Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope

New Orleans coach Dennis Allen and his staff have had an up-and-down start to 2022. Here's how they've fared so far and why we should be encouraged as the Saints enter a pivotal stretch of the season.

BOB ROSE 1 HOUR AGO

Coach Matt Rhule was fired by the Carolina Panthers on Monday. The Panthers had a 10-23 record in two full seasons with Rhule and was 1-4 this year before the move. Rhule is the first NFL coach to be fired this year, but Carolina may not be the only team to make an in-season move.

Nathaniel Hackett, in only his first season with the Denver Broncos, is already under heavy fire from the media and fans for an inept offense. There are some rumors swirling around Arizona’s Kliff Kingsbury and Frank Reich of the Colts after slow starts, despite previous success with their teams.

Mike McCarthy of Dallas, Brandon Staley of the Chargers, and Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel entered the year under criticism but have gotten off to solid starts. Teams like Jacksonville, the Jets, Cleveland, and Washington have traditionally lost patience with coaches quickly.

This is not to suggest that any of these coaches are going to be fired during the season. However,with the impatience of today’s NFL, some of these first-year coaches may even be cut loose after an unsuccessful inaugural season. None of these coaches even had the daunting task that was facing Dennis Allen of the New Orleans Saints.

Allen, 50, replaced a potential Hall of Famer when Sean Payton stepped down in January. This is Allen’s second stint as a head coach. He coached the Oakland Raiders from 2012 to early 2014 before getting fired with an 8-28 record. Since then, Allen had been Payton's defensive coordinator, returning to a Saints organization where he’d been defensive backs coach from 2006 to 2010.

Allen also served as head coach during a 9-0 win at Tampa Bay in 2021 while Payton was sidelined with Covid. He’d come into 2022 with an experienced coaching staff that included offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, offensive line coach Doug Marrone, and co-defensive coordinators Kris Richard and Ryan Nielsen.

Despite Allen’s organizational skills and continuity on the staff, the Saints have gotten off to a rocky start to the year.

Slow Starts/Motivation

New Orleans has scored just twice on their opening drives this season and have been outscored, 30-10, in the first quarter. They've been outscored 48-34 in the first half, with their 17 first half points against Seattle on Sunday matching their entire opening half total through the first four games. New Orleans has trailed in all but one game this season when they've come out for third quarter action.

The Saints were outplayed for three quarters by a vastly inferior Atlanta team on opening week and for the entire game by an equally inferior Panthers squad in week three.

Even after spending the entire week in London, New Orleans looked lethargic and unmotivated in the opening quarter against Minnesota in week four before outplaying the Vikings over the final three quarters.

Discipline/Sloppy Play

New Orleans leads the NFL in penalty yardage and ranks next-to-last in number of penalties. The Saints also lead the league with 13 turnovers committed. Two of those were returned for touchdowns, with several others either stopping sure scoring drives or setting up opponents for easy scores.

Team composure crumbled after a week 2 brawl against Tampa Bay resulted in CB Marshon Lattimore getting ejected. The Buccaneers outscored the Saints 17-7 after the fourth quarter incident on their way to a 20-10 win. The team’s coaching and veteran leadership failed to keep the squad focused, leading to a late meltdown.

Untimely penalties have pushed the Saints out of potential field goals several times this season. The avalanche of turnovers has not only destroyed momentum, but forced the Saints into desperate play in four different games while trying to come from behind.

Game Plans/Adjustments

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Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Gotta admit when I read the thread title I thought it was bako posting.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

The Saints could win the Super Bowl and I’d still want Allen and Carmichael gone. They can go to Carolina with Sean Payton. 😒

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Way to state your opinion rez! I may not agree with it, but I respect it !

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Been saying this ever since game #2.

There is no discipline (penalties/turnovers), guys just going through the motion but it starts at the top. And yeah, the play calling has been stale.

Meanwhile Mark is struggling (2.2 ypc), yet we keep feeding him instead of a "hot hand". Is that on the player or the coach? Easy to see why Latavius threw up the deuces.

That schedule is only going to get harder.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I know I am going to sound like an Allen fan (i’m really not) but there is enough crap in that article to fill 6 honey buckets!

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Rez has earned my respect when it comes to analyzing football. I'm no expert but it's easy to see that there is a spark missing and I believe we need new leadership to bring the fire back.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I don’t ever see us exploiting match ups anymore. When I’m watching other games and I see Devante Adams in the slot I know where the ball is going. I see other teams force feed their weapons. I’m watching the Giants climb to 4-1 giving the ball to Barkley most of the game. We gotta put the ball on Kamara’s hands. And we need to continue to expound on the Taysom Hill package. Why do they keep putting Ingram at running back when Taysom is in? Play action QB Sweep with the option to throw it back to Kamara. Run the actual option with Hill and AK. Put Taysom back there 5 wide and hit Kamara on the outside on a screen. There’s so much talent and so many things they can do.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I was someone who really wanted to see the offense under the control of Pete C, and now I got what I wanted, I realised how little I truly understood at that time.

Pete C isn't a coach, he is a X and O's guy. I underestimated the level of sway that Payton's mere presence had. If these guys played like this for Payton, he would be in their faces immediately.
Pete C does not demand that level of respect, because he isn't a guy that the players fear failing in front of.

To me, it all starts with DA.
His off-season press conference really excited me, but it now seems it was just talk.

The D line, whilst they've started to pick up steam, aren't anywhere near as dominant as they were before DA was head coach.
We had a fantastic special teams unit for years that all of a sudden sucks this year.
Defensive backs, which DA coached for years, are probably the weakest unit on the defense. We let so much talent get away and replaced it with guys who either don't really seem to try (Mathieu), guys that are injured or pending court cases (Maye) or players on a career rebound (Evans).

I really hope something can light a fire under them and start to string some wins together, but DA needs to be under the microscope.
I say 5 wins or less and he should be sent packing.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I think the biggest issue with the defense has been the absence of Marcus Maye combined with Adebo looking rusty coming back off injury and Allen refusing to admit you can’t always run man to man all game. Mathieu has looked really good to me. He’s graded out really well too. He’s pretty small so tackling can become an issue but if Maye was playing we could possibly let Mathieu play a little freer. JT Gray and Justin Evans were getting abused deep…and we all know what happens to PJ Williams.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Do you think it’s Allen’s choice running man to man or is it the co defensive coordinators making that call?

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Excellent point on the man to man stuff.
In London, Marshon was getting worked by Jefferson, which to be honest isn't a knock on Latt, because Jefferson is playing at an extremely high level.
But it's on DA to notice that and not leave Latt on an island.
Although I'm kind of lost, because the Seahawks still managed to score a TD to Lockett when throwing into quadruple coverage.

I think a lot of attitude in that secondary is missing and without getting into the reasons for trades / non-extended contracts, I think we are badly missing Marcus Williams and CGJ.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Murray "threw up the deuces" for one reason and one reason only ... the chance to be the #1 RB for an NFL team that has been decimated by injury at RB. That is not the case with the Saints.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Thanks, rez, for pointing that out. Mathieu seems to catch the flack for any breakdown in the secondary by some fans. Without knowing exactly what coverage has been called it is near impossible for the casual fan to know where blame lies. Even the guys that do the PFF grading give that as a caveat to their scores. They can only make an educated guess at fault on some plays without knowing the actual designated responsible party on coverage or blocking.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

It’s probably a mix of both. He seemed more adept at making adjustments when he was the coordinator. Now I will say we don’t have the best zone corners, but we gotta do what we gotta do when you’re going against a guy like Jett.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

And good for him. LTrain deserves more opportunities from his OC.

He’s never had opportunities here while avg over 4 yard per carry.

Saints force feed (MI) who can’t produce.

The offense is stale & anyone who can’t see that need to take off the black and gold blinders 🤡.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Real stale.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I think injuries may (both preseason and since game 1) have played a part in this rez. Kamara has been hurt and missed games. So have our top WRs. Oline too. I’m just hoping that the healthy team we want to have on the field would exploit these matchups more. When you are short handed, scrambling for your life and throwing to Smith it’s hard to manage. Just a thought.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

If we win the Superbowl or even pull off a big upset / beat a top contender in the playoffs I am fine with keeping Allen. If we even make the playoffs at all, even if we are blown out in the first round, I don't think keeping Allen is a terrible idea, though I would prefer not keep him, as long as we don't trade more future draft picks or lead the league in 2024 projected over the cap to go all in win now with Allen. But I don't think any of those things will happen. I would put our odds of making the playoffs at 1 in 10, our odds of an impressive playoff run at 1 in 100, and Superbowl at 1 in 500. When we don't make the playoffs, or when we are eliminate from the playoffs mid season, I want Allen gone. He came in 8-28 so he needed to prove that was an aberration, another losing record proved the opposite. I highly disagree that he came in with a much more challenging situation than the other coaches in the article, he came to a team that maxed out the cap and future draft picks to win now, had a winning record, and won the division 3 of the last 4 years, on a team where he was already familiar with all the staff. He came in with a much better situation than many other coaches in some ways and he blew it. And if you argue that no he came into an extremely challenging situation, then Loomis created that situation. If you argue its challenging because of Paytons shadow, I think thats BS because Steve Young, George Seifert, Barry Switzer, Aaron Rodgers, Mike Tomlin, etc have dealt with shadows just fine and the shadow of 28-3 seems worse to me.

Blaming injuries is BS. We have one of the oldest rosters in the league. We retained and added players we know have nursed injuries for years. Thomas has been injured 2 years. Landry was cheap due to injuries. Winston was injured last year. Maye had injury and suspension history. Peat is frequently injured. Taysom is not allowed on a public beach or swimming pool per signage. And Loomis and Allen traded our depth at a need position because they could not coach a player that every other coach has been able to coach. I kind of think we covet injury and suspension prone players because we look at collecting excuses as a form of insurance.

Ultimately if coordinators and assistant coaches are making bad calls and unfavorable matchups that falls on Allen to correct. That is why his title is head coach not 'everything except offense, defense, and special teams coach.' He is performing like the latter is his title.

We could not easily be 5-0 or whatever. Our 2 wins were closer games than some of our losses and we could more easily be 0-5. And this was the easy part of our schedule, its about to get rough. It is hubris to call Atlanta and Carolina inferior teams to us. One has the same record as us and almost beat us, the other has one more loss than us but beat us head to head and has had a tougher schedule. Both have journeymen first round busts as starting QB and neither has had to turn to their 'why not give it a try' backup like we have yet. They are our peers, except they know they need to rebuild while we think we are going to go route Green Bay, Philly, Dallas, Tampa, SF, etc and win the Super Bowl with Andy Dalton and an oline with 3 scrubs.

So yeah, if Allen makes the playoffs great, keep him. If Trequan Smith averages 50 yards receiving and 60% catch rate point forward keep him. If Cesar Ruiz grades out as an average NFL guard and looks the part keep him. If Taysom Hill can string together 1000 total yards without an injury for his $10 million a year salary keep him. If the draft pick the Eagles get from us is 20th and we clean up the cap this offseason so we are mid-league in over the cap numbers for 2024 keep Loomis. But none of that is happening.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Found an interesting article…

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...back-breakdown

Looks like that crappy trade Loomis pulled off to move up in the draft netted the best player so far.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Bet Bako would disagree … imagine that🤷*♂️

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I'll be in the minority here. I'm not ready to say he isn't our coach. He inherited a 9-8 team with Jameis Winston as the starting quarterback. He earned his shot IMO and I'm not ready to jump the gun quite yet.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Right there with you, papz. Last year the great Sean Payton managed only a 9-8 finish with an NFL record number of different starters due to injuries and COVID through the course of the season. Dennis Allen is in the same boat thus far in 2022. The Saints have been missing key players in every game thus far and are still well within reach only one game out of the division lead.

There's not a team in the league that the Saints cannot beat with all hands on deck. One game at a time. On to Cincinnati!

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

This team still haven't played a complete game.

I know they CAN beat any team but the "one game at a time" will soon turn into "not enough games left"

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

From day one I believed Olave was the best WR in the draft. My brother and I were watching him at Ohio State his last year dreaming about a scenario in which he could end up in New Orleans. I couldn't believe we were able to get him. He's going to be similar to Jett very soon. QB production and scheme are hurting him right now and he's still outproducing the other rookies.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Lol.

Yes sir, wait for it because it's coming.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Is Allen predicting his future? They did give him everything he needed to succeed.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Thank God that the players do not share your confidence. Or total lack thereof.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Except for health of players. Five games does not a season make.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

I made these points on other threads, but I’m gonna do it again and do connect them.

The team the Saints trotted out in week one had played less than ONE quarter together in ANY form (regular or preseason). They had new WRs, working with new (or returning from injury) QBs and new Olinemen. Not surprising there is a lack of cohesiveness when they haven’t worked together as a unit.

The team on the field last few weeks and going into this week is not the team that trotted out week one. Injuries have forced us to play a RB we picked up after the season started. Forced us into using backups as starters on the Oline. Forced WRs like Smith and Kirkwood to play big roles. When the starters didn’t get a chance to work together and develop cohesiveness how could the backups?

The ONE thing I think we can all agree that we thought we could count on was Kamara. He’s missed time with an injury and had two fumbles that cost us 2 games IMO. He simply DOESN’T FUMBLE and the Saints are 3-2 at least if not 4-1. I fully believe that.

Payton, Billichik, or the ghost of Vince Lombardi could have been coaching and it wouldn’t have made a difference so far.

Re: Saints' Dennis Allen, Coaches Should Be Under the Microscope
 

Totally agree with all of that.