The Saints risk alienating fans by not sending a clear message

CHARLOTTE – The powerful Saints no longer have any support after the team’s latest mistake. Frankly speaking, they can’t come back from this. It’s unfamiliar territory, but not necessarily uncharted territory for New Orleans. It’s almost funny how they keep finding new ways to lose football games and now we wait to see what happens over the next 24 hours, if anything happens at all.

Put all that aside for a moment and just look at a 2-7 team that has lost seven games in a row. These are the kind of business results that lead to coach firings in today’s NFL. It’s always been a ‘what have you done for me lately’ league and the results on the field haven’t been for the Saints. How can they continue to justify what they are being sold?

Dennis Allen is now 18-25 years old as the Saints head coach and 26-53 years into his career. That’s winning 33% of games overall, but now just 41.9% of games against New Orleans. If the Saints don’t take action, they risk alienating their fans even more than they already have. They’re fed up. Fans have expressed dissatisfaction with the way things are going. Heck, even the coaches and players acknowledged the fans’ disappointment. But it has become commonplace and should no longer be so.

Fan attendance at the Superdome will plummet no matter what happens in the next 24 hours. Maybe the Falcons coming to New Orleans and taking over it could actually wake some people up. The Saints are set to go home with three home games in a row. Fans I’ve spoken to have already sold out or are planning to do so. That’s where we are. How did we get to this point?

Saints fans are proud and passionate, and with good reason. They are proud of what they had to face and overcome to get to New Orleans. People literally had to rebuild from scratch. At that time, the Saints did the same. Something beautiful was being built, and then it became dilapidated, old and dilapidated. The joy and passion have been sucked out of them and they just want to know that they are seen.

It’s been said several times: if you love New Orleans, it will love you back. There’s not a lot of love for their football team right now, and a lot of that is their own doing.