NEW ORLEANS – Each week, New Orleans Saints general manager and executive vice president Mickey Loomis speaks to WWL Radio and this week’s show was a must-listen after Loomis helped guide the team through a tumultuous week.
Loomis spoke with Mike Hoss, Voice of the Saints, about a wide range of topics including the firing of head coach Dennis Allen, the dealing of cornerback Marshon Lattimore to the Washington Commanders, parking, the team’s upcoming coaching search and much more. Here are some of the key insights and takeaways from the conversation.
On the firing of Dennis Allen
The firing of Allen is of course the top story of what has been an eventful week for the Saints. Loomis credits Allen for his time as the team’s leader, but acknowledges that the team’s record and situation spawned a new for change. “…we’ve had an abnormal amount of injuries,” He said. “Including to our quarterback and we haven’t been able to overcome that, and so that puts pressure and stress on the organization and ultimately it was cause for a change.”
He echoes his continued positive sentiment about Allen and the impact of the team’s health concerns. “I think Dennis Allen is a fantastic football coach,” He said. “And I think anybody in our league who would talk about him thinks he’s a fantastic football coach. He is. I think in this case, look, the circumstances created the record. That’s just the truth, and a lot of people don’t want to hear it.”
Loomis was not asked nor did he address the measures New Orleans is taking to limit the ongoing injuries flurry the team has combated this year. It has indeed been an abnormal amount of ailments, specifically soft tissue injuries. Allen said last week that the team would be looking at changing some things to try to improve their circumstance in this area, but could share details.
On the Marshon Lattimore trade
Allen expressed gratitude for Lattimore’s tenure with the team as one of their better draft picks in recent history. He also shared that he was pleased with the return they received from the Commanders for the former defensive rookie of the year. He mentioned that calls started to pick up over the last “four or five days” about the cornerback, even before the Panthers loss.
“(The return is a) third round pick,” He said. “Swap a fourth and fifth is the way to look at it, we get our sixth back, so we’re adding picks in the draft and we’re moving up in the draft is kind of the way I look at it, and that gives us a good amount of picks in this next year’s draft.”
As for the salary cap impact of the move, the savings won’t be immediate, but the long-term impact is positive. “It’s $18 million over the next two years, each year, that we’ll be able to use elsewhere,” he said. That’s not the same as freeing up $18 million of salary, so don’t get too excited. The acceleration of the prorated bonuses have an impact. But the move does still move the needle in cash spent for 2025 and presents savings 2026.
On appointing Darren Rizzi the interim head coach
I think he’s a pretty obvious choice,” Loomis said. “Given his experience, his role as a special teams coach, which you just described, you do deal with almost every player on the team when you’re in that role. So, it’s a voice that our players have heard before. He’s used to being up in front of a large group of players and presenting. And look, he’s got a great personality and a great positive attitude at all times, and he was a candidate when we hired Dennis Allen.”
A lot of what we highlighted yesterday at LouisianaSports.Net was resonated here. Rizzi’s connection with the roster and institutional familiarity made him the right choice for the interim position.
On not addressing the team after Allen’s dismissal
Monday afternoon, tight end Foster Moreau mentioned that the only person to address them following the firing of Allen and the interim appointment of Rizzi was Rizzi himself. Many found it odd that Loomis nor team owner Gayle Benson addressed the team. Loomis clarified the reasoning Tuesday evening.
“We talked about what his message would be beforehand,” Loomis aid. “And I thought it was well received. Any time that you have a change in the middle of the season, you’re gonna have some emotion involved with that and hopefully that emotion creates a little positive bump. And I felt like what happened yesterday is that I thought Rizzi did a great job talking with the team, talking with the media, describing some things that we wanted to do differently, just to hopefully jumpstart the back half of the season.”
On the upcoming coaching search
Loomis has some interesting things to say about NFL coaching searches as a whole. While the team will not have much they can do at this time outside of perhaps building an early list of candidates, his observations about the league landscape of coaching searches is interesting. He doesn’t sound too displeased with the NFL’s current trend of hiring offensive coaches. But he also acknowledges that special teams coordinators, like Rizzi, should probably be more included in searches.
“…We went through a period of time years ago where, man, you had to have a defensive guy be the head coach,” Loomis said. “That was important, and then it became, particularly in the last 10 years, ‘Ah, it’s got to be an offensive guy.’Because offense has become and the passing game has become more important in our game and taken a more prominent role. So it’s cyclical. But it seems to shift back and forth between offense and defense and doesn’t really seem to include the special teams coordinators, and it probably should.”
On cornerback Alontae Taylor
Loomis sang the praises of Taylor, who has been massively impressive over the course of the season. He is now in line to be the future at cornerback, should the Saints finally give him the opportunity to play on the outside instead of in the slot. An opportunity he certainly deserves. But whether playing inside or out, it’s clear New Orleans is excited about its young defender.
“Regardless of whether he’s playing the nickel or playing outside,” Loomis said. He’s been
fantastic this year. He has, I think, made not just improvement but a leap and I think it starts with
him embracing whatever role he has and then performing, and he’s just been fantastic. And his
attitude, his effort, everything about Alontae Taylor has been fantastic,”
He also credited Taylor for his consistent play, a key quality and trait in your top cornerback.
On parking
Last week, the Saints sent a memo out to players directing them to park in the gated lot rather than the exterior lot which is typically reserved for the public. NOLA.com’s Jeff Duncan drew a delineation between the team’s struggle with the details (a commonly cited issue mentioned in media availability sessions with coaching staff) and this practice which had gotten out of hand over recent years. This included players parking in Handicap parking spaces.
Loomis did not agree with the correlation. I mean, we get silly things written,” he said.”Like, ‘Ah, the players aren’t parking in the right spots.’ I mean, that’s ridiculous. Players have been parking out there for the last 15 years. We’ve got construction going on. We’ve got 100 more employees than we had 10 years ago. That’s just silly, and to equate that with discipline is silly, too. I mean, we’re the eighth – going into this last game we were the eighth fewest penalties in the league. That’s more of a comment on discipline than where a player parks, for crying out loud,”
