In the NFL only one team gets a happy ending every season, the other 31 teams get some varying level of sad, frustrated and emotional departures.
This Saints roster has known for several weeks exactly what they were going to get after Week 18, but even with that foresight, the postgame locker room hit hard after a 27-19 loss to the Bucs that sealed a 5-11 season, the Saints' worst result since 2005.
"Unless you’re the team that wins the Super Bowl, the last game sucks," said interim head coach Darren Rizzi. "So whatever that last game is, the locker room is never, never fun. I think this one was a little bit more emotional because of the circumstances this year."
Those circumstances, of course, included a coaching change with Rizzi taking over for Dennis Allen after the coach was fired heading into Week 10. The Saints rallied and won two consecutive games before falling in four of the final five. The final week of the 2025 season also saw the Saints navigating heavy emotions stemming from a terror attack on Bourbon Street that left 14 dead and dozens more injured.
All 16 NFL games of the weekend included a moment of silence before kickoff. On the Saints sidelines players and coaches donned new shirts that read "NOLA" over a Saints logo, with the "O" replaced by a red heart. The shirt's design was Rizzi's idea to show support for the city in trying times.
Rizzi waited outside the team's locker room following the game to great every player individually. He teared up in his postgame press conference as he spoke about the locker room and support from the players over his 8-game stretch as head coach and recounting players getting emotional in the locker room, even those who would typically be more stoic after games.
"I had a lot of guys say a lot of nice things to me," Rizzi said, "which I’ll never forget.”
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While we won't find out exactly what those words were, it's a fair bet they had to do with the messaging and environment he's helped create over the final two months of the season, which players and coaches have bought into. The 1/11th mantra, construction tools as visual aids, it's a group that was buying what their coach was selling to close out a season where it felt like that wasn't always the case as the team fell from a 2-0 start into a 7-game losing streak.
Will that be enough to have Rizzi in serious contention for the head coaching job? That remains to be seen, though he'd seem to have support of several influential players should that come into consideration.
Cam Jordan referred to Rizzi as clear "head coach material," even as the team embarks on what he describes as "an era of uncertainty" for the first time in his 14-year career.
"I’m sure everybody is appreciative of what the leadership qualities that Rizzi brought in, being clear cut, this is how we’re gonna go about things, you have a clear directive, you’re able to follow," Jordan said. "I think that, you know, Rizzi is a great human being as well as a pretty damn good head coach for the short stint that we saw him at."
Rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler, who started the final three games with Derek Carr injured, echoed that sentiment.
"We all respect Rizzi. He’s a great coach and as a special teams coordinator we were all cool with him," Rattler said. "He’s a leader of men, has the formula to win each week and we’ve just got to follow it. Really enjoyed my time with him.”
Rizzi himself wasn't willing to dive in on the coaching question after the game. It was still too fresh and there would be plenty of time to go down that rabbit hole in the following days. The Saints planned to return to the facility on Monday for a final team meeting. Rizzi would then have sitdowns with GM Mickey Loomis, team owner Gayle Benson and other members of the front office.
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The team will then have to undergo an official coaching search regardless of what ultimately happens. There will be multiple interviews, rumors and innuendo. Rizzi will be in that conversation as a candidate, just as he was when the Saints were looking to replace Sean Payton in 2022. They are currently one of five head coach openings, along with the Jets, Bears, Patriots and Jaguars, all contending for some of the top names on the market. It will be competitive and complicated from a timing perspective, with several prospective options still coaching in the playoffs with their teams.
Change will be coming for the Saints, there's no way around it, the only question is how far reaching it will be. That's something Rizzi will worry about when the time comes -- and when the emotion settles.
"Hopefully get a few days off and try to reflect on everything and kind of go from there. I’m just, I’m hurting right now for the guys in the locker room. … I love those guys, I love that locker room and those guys have been unbelievably supportive of me and so that’s just a huge personal thank you – I’m getting emotional now – to the locker room, because they’ve been unreal.”