During a press conference Wednesday, New Orleans Saints general manager Micky Loomis used lofty examples in NFL history to compare head coach Dennis Allen. Many Saints fans wanted Allen fired following a 16-18 record after his first two seasons with the Saints.
The Saints finished 9-8 this season and missed the playoffs. The Saints were expected to be at least a Wild Card team after they signed quarterback Derek Carr last offseason. However, the Saints decided to give Allen another season to show improvement for the 2024 season.
The New Orleans Saints compare Dennis Allen to Bill Belichick
Loomis might be giving Allen the benefit of the doubt after missing the playoffs this season, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have high expectations for Allen next season. Loomis compared Allen’s trajectories to two NFL coaching icons, Bill Belichick and Tom Landry. Here are Loomis’ comments, per the NFL’s website:
“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: 2-14; second year, 6-10,” Loomis told reporters on Wednesday.
“So I think the easy thing to do is just look the results and say, ‘Oh no, we’ve got to have a change.’ You need to 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 that we don’t have control of. And so my assessment is Dennis Allen is a good coach. Again, with Sean Payton we went 10-6 the first year, but then we were 7-9, 8-8 and I heard some of the same noise, but at the time I knew we had a good football coach,
I think sometimes the hard thing to do is to be patient and recognize your other shortcomings and get those fixed, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Bill Belichick could be heading to the NFC South in 2024
The Saints could progress with Allen in their third season if the head coach can learn from his mistakes in the 2023 season. The problem most Saints fans have with retaining Allen is that the Saints should have been able to win the NFC South this season. The Saints didn’t sign Carr in the offseason to sit at home after Week 18.
If Allen wants to get to the 2025 season in New Orleans, he will need to have a more considerable leap in 2024 than Belichick and Landry did in their third year. Allen can’t survive a losing season after the resources they’ve given the team.
And if the Atlanta Falcons hire Belichick this offseason…good luck with that.
For More Football News:
Follow me on Twitter at @JordanSig. You can also reach out to Jordan Sigler via email at jordanmsigler@gmail.com. To read more of our articles and keep up to date on the latest in college and NFL news, click here!