The New Orleans Saints will have a lot of questions to answer in their coaching search, and Darren Rizzi expects to be sitting down to answer several of them over the coming weeks.
But when it comes to the job he was able to do stepping in as the Saints interim head coach over the second half of the season, that speaks for itself, as he told WWL Radio this week in the season's final coaches show.
"I think what I’ve done since I’ve taken over is kind of self-explanatory," Rizzi told Bobby Hebert and Mike Hoss. "I think I’m ... a lot different than a lot of the other candidates that are going to interview, because there’s not really any guesswork involved with, you know, how I’m gonna lead a meeting or how I’m gonna lead a practice or how I’m gonna lead a team or how I’m gonna be on the sideline, game management, all that stuff."
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Darren Rizzi in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
Rizzi said the next step is evaluations of players and staff, of which he will be a part of, and his expectation that a formal head coach interview will occur next week.
One things Rizzi did make clear in his end-of-season press conference: Change does need to be made, the only question is how much. It's a difficult balance to strike for an interim, considering hiring Rizzi would be in and of itself a status quo play as a member of the Saints staff since 2018, though he'll quickly add that the structure of this season isn't what he'd bring back in the full-time role. He made changes as he could throughout the year, but the die had been cast in a lot of ways. He did change up locker room setups, meetings, practice routines and injury maintenance, all of which was well received by the players and several of whom have said they see Rizzi as "head coach material" and someone who deserves a shot in that role.
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The Saints went 3-5 under Rizzi, but saw a renewed enthusiasm during that stretch with wins over the Falcons and Browns, then tight losses to the Rams and Commanders that came down to the final seconds and a 2-point conversion to win. There were down moments and inconsistent play, but much could be pinned on a roster that was playing without a majority of its key players due to injury, including both starting wide receivers (Chris Olave and Rashid Shaeed), star running back Alvin Kamara and quarterback Derek Carr over the closing stretch.
"There needs to be change across the board, locker room, roster, coaches, all that. We’re all aware of that. We all get into this profession, we all understand that and a lot of it has to do with the success and wins and losses, totally get it," Rizzi said. "You know, the old ‘wipe the slate clean,’ there’s a bunch of different ways you can go with that. A whole new everybody, front office, coaches, players, sometimes that doesn’t work either. You look at the history of this league, the teams that make the least amount of changes over the course of time are actually the most successful."
The Saints are one of five teams currently looking to fill head coach openings -- along with the Jets, Bears, Jaguars and Patriots -- and several of those teams are examples of franchises that seem to tear things out root and stem repeatedly without driving sustained success. Rizzi would point to franchises like the Steelers or Ravens who have made adjustments and come through hard times with a stronger organization. The Saints have seemed determine to do that, but haven't seen the results since Sean Payton departed after the 2021 season. That's the line they'll have to tread this offseason.
"We were 5-12, so there needs to be change made," Rizzi continued. "At the same time I think you can, there’s a lot of strengths in this building and there’s things that we do well and so you have to, like I said, have a delicate balance on the things you do change.”