The New Orleans Saints avoid getting into a bulk of their evaluations during the season, there's just too much happening and too much emotion when it comes to responding to wins and losses.
That said, there's no denying the positivity in that regard that comes from a dominating performance of a division rival when they had a chance to punch a playoff ticket in their house, which was the case in the Saints' 23-13 win over the Bucs this week. Saints GM Mickey Loomis dove into that subject and more on WWL Radio this week.
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints GM Mickey Loomis in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
"I felt like Tampa was kind of ready to get out there and get on with the game and celebrate winning the division," Loomis said. "And for us to come out and, you know, smash them in the mouth, take that opening drive down and score and set the tone. ... It was a dominant performance, and really the game was won in the first half."
The Saints led 17-0 at the break, a start turnaround from the Week 4 matchup in which the Bucs went to New Orleans and led 14-3 at the end of the 2nd quarter.
The win sets up a scenario where the Saints host the Falcons in Week 18 with a chance to win the division if the Saints win and the Panthers beat the Bucs, or a wild card if the Saints win and both the Packers and Seahawks lose.
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Regardless, Loomis says the atmosphere in the Superdome will be an exciting one.
"The fans have been fantastic [in the 2023 season], they really have," Loomis said. "And again, we’re gonna have a great atmosphere, it’s Atlanta. It’s always a good atmosphere when we play Atlanta and we need to give our fans something to cheer about.”
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MORE FROM MICKEY LOOMIS
On the evaluation process for Dennis Allen, Derek Carr and others
“I would say that most of that process comes after the season. I don’t like to make evaluations in season, because you’re dealing with the emotion of winning and losing each week and you’re dealing with, you know, the issues that come up on a daily basis to prepare for the next game. But that’ll be a process we go through and I go through when the season is over. Look, I certainly have a few thoughts and a few things that I think we need to have a discussion about, but that’ll all come after the season is over and hopefully the season won’t be over after Sunday.”
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Is there more weight on divisional games/coaching criticism
I don’t look at the rematch as anything, really, different, other than, you know, in a case where they’ve got different personnel at a quarterback position or some key positions. ... but I think that most of the people that I hear in the media that are evaluating coaches aren’t really qualified to do that, because they don’t know what’s being coached. They don’t know what’s being told during the week, and there’s a difference between what they’re being told and what’s being executed sometimes. So there’s some truth to what — your comment, but I don’t put as much stock into it as you might.”
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On Derek Carr's performance
“I think overall Derek has done some really good things this season. … And if you look at some of the areas, his rating, his efficiency, there’s a lot of really good things that he’s done. There’s some things that he hasn’t done well, and, you know, how he feels each week, obviously he had a shoulder injury early in the season, and there’s no question that bothered him. We didn’t handle pressure very well earlier in the season, and I think in the last four or five games in particular our offensive line, our protection has been better. So there’s all these variables, all these elements that contribute to, you know, the quarterback play, and look, we all look at the quarterback and the head coach and that’s where we want to point blame and oftentimes you give credit, and yet there’s just so much more to it than that.
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"I think this season has been a tale of we’ve had quarters and halves and parts of games where you can see what we can be, but it’s hard to point to a lot of games and say from beginning to end this is what we are, and that’s not unusual. I mean, this is Derek’s first year with us and if we went back to 2006 and looked at [Drew] Brees’ first season or two with us, you wouldn’t say, ‘wow, that guy is going to the Hall of Fame’ after season 1 or season 2, so sometimes it takes a while for us to be familiar with him, for him to have a real grasp of the offense, in terms of being reactive instead of thinking and making a play and getting on the same page with our staff, our coaches as well as our players.”
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On Juwan Johnson's big day
“We have high expectations for Juwan. He had a really good game and look, I said to him afterwards is that what we expect from you. Let’s not get overly excited about having one good game. We expect that from him each and every week, and I think the good news is he expects that from himself, but at some point you have to produce it and he produced it in this game and so hopefully he’ll follow that up with another one and another one."
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On Alontae Taylor's rebound game
"He got benched last week. He got pulled out of the game for his play, let’s just be frank about it, and I was really proud of him and really excited to see him respond, take it the right way and come back with a really good performance. And that — he’s a good player and he’s got a great future, and that was really good to see.”
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On Zack Baun's pass-rush role
"His spot on the roster has been solidified because he’s been a really good special teams player for us, really since he walked into the building. But, defensively I think it’s been a little more difficult for us to have a vision for him defensively and so I think this year we’ve kind of settled into, obviously he’s a Sam linebacker and in today’s football the Sam linebacker doesn’t play as much as they used to. ... but we’ve found a role for him as a pass rusher on third down, a sub rusher and he’s excelled at that, and so that’s been good to see and it’s impacted our defense and I’m excited for him.”
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On atmosphere in the Superdome
"I think the atmosphere in the dome has been as good as it’s been for a long time. It’s been really good this year. When it’s not good, it’s really our fault, because we’re not playing well enough to give the fans something to get excited about, and so that’s on us. Like I said, I think I said this earlier, the only disappointing thing that happened this year was when we had so many Detroit fans for that game against Detroit, and look, I get it, though. People have a chance to cash their tickets in and get some money at a time when they need it, I understand that completely."