The New Orleans Saints still have eight games remaining in their 2024 season after firing head coach Dennis Allen, but they're not viewing it as a head start.
The team is focused on the current roster and staffers and winning the games remaining under interim head coach Darren Rizzi, Saints GM Mickey Loomis told WWL this week. The search for the team's next head coach will be extensive, but it won't start heating up until the offseason.
"That’s not something that we’re gonna be real active with right now," Loomis said. "There’s plenty of time for that when the season ends. Our focus has got to be on our team, our players, our coaches, our staff, and look, you learn more about who you have and who the people are that you’re working with in adversity that you do when things are going well."
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints GM Mickey Loomis in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
It's an interesting albeit unsurprising strategy for the Saints, who find themselves in their first interim situation since 2012. In that season there was also no in-season coaching search, because Joe Vitt was simply keeping the seat warm until Sean Payton returned from a suspension.
But this approach mirrors the methodical approach we've seen from the Saints before, a franchise that wants to make sure all the boxes are checked in an important and extensive process before making such impactful decisions. That was the case in the 2022 offseason as they interviewed an array of coaches before landing on Dennis Allen, who had been there all along. It was true again in 2024 when the Saints were in search of a new offensive coordinator, ultimately landing on Klint Kubiak weeks after the season ended and Kubiak had finished coaching in the Super Bowl for the 49ers.
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As Loomis mentioned, the Saints also want to see what they have in the current crop of players and coaches and how they handle a difficult situation before making any decisions on who stays and who goes.
"As much as Katrina and that whole experience was difficult back in ‘05, we learned a lot about the people that were with the Saints at that time and it drove a lot of decisions after that, and so look, this is adversity, this is tough," Loomis said. "It’s no fun losing games. It’s, you know, I can’t describe to you, as bad as our fans feel and the things that, you know, they feel, believe me, we’re all feeling 10 times worse, but you can’t just wallow in that. You have to get up off the mat and show some fight, and that’s true for every single person in this building, and so we’re gonna see what we’ve got over the next eight weeks.”
The first chance for the Saints to show they're ready to push in a new direction comes on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome when they host the Atlanta Falcons for a noon kickoff. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.