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The New Orleans Saints Should Let Dennis Allen Finish the Rebuild He Started

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Dennis Allen runs a highly aggressive scheme that is designed to be multiple, always on the attack, but simple enough that his players are always able to execute. Nick Underhill of The Advocate wrote this article about how Allen’s scheme allows him to be aggressive without sacrificing sound defense. We saw a lot of those concepts come into play this season, and that is despite the Saints going from what was supposed to be a deep secondary to an ICU in a matter of weeks. By the end of the second week of the season, the Saints had already lost their top five cornerbacks going into the year, and their 1st round pick Sheldon Rankins who was supposed to help improve the pass rush.

Allen’s unit fought through that adversity, and while at times the results were exactly what you would expect when you are playing a bunch of guys either past their prime, or who never had one at all, improvement was shown. The Saints went from one of the worst teams in the league at defending against the run to an above average one this season under Allen. And while the defense moved only from awful to mediocre, that is still a major improvement.

The reality is that Dennis Allen is still lacking some key pieces to run his scheme right, which is why he should not only be given the time to bring in those pieces, but also has earned that right. Allen was able to bring out significant improvement in the defense with a bunch of mismatched (and often misfit) toys to play with. There was a black hole opposite Cameron Jordan all season long, he never had a healthy group of NFL quality cornerbacks after the first half against the Raiders, and his linebacking unit was poor at best.

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“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill