The Saints became the second team, after the Jets, to show their head coach the door this fall, in the middle of the season. Dennis Allen wasn’t doing the job, and good luck to whoever takes his place next year.
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Allen, who took office in 2022, will have presented a record of 18-25 and the Saints’ seven losses in a row have finished him off. By losing against a team as dismal as the Panthers on Sunday, he signed his death warrant.
The great start of the team, which won its first two games by scoring 91 points, already seems like a distant memory.
Already, media that follow the team on a daily basis are reporting dissensions between the players and Allen. It is reported that his message no longer got through and that players even made fun of him behind his back. It’s very chic!
Change of course necessary
Allen was, in a way, the good old slippers of the close guard of the Benson family, owners of the team.
He joined the Saints in 2006, when they were entering the most glorious era in their history, with Drew Brees as quarterback and Sean Payton as head coach.
After an exile with the Broncos and Raiders from 2011 to 2014, he returned home in 2015 as an assistant and then as defensive coordinator, a position he held until Payton’s departure in 2022.
He represented continuity among the Saints since he was an apostle of general manager Mickey Loomis, himself in office since 2002 and lieutenant of the Benson clan.
Are you starting to see a tangent and realize that it’s high time to seriously stir the soup?
A difficult mandate
It’s as if for several years, the Saints have been trying to cling to the nostalgia of a not-so-distant past. The time has come to break out of the worn-out box. Drew Brees is no longer here. Neither does Sean Payton and new blood is needed.
Allen isn’t solely to blame for the Saints’ problems. As GM Loomis put it, the team has been hit with an “avalanche of injuries” this season.
The fact remains that the roster is very aging. Quarterback Derek Carr is not particularly efficient and he does not seem to generate much sympathy in the locker room. His contract makes any separation difficult to envisage before 2025.
According to projections, the Saints could enter the 2025 season $77 million over the salary cap. Many veterans are overpaid for the production they provide at this stage of their careers.
Since the end of the Payton-Brees regime the team has been overcharging the credit card. The time has come to start paying back.
This is why we wish good luck to Dennis Allen’s successor. Special teams coordinator and interim coach Darren Rizzi will only pass through.
Whoever gets the job next year will obviously have to navigate through a few difficult seasons of restructuring. Not sure that this context will attract the biggest fish in the lake.
With a good young quarterback, the picture changes quickly, as we saw last year in Houston and this season in Washington. But you still have to find it.
The Saints have not tasted the playoffs since Brees’ last season in 2020 and everything suggests that they will have to wait a little longer.
And now who will be the next pilot to lose his job? Things aren’t looking any better for Doug Pederson’s Jaguars and Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys. Even though he’s in his first season, Antonio Pierce may not survive another Raiders disaster.
