The latest New Orleans Saints losing streak extended to three games after the black and gold fell short to the Detroit Lions. It’s disappointing, but not surprising: this is what a Dennis Allen-led team looks like. The Saints’ 5-7 record is the best Allen has ever had after Week 13 in his five years as an NFL head coach.
Look at his resume. The Saints were 4-9 at this point last season. Allen went 3-9 and 4-8 in his first two years with the Raiders, who dismissed him before he could reach this point in his third season. Five wins in a dozen games is the ceiling for what Allen is capable of.
So much of that is due to an underperforming offense, but Allen has to take the blame for that. He made the decision to go get Derek Carr as his quarterback. He wasn’t able to recruit an upgrade at play caller and believed Pete Carmichael could get the job done. That hasn’t been the case. This year’s offense is not appreciably better than the product the Saints rolled out last year.
And Allen’s defense, the reason he was promoted to this job, has fallen off. They can’t stop the run or pressure the quarterback. It’s a unit relying on too many aging veterans without enough up-and-coming young players ready to sustain success. They’ve lost defenders who were drafted and developed year after year, replacing them with subpar free agent pickups. Allen hasn’t accomplished what he was trusted to do.
So where does that leave the Saints? It’s never easy to fire a coach midseason, and it’s not something they’ve done in decades, not since the Tom Benson bought the team. Odds are Allen will remain in position for these last five games. If the Saints keep fighting (and they will), there’s a good chance general manager Mickey Loomis and team president Dennis Lauscha will make excuses for him and bring Allen back for 2024 to ride out the second year of Carr’s contract, which was already guaranteed against the salary cap when he signed it.
That isn’t what they should do, though. If the Saints were committed to long-term success they’d pull the plug on this experiment now. It’s beyond clear that Allen won’t take them where they want to go. What they should do is thank him for what he’s done in the past, show him the door so he can get a jump on job hunting in the next hiring cycle, and focus on what’s next: locking in a top-10 draft pick (if not top-5) to spend on a real quarterback to lure a new coach who can run an offense in the spring.
But don’t count on it. The efforts of proud veterans and the still-weak schedule left this season mean the Saints aren’t about to go in a new direction. They would rather project patience and stability than take action to give fans something to cheer about. It’s going to take more than a close loss to a better team (coached by a popular former Saints assistant they let get away…) to spur Loomis, Lauscha, and team owner Gayle Benson into changing course now.
