It seems like Saints followers ought to count on extra of the identical come 2024. New Orleans Saints govt vice chairman and normal supervisor Mickey Loomis held his annual end-of-season press conference Wednesday. Regardless of firing longtime offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael on Tuesday, Loomis remained steadfast in his choice to not full the transition by firing head coach Dennis Allen.
When requested concerning the choice to carry again Allen, Loomis reached for a sheet of paper in his again pocket whereas saying the “lazy thing to do” is to assign blame to coaches and quarterbacks primarily based on “the result of the season.” He went on to checklist how a few of the league’s finest coaches of all time started their careers.
“Look, I was prepared for this question,” Loomis stated, referring to the folded-up paper. “Chuck Noll, his first three years. Hall of Fame coach. He was 1-13, 5-9, 6-8. But they recognized that this guy’s a good football coach, right? Bill Belichick. Here’s his first three seasons. 6-10, 7-9, 7-9. Tom Landry. 0-11, 4-9, 5-8, 4-10, 5-8. Hall of Fame coaches, all of them. Bill Walsh, first year 2-14. Second year 6-10.
“I think the easy thing to do is just look at the results,” Loomis continued, “and say ‘Oh, no. We gotta have a change.’ You gotta look beyond that. What are the reasons why we were 9-8 instead of 13-4. It’s collective. It’s the players, it’s the coaches, it’s me, it’s our personnel staff, our roster. It’s variables, sometimes we don’t have any control of.”
At 24-26, Allen presently has the bottom win share of any lively head coach within the league at 34.3%. His runway is longer than all of the coaches Loomis listed exterior of Landry, a coach credited with inventing the 4-3 protection and “Flex Defense,” a protection so efficient that he needed to additionally invent an offensive counter to it.
The factor is, Loomis’ mindset of staying the trail irrespective of the result’s what the Saints have finished for the whole thing of the post-Brees-Payton period. Earlier than Allen turned the top coach of the Saints in 2022, he was the Saints’ defensive coordinator for seven seasons. Earlier than that, Allen spent six mixed seasons between 2006 and 2015 in varied positional/assistant roles. The identical goes for Carmichael, the recently-fired offensive coordinator who had held the place since 2009.
Has having the identical faces within the constructing led to success for New Orleans? Relies upon the way you outline “success.” Allen was an awesome defensive coordinator. New Orleans completed within the top-10 in defensive DVOA 5 straight seasons earlier than his promotion to go coach. That has slipped of late, although, with the Saints ending ninth and fifteenth, respectively, in Allen’s two seasons as head coach. Carmichael’s falloff was even tougher. The Saints completed top-10 in offensive DVOA each single 12 months between 2009 and 2020, earlier than cratering to twenty sixth the 12 months after Drew Brees retired. Within the two years since Payton left the group, Carmichael’s offense completed twenty second and seventeenth.
It’s half of a bigger thesis for the post-Brees-Payton period. Loomis and the Saints possession proceed to run again the identical corps regardless of not seeing outcomes. Loomis has continued to work cap magic on the Saints, deferring large cash and taking up useless cap hits to maintain big-name veteran contracts. New Orleans has but to take a legit swing at a rookie quarterback, persevering with to work with veteran retreads. They preserve handing out enormous offers to veteran skills and longtime Saints. It’s all half-measures to carry collectively a crew that’s made one convention championship since profitable the Tremendous Bowl in 2009.
No matter relative success New Orleans had underneath Brees and Payton has all however dissipated. The Saints are 16-18 underneath Allen in two seasons, ending 9-8 this 12 months regardless of having one of many best schedules in soccer and taking part in within the league’s weakest division. In addition they completed 2023 because the oldest roster within the league, almost half-a-year older than second place. The Saints haven’t made the playoffs since Brees retired and 6 completely different quarterbacks have began video games within the final three seasons. At the beginning of the subsequent league 12 months in March, the Saints can be $82.2 million over the cap – almost double the second-worst crew.
Even worse, Saints followers can count on extra of this sooner or later. Loomis reiterated the slow-play mantra when it got here time to ask about discovering a brand new offensive coordinator.
“Look, one of the mistakes that our league, in general makes, is we’re in a rush, in a race to hire people because we’re afraid of someone else beating us to the draw,” Loomis said. “I think that’s a mistake. I think the most important thing is the right guy in the right situation. Take your time. Make sure it’s a thoughtful, planned decision. We’re gonna go through the process and make the right hire. We’re not gonna make the expedient hire.”
A crew that most likely ought to have blown it up final 12 months and positively ought to be blowing it up this 12 months is operating it again yet one more time.
