Did you know Darren Rizzi coached with Dan Campbell? Both men were on staff with the Miami Dolphins way back in 2015. Before he rose to prominence as the Detroit Lions’ biggest personality, Campbell was raising eyebrows by running Oklahoma drills to set the tone in his first practice as the Dolphins’ interim coach.
After getting a laugh at that — of course the kneecap-biter ran physical one-on-one Oklahoma drills — Rizzi confirmed that he had spoken with Campbell after being named Saints interim coach. That’s an experience he felt he could draw from.
“I did speak with him, had a nice, long conversation with him,” Rizzi began, speaking Wednesday. “Dan’s a close friend. Dan’s quite frankly, if not the biggest reason I’m here, certainly one of them. One of the first things he said to me the other morning was, ‘Rizz, when we did this we did it together. Remember we did A, B, and C, we did X, Y, and Z.’ And I thought those were great things we did.”
Campbell wasn’t the only resource he pulled from. Rizzi also spoke with Todd Bowles (another former coworker with interim coach experience, now a head coach like Campbell), and Chris Tabor, another special teams coach who led the Carolina Panthers last year as their interim head coach. He said he also sought advice from legendary coach Bill Parcells, Sean Payton’s famous mentor.
“Dan, all those guys had some great advice, I certainly took it in,” Rizzi added.
We’ll see if it made a difference. Rizzi said in clear terms that the Saints are not throwing in the towel on this season. They have a tense rivalry game to win this weekend with an Atlanta Falcons team that’s already beaten them once this season, and then the back half of their schedule laid out through January. He’ll have every opportunity to put those lessons learned from Campbell, Bowles, Tabor and Parcellls to good use.
