The Josh Innes Show - Saints Fire Dennis Allen

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

The Saints have decided that being 2-7 and losing to the Panthers is unacceptable. Their solution is firing Dennis Allen. As a Saints fan, I think this decision at this point in the season is pointless. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with uber eats What do we mean by almost you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered sunshine No some wine. Yes get almost almost anything delivered with uber eats order now alcohol and select markets. See after details Hello, jamokes. What's happening? It's josh. It's monday morning. It's 9 23 9 22 whatever time it actually is Glad you guys are with us today. Hello. The Saints just fired Dennis Allen. That's a lovely thing.

I am a Saints fan, as you know. Although people criticize me because I find different teams that I root for, mostly the Texans and the Saints. But people always judge me about my fandom, and I really don't give a shit. But my team, my actual team, is the New Orleans Saints, and I really, really enjoy the Texans because I lived in Houston for a decade, and I love Houston very much. So there you go.

It's not really hard to break down there, but I've done it for you. So the Saints have decided to fire Dennis Allen, which is fascinating because they lost yesterday to the Panthers in an ugly game where they're up, then they're losing in the last few minutes. They have a turnover on downs at the end of the game. They lose by a point to what at the time was the worst team in the NFL. Now you can certainly debate record-wise that the Saints are the worst team in the NFL. If they're not the worst team in the NFL, they're right there with, well, I mean, the Patriots, obviously, the Titans, obviously.

I mean, the Titans coach cried after winning the game yesterday. Brian Callahan is the name of the Titans coach. Things have gotten so bad for the Tennessee Titans that the coach at a press conference after the game was asked if they needed this win, like how big this win was. By the way, to get to like two wins, the guy started crying at the podium. What are we doing? But also Carolina and then the Saints are kind of your bottom feeders. Patriots, Titans, Saints, Panthers. Those are like your real, real losers. Probably, I guess you would throw in the Browns as well. Like those are some real, real losers.

But out of all those, you'd say the Saints would be the biggest disappointment of all those losers because the Saints spend every offseason kicking the can down the road, renegotiating contracts, pushing money back so they can keep the same old core of players together. And usually that same old core of players get you eight wins, nine wins. Back in the Sean Payton era when there was Drew Brees, it would get you 11, 12 wins. You go to the playoffs, maybe win a playoff game, then lose one you're not supposed to. But the Saints historically have just kicked the can down the road in terms of their salary cap so they can keep all these

high-priced older talents on the field and then they added Derek Carr as well and this year you would at least think the Saints would be another 7-8-9 win type team like that's what you think then they come out with Clint Kubiak as their offensive coordinator and they look like the greatest offense you've ever seen for the first two weeks of the year dismantle Carolina and absolutely pistol whip the Cowboys in Dallas now obviously that's become commonplace for every team that plays Dallas now but at the time when the Cowboys were supposed to have some sort of defense Derek Carr rolls into town and beats the shit out of them and you're like holy cow the Saints are great then Jilly and I went to the week three game against the Eagles. And even though the Saints

didn't do a lot of scoring, it was a close game. It was fun. They blew a lot of opportunities. That's when the offensive line started getting injured. And that's when things really went downhill. And that started a seven game losing streak, which culminated with a loss to Carolina and now the coach being fired. My questions exist here. First of all, I don't know why you ever fire a coach in the middle of the season unless there's still something to play for. The Saints do not have anything to play for. They cannot make the playoffs.

They are not going to make the playoffs. Here's the thing they actually have to play for, high draft picks. So if you realize this is a disaster then let it keep going there's no benefit to putting anybody else in as the head coach of the saints right now now maybe they will i don't know who they're going to let be the head coach really it should be someone like clint kubiak and just see what he's got in the head coach role but here's here's the problem with that i don't want anybody with the stench of this current organization as part of the next regime for the organization I mean look we could talk

about firing Dennis Allen all we want guy was a loser in Oakland they gave him another opportunity with the Saints because you could argue that hey well Oakland's a disaster anyway so let's see what Dennis Allen can do with a real well-run organization. Well, you know what Dennis Allen could do? Hover around 500, never make the playoffs, and now bottom out at one or two and seven with a seven-game losing streak. I don't know. I think I read this. The Saints have not lost eight games in a row since 1980, and that's what they're on the precipice of doing here uh next week so look i'm not a believer that firing the coach in the middle of a season matters especially when the season's lost maybe teams can use this to evaluate other coaches on the staff some would argue it gives you a head

start on finding your next head coach listen whether you got a head coach in place or not if you know you're firing that guy guess what You can start looking around to see which coaches you think are going to be good. It's not like you're going to be having extended conversations with these people in the middle of their seasons anyway. So you could keep the coach in place, keep losing, get a top two or three pick, be one of the worst teams in the league, maybe find a franchise quarterback, maybe in this draft, get rid of your GM, which is another important thing. Mickey Loomis hadn't done a damn thing since Sean P left town a couple years ago. So let's not pretend that, like, yes, Dennis Allen's a clown, but let's not pretend that the organizational rot of the New Orleans Saints stops with Dennis

Allen and starts with Dennis Allen. It runs a lot deeper than that. I think they've got good ownership. I think Gail Benson stays out of the way. I think Gail Benson wants to win. Gail Benson is someone who's locked into the community and has done great things for the New Orleans community. She stays out of the way. She has put way too much trust in a GM who's bad at his job. Essentially, here's what the GM of the Saints does.

Restructures a bunch of contracts and signs Derek Carr. That's what the Saints have done since Sean Payton left. So, look, it's a mess of an organization. You can blame the coach. I've just never been a believer. Unless, like, if you would have fired Dennis Allen after four losses in a row, if you would have said we're two and four, but we're still alive, the division's very gettable, which, as of right now,

Atlanta's the class of the division and Kirk Cousins, you could argue Kirk Cousins is the MVP of the league right now. If you made that argument, you wouldn't be totally absurd. But Atlanta's not great. So if you would have done, what week did they lose to Atlanta? Was that when they were 2-2 and fell to 2-3? Like, if you would have fired them after losing to Atlanta and said, listen, this is unacceptable. We think we can win this season. We got to go in a new direction. I'd go, okay, that kind of makes

some sense. You got an opportunity there. Why not go out and, um, and get rid of the coach and just see if that provides a spark for this team. The problem is your quarterback, as much as we dislike Derek Carr, Derek Carr's the starting quarterback. He was hurt at the time. You're throwing Spencer Rattler on the field. You have no offensive line. Your wide receivers are hurt.

Like you could not name, like the average person, like if you're a Saints fan, you can name some of the guys that are out on the field for the Saints the last couple of weeks at wide receiver, other than Chris Alave, who bless his heart, this motherfucker gets concussed every week. He's going to be brain dead at some point if he keeps this up but if you've got an organization that you can roll out there and the average fan around the NFL has no clue who your wide receivers are and I don't we'll be watching a game and like Jillio go who the hell's

number 84 she'll go that's Mason Tipton I go who the fuck's Mason Tipton like these are the guys Juwan Johnson and just go down the list of guys that you've never heard of that are out there for She'll go, that's Mason Tipton. I go, who the fuck's Mason Tipton? Like these are the guys, Jawan Johnson, and just go down the list of guys that you've never heard of that are out there for the Saints right now. Like I get it. A lot of coaches aren't going to win games in that spot, but what's the point in firing a coach when you're 2-7 and the season's lost? Like what are you going to accomplish at this point?

An argument could be made that you've got a whole team full of players who have officially kind of quit. They're just broken. You see them on social media they're melting down. They are. And I get it. It sucks. You lose seven games in a row. It sucks. Especially when you thought, hey, we can come in and compete in this division. And you started out 2-0. So I get that. But if you're the Saints, firing the coach does nothing.

In fact, all I think it does is hurt you. You leave the coach in there and let this thing just rot. Can you imagine a team like the Saints losing 15 games in a row to end the year and you say Josh that's impossible is it they're out of games against the Panthers and by the way the Panthers beat them yesterday that's the Panthers like I love seeing Saints fans on social media saying uh we lost to the Panthers bro bro you are the fucking Panthers you suck just because you had higher expectations the fucking Panthers. You suck. Just because you had higher expectations than the Panthers coming into the season, it don't mean you're not the Panthers half the way through.

You are the Panthers. You are the Patriots. You are the Titans. You are the Browns. Difference being, of course, is teams like the Titans, they didn't have their all world. They didn't pay $20 million, $25 million a year for a quarterback.

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what is the benefit other than than quenching alust that the fan base has? So you look at social media yesterday. Oh, you got to fire the coach. Got to fire the coach. Fire the coach. What do you think is going to happen for your team? Are you going to be re-engaged, reignited? You're going to go, oh my God, I wasn't going to watch the two and7 team, but now that the offensive line coach is our new head coach, I'm going to see if that changes things. It's over. You should be rooting for the Saints to be terrible the rest of the way. Root for them to be awful and have the number one, two, or three pick. That's what you should be rooting for. Instead, somehow you celebrate Dennis Allen getting fired like he wasn't going to get fired at the end of the year. Of course he was. And by the way, none of us want to see Dennis

Allen. He, by definition, is a loser. He doesn't win. He loses considerably more than he wins. Probably a nice person, but he's a loser. But firing him does absolutely nothing. You want to fire him when you're two and four and you say, we still got a shot at this thing? Cool. You want to fire him when you're 2-4 and you say we still got a shot at this thing? Cool. You want to fire him when you're 2-3? Cool. Hell, 2-5 you go. Okay, we've lost 5 in a row. It's time. You wait until you've lost 7 in a row and you're 2-7 and the season's lost?

I guess it's just something about losing to shitty Carolina and Bryce Young that set them off, but I don't get it. It's something that I think is like, am I going to say it's the wrong move? No, because there is no real right move when you're 2-7 and the season's over with half the season still to go. You've got half the schedule to go, and the season's over.

You're donezo, kaput, finished. But you make moves like this to at least keep the fan base engaged, right? Like the fan base has a bloodlust. They're all over the internet calling for everybody's head. But here's the problem you're going to run into. So you fire Dennis Allen. Mickey Loomis is the GM. Mickey Loomis does a radio show on WWL, the Saints flagship station in New Orleans.

Bobby Avery does it every week. He does press conferences and other stuff too. His big thing is, you you know you can't always look at the results you have to look at the process and he's gotten his ass just blasted for this by people they're shitting on him uh they're destroying him because oh i mean look the results don't always matter it's the process well obviously the results mattered this time because you fired the coach like you're out of people to fire this is the first you know what's wild about the saints this is the first time they have fired a head coach since 2005.

Think about that. This is an organization that historically has been one of the worst in the history, not just of the NFL, of sports, one of the great laughingstocks in the history of sports. So you're talking about an organization that didn't win its first playoff game until its, I believe, 23rd year of existence. I believe that's right. They started in 67. They won in 2000 against the Rams. So that's 23 years. Am I doing the math on that? No, 33. They didn't win their first playoff game until their 33rd year of existence. Historically bad, would have some moments,

late 80s, early 90s, dome patrol defense. They had some moments. But by and large, they've been a laughingstock organization. They're the organization that hired Mike Ditka, who gave up his entire draft to get Ricky Williams. Like, that's who the Saints are. They're the Aints. They're the paper bags.

That organization has fired one head coach since, now it'll be the second. They have fired two head coach since now it'll be the second they have fired two head coaches since 2005 Jim Haslett who was the coach in the Katrina year where they finished uh 2 and 14 or 3 and 13 that year they were 3 and 13 in 2005 they hire Sean Payton Sean Payton leaves a couple years ago and now you fired Allen. So the Saints have been a relatively, I'm not going to say model organization, but they've been a pretty well-run organization. They've had the quarterback. They've had the coach. The last handful of years, it's been different. It's been obvious it's a different organization. But from 06 to about 2020,

they were a well-run organization that made the playoffs more times than they did and should have won more Super Bowls than they did. did fine it's just wild to think about that when you think of bad organizations to get one good coach one good player and it changes things i'm trying to find other examples really the patriots the patriots historically been a shit organization too like i know they went to the super bowl in 85 they went to the super bowl in 90 was it six when it was in new orleans against the packers but other than that the patriots have been largely a throwaway organization. But then you get Kraft, Brady, and Belichick, and all of a sudden they look like the class of the world. Then you look at them now, and they've got Gerard Mayo and Drake May, and they just lost to Mason Rudolph. So amazing how one player and one coach

can change the fortunes of organizations that generally speaking are terrible. And you got some organizations that have historically been okay but didn't win a Super Bowl, like the Eagles.

The Eagles have never been a terrible organization, but I think the fans have overinflated what they were, like under Buddy Ryan. Well, under Buddy Ryan, you didn't win a playoff game. Then Ray Rhodes, blah, blah, blah. andy reed comes in you become a viable organization that goes to five nfc championship games and an organization that goes to a super bowl of course they hated andy

reed but then that one coach makes a difference then the organization changes but the saints are an organization that by and large has been crap. Jim Mora. I mean, go down the list of these. Mora was fine. But Mora and Haslan. And now Dennis Allen. And Mike Ditka. And just go down the list.

But do people forget that Bum Phillips was the coach of the Saints for a while. And brought over Earl Campbell. Like they have had a history of being a mess of an organization. And then they spent a decade and a half being a solid organization. Now they're back to sucking. And bad organizations fire coaches in the middle of the season. That's pretty obvious. I'm trying to think of other examples of franchises that were just bad historically. And then one coach.

Well, I mean, I don't know. Or like their sleeping giants. Like when Nick Saban came to LSU, LSU was a sleeping giant with all the talent that you have in Louisiana. LSU spent the decade of the 90s being mostly horrible. But I'm trying to think of other examples of organizations like Baseball Wise. I'm sure there's one I'm missing here and I'm going to sound stupid, but I'm talking historically bad organizations in sports. Oh, the Bulls. I mean, what have the Bulls done before or after Michael Jordan and company? Cool, they got Derrick Rose. Derrick Rose won them some games, big deal. They didn't win a championship. I mean, the Cavaliers. LeBron, I guess a sport like basketball

and football to a degree, that can happen a lot easier than it can happen in baseball where one pitcher isn't going to turn you into a winning organization, right? Like the Braves were like that. The Braves were never like an amazing organization in the 70s and 80s. They were fine.

Then they went to the playoffs 15 consecutive years or whatever it was with Bobby Cox and that staff they had. So sort of. But I'm talking one player, one coach takes a terrible franchise and turns it into a great franchise. The Saints were a great franchise from 06 to about 2020 when it ended with Drew in the stupid COVID year where his career ends in an empty Superdome. It was bullshit. I can't get over that. But let's see. So we said Saints.

Patriots are another example of that. The Chicago Bulls are an example of that. Organizations that were largely mediocre to terrible for most of their existence that were changed by one guy. The Cavaliers, as we noted with LeBron. You can't say a team like the Lakers. They've always been great. The Celtics have always been great. They've had down times, but by and large, they've always been great. Yeah. but by and large, they've always been great. Yeah, I mean, these are just, I mean,

there are clear examples of these kind of situations where mediocre franchises are changed by one person. Then you see what happens when that one or two people go. First, Drew Brees left, and the Saints become kind of a 9-8 type of football team and don't make the playoffs, and Sean Payton's last year there. Okay, fine. Then they move on to Dennis Allen,

and they gradually go from hey we're a nine and eight nine and eight and they have to win like four games at the end of the season to get to nine and eight you know they're hovering around 500 then they get in a situation where five things bounce their way the last week of the year they can sneak into the playoffs now it's all come crumbling down they're two and seven I guess you could say the Colts I mean the Colts were fine in the Johnny Unitasitas baltimore days but in their indianapolis days they were terrible for the most part up until peyton manning got there so he'd be an example they had that little run with jim harbaugh where they were a playoff team in the mid 90s but that's

it and then they became a solid organization with peyton manning since then what have they done they had andrew luck who retired and now they've had like 14 starting quarterbacks in the last handful of years now they're like again you lose that person and it changes everything for you that stability changes everything and that's what happened to the Saints and the Saints decided to try to ride it out with Dennis Allen which fine but it's obviously not worked it's over he got fired today so again I stand by what I said about it I don't think firing him changes anything you're not going to make the playoffs I don't obviously not worked. It's over. He got fired today. So again, I stand by what I said about it. I don't think firing him changes anything. You're not going to make the playoffs. I don't know what

you're going to learn from anybody, what you're going to learn from players with a new coach. If anything, it'll just piss you off. Like what if the Saints go out and win four of their next five with a new coach, right? So they're two and seven. They win four. They're like six and eight. Like I'd be pissed off if the Saints got to six and eight the saints were six and eight with three games to go in the season i'd be furious why because they're not making the playoffs and now they've played themselves out of getting a potential top two or three pick i'm not one of these people that believes in playing for bad or the high draft pick but once you've played yourself into it don't go into the season saying oh my god we gotta have a high draft pick but once you've played yourself into being shitty, then for the love of Christ, be shitty. Go all the way in.

Commit to the fucking bit. And committing to the bit would mean keeping Dennis Allen. God, it would have been beautiful. People would have been booing at the stadium. The bags would have been on. The stadium would have been empty. It would have been beautiful. Now people are going to show up at the stadium because they fired the coach it's like it's not a good move it is stupid I don't like it anyway all right we'll get to some other stuff appreciate you