Saints rundown: New Orleans needs to embrace this rebuild and be willing to exist out of the spotlight to get it right

The Saints don’t have any prime-time games this season.

The country won’t get to watch Olave and Alvin and Tyrann and Demario and Cam unless they tune in at noon or three and decide to watch them over other teams. And hopefully, there’s a reason for people to do that, but right now, the league is guessing that there will be better viewing options.

And that’s OK. That’s reflective of where this team stands. There are no known commodities at quarterback. There are questions all over the defense. The coaching staff, while promising and while decorated and while accomplished, hasn’t decorated any walls here. Not yet. They’re a blank slate right now.

The league is saying it will take a little while for things to come together. And you know what? I hope it does! I hope that Mickey Loomis and Kellen Moore and Michael Parenton and Jeff Ireland and Khai Harley and Randy Mueller and everyone else sit back, look at this and decide to go the long road. I hope they’re incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that the league doesn’t think their team is built for prime time, but I also hope that they are comfortable with being uncomfortable for a while.

Because you know the way out of this? You know the way back to real prosperity? It’s building a young team, drafting players who are going to be around for a while, and gathering a core that can be built upon for the next six, seven, ten years. It’s not Aaron Rodgers. It’s not veteran free agents. If this is going to work, it needs to be Kelvin Banks and Taliese Fuaga and Tyler Shough. And if it isn’t, it needs to be Cade Klubnik or Garrett Nussmeier or whoever else.

But we all know what it’s not: It’s not old guys and it’s not any path that promises to be quick. It’s time to embrace where things exist and try to build it the right way. It’s funny, though. Right now, it’s easy to be optimistic. The last time the Saints were OK with being bad, they still had one of the 10 best quarterbacks of all time on the roster and he elevated a team that probably should have only won three games to seven wins.

That really wasn’t THAT bad because Drew was still there and the offense had some pieces. Ingram and Cooks and Willie Snead rounded out the offense. Terron Armstead, Max Unger, Jahri and Strief were on the line.

That defense, though. Man, when was the last time you looked at that roster? Bobby Richardson started 11 games for the Saints and never played in the NFL again. Stephon Anthony was running the wrong way on kickoffs and handoffs. Kevin Williams, a great player throughout his career, played out his final snaps on that team. Brandon Browner was yelling at reporters and posting about how he stole money from the team.

That was a weird time, but even that wasn’t really bad. All you had to do was follow 9, and you knew there was a way out.

What’s the way out this time? That, we do not know, which actually makes this scarier. We don’t know what we don’t know. And that very feeling is why it made sense at one point to go after Derek Carr and follow that path. These teams that get stuck in hell, sometimes stay stuck there. So, that was worth trying, seemed like a good idea, but then you realize after a while you’re following a guide who seems confident and believes he knows the directions but actually has no idea he’s lost and you’re never getting out of there.

So, now you start over with new people and a new plan and it’s completely blank … and this actually feels right. It feels like the best way to do it. It’s needed. All you have to do is see a little bit of hope and end with a little bit of hope, and it will be a much better place to exist.

Maybe the country won’t want to watch it being built, but here, locally, this team doesn’t have to be good. If they’re bad with reasons for hope, that will be much more enjoyable and interesting to watch than the team last year that got awarded prime-time games or the one before that got rewarded prime-time games.

The schedule is just a reflection of reality. Right now, this team stinks and is uninteresting to anyone looking from a distance. The players and the front office and the coaches need to change the view.

This is probably the lowest it’s ever been, in terms of perception, in a long, long time, And yet, this is exactly the view I wanted for this team the last couple of years. I don’t know if it comes into focus, but it’s high time for a new picture.

CHRIS OLAVE RUMORS: I get why these rumors are out there. I do. The latest one from Pittsburgh. You see a team with a good player, you assume they stink, so you start shopping their list.

Bad teams, rebuilding teams, are usually willing to trade assets. So, maybe the Saints end up there.

But …

I also don’t think it would make a lot of sense for New Orleans to trade Chris Olave unless it is already clear that he’ll be leaving. But even then, unless the return is crazy, why would you trade him right now? You have a whole season to figure that out, and he might be the single player who most directly impacts Tyler Shough’s ability to succeed this season.

Making that trade doesn’t make a lot of sense. But as I wrote here before: These things often become self-fulfilling. If people talk about something long enough, even if it isn’t currently real, you talk it into existence. Someone sees a name. They make a call. The conversation is productive. Boom. It gets done. But for what it's worth, it doesn't sound like anything real is happening right now.

But let's say there is a team willing to pay up for Olave ... are the Steelers the team for that? I imagine the Saints are willing to trade anyone on their roster for the right price ... and the price for Olave is probably insanely high. Are the Steelers, a team that has been unaggressive this offseason, the one that are going to make a call and blow the doors down? Hard to see it. Not saying it can't happen. Just hard to see from a team that doesn't even have a QB.

INTERESTING SPOT: Dallin Holker has an ankle injury, which makes tight end a super interesting spot.

He’s battling an injury. Foster Moreau is working his way back from a knee injury. Taysom Hill has an injury and may or may not be a tight end in this system. That means the door is wide open for guys to make an impression throughout the summer.

Not sure on the exact timeline for Holker’s injury, which means the door is wide open for Juwan Johnson, Jack Stoll, Michael Jacobson, Moliki Matavao and Treyton Welch to make an early impression in that spot.

And it’s a good spot to have a door open. There are no real juggernauts on the depth chart, and it looks like positions are up for grabs.

NOT IDEAL: Was just looking at teams that are playing teams coming off of a bye. The Saints have three of those games.

They get the Rams coming off of a bye, Miami coming off of a bye and Carolina coming off of a bye.

So, maybe not as ideal a schedule as it looked before.