL miracle.

For me, it’s really not a surprise.

Everyone in the area told me throughout the offseason how this year would be different than the team’s recent failures. I never bought it.

Oh, but Drew Brees still has a few good years, they said. Oh, but Sean Payton got a contract extension, which will renew his energy, they said. Oh, but the team signed Coby Fleener, they said.

It’s all hogwash and propaganda. It takes a lot to fool me – especially when dealing with a team that I don’t actively root for. I knew better. In our New Orleans Saints special section, my column said the team would be 6-10 or 7-9. You all lambasted me in emails, saying my prognostications were too low. Yeah, how’s that working out so far?

That’s enough with my bragging. Time to get to the point.

Let’s face reality, folks. The Saints aren’t very good. They’re one of the most poorly run franchises in the NFL. They make bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, and they spent money about as well as an 8-year-old in a candy store.

They need to blow up the ship and rebuild.

But they’ve been needing to do that for years now, and they haven’t done it yet, so why should I trust that they’d do the right thing in the upcoming offseason?

Now, let’s talk about basketball.

Like the Saints, the New Orleans Pelicans are a mess, and their struggles legitimately make me angry at least two times a week as I watch the team limp to losses that should be wins.

The NBA is a game dominated by stars, and they Pelicans have one of the biggest and brightest stars in the entire galaxy of basketball in Anthony Davis.

That guy is incredible. He can score from anywhere, and has an offensive skillset that we’ve not seen in the NBA in a long, long time. Davis is a bonafide superstar who will be among the best players in the league for the next decade, if not longer.

With AD in his prime, the Pelicans should be soaring. At the very least, they should be a team that reaches the second round of the playoffs.

But at this point, that’s just a pipedream – a faint sliver of light at the end of a tunnel that seems like it’s eons away.

The Pelicans are hamstrung in a pool of mediocrity and it’s because of several decisions they’ve made along the way that have severely restricted their successes.

Firing Monty Williams probably was a smart thing to do, because he didn’t seem to have the chops to lead the team to that next level. But hiring Alvin Gentry wasn’t quite as shrewd as the team would have hoped.

Gentry was supposed to improve the Pelicans pace and make the team a fast-paced, high-octane juggernaut.

He hasn’t.

The Pelicans’ offense is as stagnant today as it was under Williams – if not even more stale.

It doesn’t help that the roster he’s working with is subpar and not nearly as good as a lot of the team’s rivals – a stalwart trait of Pelicans teams that have been built by General Manager Dell Demps, who should have probably been fired years ago.

Now, it’s time to offer some solutions.

The problem surrounding the Benson-owned sports organizations right now is a lack of leadership – especially at the top of the organizational chain.

Benson wants Mickey Loomis to be in charge of everything, but that’s not working.

Loomis had some good days with the Saints, but lately, he’s struggled. Heck, in recent years, he’s made nothing but financial blunders and has been one of the worst evaluators of talent in the league when it comes to making picks in the NFL Draft.

And I think those struggles are because he’s being asked to do too much. His current job responsibilities have him overseeing both the Saints and Pelicans – something no other person in the professional sports world is being asked to do.

And right now, both teams are suffering because of it.

The time has come for Benson to relieve Loomis of his basketball duties and have him focus solely on football.

From there, Benson needs to fire the entire Pelicans front office – Demps, Gentry and everyone else.

With the new blood, the Pelicans have to hire a basketball operations guy who is savvy and who can get bang for the team’s buck – something Demps hasn’t ever done throughout his tenure.

The team also needs to hire a younger, more offensive-oriented coach who can change the team’s culture and get fans excited and proud to be part of the team’s rebuilding.

It will take a lot of work, and nothing about either project will be tough, but it’s time for the Benson family to lay the foundation and get things rolling in the right direction.

He and his associates can’t just keep doing the same things over and over again and expect different results.

That won’t cut it.

Now is the time to make tough decisions and start over.

If unwilling because of age, then sell one of, or both, teams.

The fans of Louisiana deserve much better than what we have today: two dysfunctional organizations who are run more poorly than anyone else in their respective leagues. •

Drew BreesJOSE DELGADO | THE TIMES

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