What did Dennis Allen learn from reviewing the New Orleans Saints’ 2022 season that made him draw the conclusion that blowing up his defensive coaching staff is what will fix this team? Allen burned through his goodwill in his first year at the helm as the Saints’ head coach. In his second offseason, he’s steering the ship right towards the rocks.
NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill reports that Richard was let go due to “some philosophical differences” with other members of the coaching staff, though that’s kind of vague and nebulous. Does it mean Richard has a preference for running more zone or man coverage than Allen is comfortable with? Does he want to run more two-deep safety looks than Allen will sign off on? Does it come down to philosophical team-building decisions in how they scout draft prospects? That’s unclear.
What’s evident is that Allen has his priorities out of order. The Saints offense was miserable last year. Pete Carmichael barely managed to score 19.4 points per game (22nd in the league) as offensive coordinator and play caller. On Wednesday, New Orleans’ passing game coordinator Ronald Curry told ESPN’s Katherine Terrell that the plan is for Carmichael to remain in that role with the play sheet in hand and the mic wired into his quarterback’s helmet. Instead of fixing what’s broken, Allen is putting his time and energy into starting new fires he’ll have to put out.
It’s a bad process, and believing it won’t lead to more bad results is a hard sell. That’s all the more frustrating because the Saints are in such a strong position to compete for their weak division’s title and get to the playoffs. If Allen had as much passion and interest in fielding even a league-average offense, they could get there. Instead he’s showing the door to anyone with a challenge to his authority. You want to know an easier way to keep your overqualified assistants from getting attention than dismissing them? Doing your job better and winning football games so you don’t have people asking if you were the right guy to hire as head coach.
This isn’t all to say that the Saints are doomed. They’re probably doomed with Allen mismanaging personnel this badly, but that isn’t a sure thing. He’s hired good assistants before and he could absolutely find some capable position coaches and a new defensive coordinator this week. But that’s time that could have been spent more wisely addressing the existing problems rather than creating new ones.
That’s where we are. Allen doesn’t enjoy the benefit of the doubt anymore. He must show results and get this team on track and at least post a winning record in 2023. If the Saints continue to trip over themselves and fall short of that again, he shouldn’t be back here next year.