The New Orleans Saints are in difficult and admittedly frustrating territory right now after a divisional loss to the Falcons and a narrow road remaining to reach the postseason.
But Saints GM Mickey Loomis is sticking behind the coaching staff and roster as its constructed, because it'll be on them to find their way over the season's final six games.
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints GM Mickey Loomis in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
"I believe with all my heart we’ve got to the right people in the building," Loomis said on WWL Radio this week. "I know we do."
With coaching moves starting to roll in across the league, including a first-year head coach being fired in Frank Reich from the Panthers, there are reasonable questions to be asked about the approach regarding a Saints coaching staff that has been unable to lead a talented roster to a winning record through 11 games and against one of the league's easiest schedules. The Steelers and Bills, two teams that also expect to be in the postseason, have made staffing changes at offensive coordinator. The Saints have opted to stand pat and all indications are that they will continue to do so.
The Saints have the NFL's 12th-ranked offense and routinely find themselves in the red zone, but that's where the struggles reach critical mass. Red zone difficulties came to a head in an 0-for-5 performance against the Falcons, during which the game's only points came on five Blake Grupe field goals.
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"I’m gonna look at the things that are positive and understand how we can keep those going and then look at the things that we’re not doing well and try to figure out how can we improve in those areas and there’s a lot of things that we’re doing well," Loomis said, "but finishing off drives and scoring is not one of them.”
It's an approach that fulfills the type of front office that maintained a coach in place for 16 seasons and even when he departed, opted to maintain continuity in the path forward. It's just how the Saints operates and -- at least right now and publicly -- the front office is maintaining its positive outlook and faith in the regime in place.
"Part of leadership is ... when things aren’t going well, you can’t just be negative. There’s enough negative noise out there. We don’t need to be negative. Not a lot of people get inspired by negativity," Loomis said. "So part of our job is to focus on the positive, focus on what we’re doing well, accentuate that and not sweep the things that we aren’t doing well under the rug, but attack them and improve in those areas."
The Saints at 5-6 still control their destiny to reach the postseason, but that only remains true if they can avoid any more slipups over their final six games. The Falcons are in the same situation, with a rematch set for Week 18. The Saints will have a difficult start to that run with the Lions (8-3) coming to town, led by former Saints assistant Dan Campbell, and their DC Aaron Glenn is another former Saints assistant.
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The game is the start of a rare three-game homestand, followed by matchups against the Panthers and New York Giants.
"We need to get on a string of wins," Loomis said. "We need to stack some wins up and we’re gonna need — first of all, it’s good to be back in New Orleans playing a game. It’ll certainly be good to be playing three in a row at home and we need our fans to be loud and to be proud and we’ve got to give them a reason to be cheering in the Dome and make it loud and difficult on our opponents.”