When the New Orleans Saints lost their Super Bowl winning head coach, Sean Payton, they were looking to maintain a continuity of the success Payton had during nine seasons as the head man in New Orleans. So, they picked off Payton’s staff his successful defensive coordinator, Dennis Allen.
An assistant coach or coordinator position in the NFL requires a different set of skills than being a head coach. Allen is an X and O’s guy with the best of them, and a coordinator who will succeed wherever he serves. But as a head coach, he is as successful as the person working the cash register at 7-11 now being put in charge of the company’s computing systems.
Allen was a failure in his first stop as a head coach, compiling an 8 and 28 mark during three seasons as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. He completed his Saints career with a record of nine wins and 17 losses. For you math majors, that adds up to 17 wins and 45 losses as an NFL head coach.
Of course he got fired … but was it soon enough to save the Saints 2024 campaign?
New Orleans opened this season with a pair of one-sided wins, victories over the Carolina Panthers at home and a trouncing of the Dallas Cowboys in Big D. Now, we know those wins came against very suspect competition, and New Orleans hasn’t had a win since. It started out with a narrow loss in Week Three to the Philadelphia Eagles and they followed that loss with a two-point defeat against the team they host today, the Atlanta Falcons.
Those losses didn’t dent the Saints hopes for a playoff date this season, but a third straight loss to the Kansas City Chiefs included a serious injury to quarterback Derek Carr. Without him behind center and with Allen in charge, the Saints went from contender to pretender in a hurry.
The defense got stung for 51 points at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they lost their next two games by a combined 59-19 score to the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers.
If Don Meredith was still with us, he would be breaking into a chorus of “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”
But it has been my observation that when a team is at their darkest moment, when they are looking into the abyss of little hope, they respond like a father protecting his daughter against an intruder. And the Saints have added Darren Rizzi as their head coach just in time for him to benefit from the Saints dire spot.
Compare the Saints needs to the Falcons perch atop the NFC South Division standings and coming off five wins in their most recent six outings. That run includes a pair of victories over the second place Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are two games behind Atlanta in their division race.
If the Falcons win here, and they are favored to do that and the public is backing them at a healthy 7 ot 1 clip, they are sailing into an area where they are nearly securing a postseason birth at the midpoint of the season.
How wonderful that would be for Atlanta fans.
Except, it’s not going to happen.
Qoxhi Picks: New Orleans Saints (+3½) over Atlanta Falcons