Rizzi eager to interview, understands need for change

By Ross Jackson

After finishing the season at the bottom of the NFC South, the New Orleans Saints are officially opening their head coaching search.

During his end-of-season media availability, interim head coach Darren Rizzi made it clear that he will interview for the full-time position.

“I’m going to interview as well,” Rizzi said. “That date hasn’t been set in stone just yet, and probably (will be) sometime next week. I’ll get a chance to kind of take a step back here for a couple days and reflect on everything and then kind of reassess some of the things that we would change moving forward, and pros and cons of what went on here the last nine weeks.”

It’s no surprise that Rizzi will be considered, but the Saints could have removed the interim tag from interim head coach Darren Rizzi at the conclusion of the season without much fuss.

Instead, the Saints will not appoint Rizzi immediately as their next top gun and will begin conducting interviews likely in the coming days. They have reportedly already requested an interview with Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady and are expected to request another with Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn.

Rizzi finished his eight games as interim head coach with a 3-5 record, and the team slid to a 5-12 record at the bottom of the division. From that finish, Rizzi was clear that things cannot remain the same in New Orleans, even if he is hired to take the position.

“I’d be up here lying to you if I told you change doesn’t need to take place,” he said. “Change needs to take place. So that’s going to happen.”

While he did not go into detail on what changes remain, information he will save for his interview process, he did highlight some of the adjustments he made when he took over after Allen was fired.

Under Rizzi the Saints improved their soft-tissue injury problem by adding a dynamic warm-up before practices, suffering only one soft-tissue injury in a game or practice over the final eight weeks. The adjustment also led to no cramping in the second half of the season, something that was an issue early. Unfortunately, the one soft-tissue injury they did suffer was Alvin Kamara’s groin issue which ended his season.

Beyond that, his resume is clearly bolstered by the connection and relationship he had with others inside the facility.

Man after talkin with our media lemme restate, interim head coach Rizzi, did a lot with what was given.

— Cam Jordan (@camjordan94) January 6, 2025

The energy he provided and the buy-in he generated from the roster and coaching staff are invaluable and greatly appreciated across the board.

Rizzi will still finish up end-of-year evaluations of the roster and coaching staff over the next week. But he will then quickly change course to coaching candidate.

The long-time special teams coordinator and assistant head coach will be high on the list, but make no mistake about it, the Saints have made it clear that they are open for business.