The New Orleans Saints will begin a new era next week when they begin training camp under first-year coach Kellen Moore.
Moore, 37, will attempt to get the Saints back to the postseason for the first time since Drew Brees retired after the 2020 season. But the team will have to answer a lot of questions left over from last season, when New Orleans finished 5-12 under a combination of head coach Dennis Allen and interim coach Darren Rizzi.
The Saints overhauled most of the coaching staff and plan to implement a new defense under Brandon Staley. They also brought in new faces like safety Justin Reid, while trying to piece the quarterback puzzle together after Derek Carr decided to retire in May.
Here are some of the lingering questions the Saints will attempt to answer in training camp this summer:
How much is left in the tank for some key vets?
The Saints' four oldest players -- Cameron Jordan (36), Demario Davis (36), Taysom Hill (34) and Tyrann Mathieu (33) -- are team captains and key pieces of the team. But they all come with questions at this stage of their careers.
Jordan is going into his 15th season with the team and is coming off a disappointing 2024. Jordan's playing time decreased under Allen before Allen was fired after a 2-7 start. Jordan stated last year that he was unhappy that he was asked to take snaps at defensive tackle and didn't appear to be a fan of former defensive line coach Todd Grantham, who was moved to another role under Rizzi and eventually left for another job.
The Saints signed Chase Young, 26, to a new deal this offseason while reworking Jordan's contract to be significantly incentive based, cutting his base salary in half with the ability to earn money back via playing time and sack incentives. Carl Granderson, 28, has three years left on his deal. Where all of that leaves Jordan is likely something that will be decided in camp.
Davis turned 36 in January and has been a permanent starter at linebacker since he signed with the Saints in 2018. The Saints haven't had any luck finding a replacement, with Zack Baun signing with the Eagles last season. The team had issues with missed tackles and run defense last year, and they'll need Davis to perform at a high level to find success.
Mathieu and Jordan have similar contract situations, as Mathieu also agreed to a pay cut that allowed him to recoup money via incentives, with $3.25 million available in playing-time incentives.
"It's much bigger than me," Mathieu said of coming back this season. "I probably could have went somewhere else and did something else, but I think for me, man, it's all about my community and my family and just trying to pour into that as much as I can. Outside of the football, I think a big reason why I'm here is community."
Mathieu played 86% of the defensive snaps last year but did not miss a game despite injuries. If he retains his starting role this season, he'll be paired next to Reid, who he played with in Houston in 2018.
Hill is the biggest question of the veterans after tearing an ACL in December. The Saints have not given a timetable for his return, although he was present on the sidelines for one minicamp practice in June. Hill has long been the Saints' do-everything player, and losing him for a significant portion of the year would be a big blow to the offense.
Is there enough firepower in the WR room?
The Saints finished 21st in total offense last season -- a combination of quarterback play, protection issues and injuries. They spent a large portion of the season without receivers Chris Olave (concussions) or Rashid Shaheed (knee injury), and their leading receiver in touchdowns was Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who was signed midseason.
Valdes-Scantling signed with the Seattle Seahawks in the offseason, and the Saints brought back Brandin Cooks after a lengthy absence. But Cooks is just one of many receivers in the room looking for a bounce-back year after putting up career-low numbers of 26 catches for 259 yards with the Dallas Cowboys in 2024. Cooks played only 10 games because of an infection in his knee.
Shaheed, an All-Pro kick returner in 2023, caught three touchdowns in 2024 before a meniscus injury in the sixth game of the season. Olave sustained at least two concussions last year and missed the final eight games of the season as he sought the advice of specialists.
Whether the receivers can stay healthy will be one of the big questions they face as training camp begins, but the other question surrounding the group will be about size and height. The presumed starting three (Cooks, Olave and Shaheed) are all 6-foot or shorter and weigh less than 200 pounds.
"At the end of the day, wideout play is 'Can you beat your guy in front of you?' I think a lot of us can do that," Cooks said. "There's a lot of narratives. There's not a tall [guy], there's not a big guy, but we all can separate and so it doesn't matter the similarities that we got. We can all play in any space."
Do the Saints have the right young QBs?
Quarterback will be the most scrutinized position this offseason with the three young draft picks all competing for a starting or backup role.
Tyler Shough, 25, was the Saints' second-round pick this year. Spencer Rattler, 24, was taken in the fifth round in 2024, and Jake Haener, 26, was a fourth-round pick in 2023. It's an unusual situation to have so many young quarterbacks, but Moore isn't concerned about that, and they'll be surrounded by a coaching staff that played the position in the NFL.
It'll be a while before it's known if the potential will translate into success, but none of them have recorded a win as an NFL starter. Rattler has the most experience of the three after starting six games last season for an injured Carr. Haener started one game against the Washington Commanders in Week 15, but he was pulled for Rattler after just one half.
Shough and Rattler will be the front-runners in a competition that will likely last all of camp, with both splitting first-team reps like they did in OTAs and minicamp. Haener was recovering from an oblique injury during a portion of the offseason but will be in the mix as well.
"We have a good group," Moore said. "I think these guys have done an awesome job through this whole offseason process. They all are on the younger side from an experience standpoint ... but they're hungry, they're ready. They're really, really smart football players. They understand it at a really high level. ... They're throwing it well out here, and so I feel like they're doing everything we can ask for."
Can the Saints sustain losing their starting CBs?
The Saints will have new Week 1 starters at outside cornerback this season after the departures of Paulson Adebo and Marshon Lattimore.
Second-year player Kool-Aid McKinstry will likely take one of the outside spots, with the second outside spot and the interior potentially up for grabs.
Who takes those spots could depend on how the Saints choose to deploy their defensive backs in nickel and base packages. The Saints brought back veteran Isaac Yiadom and also drafted Quincy Riley in the fourth round this year.
That could mean a lot of opportunities for fourth-year player Alontae Taylor to move around. That's a role he has grown used to over the years after swinging from outside to inside.
Taylor was an outside cornerback as a rookie in 2022, was moved to the slot in 2023 and ended up outside again in the second half of last season because of depth issues.
Taylor said he thinks he'll have a "crucial" role this season and already expressed his optimism about playing in Staley's defense.
"I think I'm going to help the defense out in many ways," Taylor said. "I kind of get the feeling that I had going into my senior year at Tennessee. ... The freedom that I have to move around and kind of play my game and not feel like a robot out there, I'm super excited about it."