The Saints feel like they're trapped in a bad, repetitive sequel. They need to change the script. Now.

The Saints are going to have to find a way to come up with new plot points or they’re going to lose their audience. You can only wink and nod at the camera so many times about the sequel being the same as the original before people stop wanting to see you wink and nod with the promise that things will eventually veer off and be different.

And look, I mean, the writing this season feels a little uninspired since we’ve already seen it before. It’s not quite as bad as that one year when the writers strike was going on and the nerdy guy on “Friday Night Lights” started murdering people because the replacement writers lacked creativity, but it’s becoming incredibly uninspired. How many times can they hit us with the Paulson Adebo penalty storyline and the bad Derek Carr pick and the special teams gaffe and a busted coverage at the end of the game that allows an explosive play? At some point, this thing needs to evolve into something else, something new.

I will say, it sounds like they’re not resting on their laurels and do have some ideas for this season. I heard they were considering in a new cast member to shake things up, someone from Derek Carr’s past, but we’ve seen that kind of stunt casting in other shows, and while it can work, it’s going to take more than just dropping another guy into the current plot and thinking that it will cure everything. Monday’s 26-13 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs showed just how far away things really are.

So, if I may … I have a few thoughts about how to get things back on track.

Let’s start with the main character: Things were more compelling early in the season when Derek Carr was on something that looked like a redemption arc. That was something to watch, something to get behind, something new and interesting and inspired. The first two episodes this year drew major ratings, had everyone buzzing in a way people hadn’t buzzed since these seasons were broadcast in standard definition.

And then the writers had the team lay a dud against Philadelphia. OK, sure, that made sense. Get to the top, fall off, make the climb back. A little formulaic? A little too standard sports story? Sure, but it works if you can blur the lines just enough to make it feel fresh. Maybe that’s what’s happening now and they’re setting up a come back, but I’m worried that the decision to get to the bad stuff this early means this season might head another direction, a bad direction.

And, look, just rewriting the same old Derek Carr stuff feels tired. You can only ask people to tune in see if people escape their circumstances so many times. One season of being trapped, sure. Maybe two, but you saw “The Good Place,” right? Great show at first. Felt fresh. Quickly ran out of steam. Doesn't take long before we're all in the bad place watching that thing spin its wheels.

I mean, you’re going to keep going with the whole Carr’s bad under pressure story? I thought the interception against Philadelphia was just a plot device to remind us of that monster lurked beneath the surface. Never get too comfortable. You need some of that. And then the writers came back with the pick six against Atlanta. That felt a little overdone. But again, this week? Come on. I can’t imagine that many viewers were looking to stick around after things circled back right to that during the offense’s opening scene when Carr threw another terrible pick.

“I tried to throw it away over his head and clearly didn’t throw it out of bounds,” Carr explained. “So boneheaded. Stupid. Trying to throw that ball – trying to be legal because I thought I was still in the pocket – but I can throw it away in front of me.”

OK. Got it. End it there. That car ran out of gas. But nope. They went all in and decided to have Carr seeing ghosts that weren’t even there. Did we really need to see him rush a throw on third-and-8 to Shaheed in the fourth quarter with no one around? We get it. He would have hit it if he could have avoided the pitfalls of his past demons … that’s a little too on the nose, isn’t it? Be willing to leave some stuff on the cutting-room floor.

And don’t even get me started on another season of Derek Carr playing through injuries. We just sat through this last year. Just skip that, write around that story line, play it off like a scare and let Klint Kubiak go back to directing him the way he did early in the season. The Saints really had a good storyline going there. I have to give it to Jake Haener, he did a great job building intrigue after the game and delivered his lines perfectly. “The expectation is that we’re going to move the ball and score,” he said. “And if I got to start next week, it’s going to be the same expectation.”

Awesome cliffhanger. You got us tuning in to see what happens next, but get out of that storyline quickly. Let the main character be the main character. But I understand if it takes an episode. So much has been invested into this storyline, and all the offensive line injuries kind of set this up as an inevitability. You can’t really just act like it didn’t happen. But no one is trying to watch this season fade into the injury tent.

Gotta give it up, though: The story of the secondary is actually quietly one of the more creative things this season. That was supposed to be the strength of the team and they made it a weird weakness. The problem: Stuck with the story too long. We’ve now seen three versions of the same point.

Philadelphia: Two defenders collide. Big play. Saints lose.

Atlanta: Bad pass interference. Big play. Saints lose.

Chiefs: Defender slips. Big play. Saints lose. Smart to not let it be Adebo again. Letting him get around it by tipping a pick to Bink was kind of cool.

At least this one didn’t lead to the game winner. They twisted it up a little bit to make it be the one where it allowed the Chiefs to pull off and bury the Saints. So, that was at least something different. I asked Dennis Allen about the Paulson Adebo plot and if he’s worried about it getting overdone with teams targeting it now that they know it’s open season on him.

Maybe that’s unfair, but it sure felt that way in this game. The Chiefs almost got him on a PI in the first half but Adebo got away with it. When the offense came back on the field, Patrick Mahomes went right back at 29 for a 46-yard penalty. Allen said he wasn’t sure yet if he agreed with the penalty. So, I guess we’ll see how he feels on that one depending on if they fix the issue or recast the part, which I’m not expecting.

Either way, all I know is this cast is too talented for this to be the direction of the script, right? Maybe there’s a limit on how good everything can be, and that bar is lowering after the stellar two-part season premier, but I mean, sheesh, it fell off.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Marshon Lattimore said when asked that question. “We really weren’t supposed to lose those two games before we lost this one. There’s no way we’re supposed to do that. We’re too good to lose those type of games.”

Lattimore wants to attack the problem. Go open everything up, lay it out and make the real changes. And he’s not the only one who was begging for the story to change. After the game, Demario Davis told everyone to audit their process and be real with it. If there’s something you could be doing better, he said, it’s time to change the script.

But here’s the thing: The guys who are putting this story together swear it’s not the same as last year’s. They keep saying that they have all the elements in place for a great season, and they’re going to get back to that. They think the defense is still there, same as always, old reliable. They think the offense is great. If we keep tuning in, they say, the story will be worthwhile and we’ll see where this thing is going.

“I don’t want to operate under a cloud of misjudgment just because we had some great weeks of offense,” tight end Foster Moreau said. “You know what I mean? And then we have two gut-wrenching losses the last two weeks. There’s football and then there’s the NFL, and the NFL is up and down. It’s a rollercoaster and it’s difficult.

“But football is one of the greatest teachers that we as players and athletes and coaches, media, fans, everyone, that we can really have. It’s a great teacher of lessons. And I mean, I’m in year six and this is one of the best offenses I’ve been a part of, and I’m excited to come to work every fucking day and that’s not going to change.”

There’s a lot there to unpack. But I think there’s some foreshadowing and some explanations of how things got there. The ups and downs are obvious. You have to have those in every season. At some point, it’s going to hit the Chiefs, too. No one rides through perfectly. That died out in the 70s. And they think there will be a lesson to be revealed. And it’s clear that the people who are in charge of the story aren’t discouraged.

But that doesn’t really tell us where this is going. Is it a story about overcoming adversity? Because, if it isn’t, is it headed toward finality? Because this — this is in serious danger of being a repeat, and you can only get so much mileage out of repeats. You can’t put out the same thing four seasons in a row unless you’re shameless, and I know that these folks don’t want to do that to their audience.

So, the quickest fix would be to make a couple tweaks to make this story more interesting. My last note: If this season ends up working out, montage through this rough part because, well … it’s been rough. Might end up being a viable and important plot point, but it drags on too long.