ncsaint

I know this is an old question. And I know that the Falcons asked to interview him for GM. Benson refused and then Mueller said he wanted to interview. Benson felt this was disloyal (and I have to agree) and so fired him. But is there more to it than this? Also, then why has he not been picked up by another team? I've heard that Benson had other problems with him and talked him down around the league (is that true?) and so nobody wants Muelle. What's your take on this?

themightyduck

Simply put, Benson didn\'t trust Randy. He felt that he was doing a lot of under the table wheeling and dealing. Randy never told Benson about the Ricky Williams trade until the league had already approved it.

As for why no team has hired him, I think that they\'ve all seen what happened here and decided not to take that risk.

Personally, I thought that Mueller was the best GM the Saints have ever seen besides Jim Finks. He was agressive, risk taking, and cared very much about winning. He knew what it would take to make a winning franchise.

When it comes to discussing Saints losses, Jack Daniels can be a great listener.

no_cloning

Pasquarelli on May 11, 2002:
New Orleans owner Tom Benson can make all the excuses he wants for his abrupt Thursday dismissal of general manager Randy Mueller but, the bottom line is, he simply didn\'t like the guy. And since it\'s his team, Benson had the right to show Mueller the door, and, yeah, to install himself as the general manager. We\'ve taken some shots at Mueller in this space over several months, but never relish anyone losing his job, and Benson apparently saw some of the same management flaws. There was a smugness about Mueller that was off-putting at times and he had a bad habit of keeping his own counsel and not heeding input from others. He rolled the dice on a few character risks other people urged him to avoid, and the gambles sometimes blew up in his face, like the signing of wide receiver Albert Connell last spring. Connell had good hands but, as it turned out, he used them more for plucking money out of teammates\' pockets than for snatching passes out of the air. When a team is fighting for state money to subsidize improvements in its facility, negative public relations aren\'t a good thing, nor is the kind of collapse the Saints suffered in the final month of the 2001 season.

That is not to say that Benson\'s move in dumping Mueller wasn\'t unusual, especially since he offered him a contract extension a few months ago, and since he allowed the general manager to stump the state trying to sell tickets just days before his dismissal. There are indications that Mueller, a control-type guy who actually had cameras installed in the coaching staff meeting rooms (\"Big Saint is Watching\") much to the dismay of staffers, was trying to make inroads into the business side of the New Orleans operation. Bad move, since Benson is fiercely loyal to Arnold Fielkow, his director of business administration.

Link: Len On Randy

blake6900

Benson also disliked the way Joe Johnson was treated by Mueller. Of course Johnson\'s out of football now and, due primarily to injuries, didn\'t really work out in Green Bay but from what I understand Benson really had a soft spot for Joe and didn\'t want to see him go.

However, Benson\'s real problem is he really isn\'t much of an owner. He\'s good friends with Jerry Jones but obviously doesn\'t have the same football saavy. The fact that he wanted to spend more huge money on Johnson when his best days were behind him kinda illustrates the point.