The New Orleans Saints saw their head coaching candidates list shrink by one this week when Aaron Glenn took the gig up north as head coach of the New York Jets.
Glenn is returning to coach the team that drafted him No. 12 overall in 1994 and where he played 8 seasons. WWL Radio's Deuce McAllister congratulated his former teammate on SportsTalk this week, but also shot down rumors that there was any ill will between the former coach and Saints organization.
"People feel that he didn’t want to come back because of Mickey Loomis — that’s not true. But hey, people have their opinions. They can say what they choose," Deuce said. "[Glenn] made a decision that he felt like was best for him."
Hear the full interview with Deuce McAllister in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
The former Lions defensive coordinator was one of a host of candidates to take Zoom interviews with New Orleans. He was scheduled for an in-person interview this week, which was delayed due to weather and ultimately called off when he decided to accept the Jets job.
Glenn is one of three new head coaching hires to be made official thus far, joining Mike Vrabel with the Patriots and former Lions OC Ben Johnson with the Bears. The Saints, Cowboys, Jaguars and Raiders are the lone teams still sitting on the coaching carousel.
"The Saints obviously, he was on the list as far as head coach, but you didn’t get a chance to kind of get him in the building again, if that makes sense, after the season was over," Deuce continued. "And so first, AG, congratulations to him and you’re happy for him because he was that was eventually going to get that opportunity and so he got to choose where he wanted to go and he chose the Jets."
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New Orleans will now continue down their list of candidates, with in-person interviews scheduled for Giants OC Mike Kafka and Dolphins DC Anthony Weaver. The Saints are also expected to work to interview Bills OC Joe Brady and Eagles OC Kellen Moore, neither of whom is eligible to take in-person interviews until after their respective conference championship games.
Another major name on the Saints list is Mike McCarthy, who is expected to interview with New Orleans at some point as the schedule is worked out around this week's snow storm. McCarthy is another coach that Deuce is familiar with, with McCarthy serving as the team's OC during Deuce's run as a player.
"A lot of the dislike with Mike is probably the recent bias or at least the dislike for the Cowboys, but when you look at the book of work, if you put his resume, if you put Sean Payton’s resume, you put Mike Tomlin’s resume and you take off the names, they’re gonna be very, very, very similar," McAllister said. "All have won a Super Bowl, all have been to multiple playoffs and, you know, you have success and losses in the playoffs, but all of them have that and so for me, Mike would be a guy that’s high up on the list. I’m not making a decision for the Saints, you know, that’s something that they’re gonna have to do and they’ve sat down and they’ll interview those guys. They’ve got to find the fit that they feel like is best for this team."