Mickey Loomis sits down with NOF to detail his thoughts on Dennis Allen, the ‘energy’ he’s felt this week, why ‘tanking’ won’t be in Saints’ future, and more

It wasn’t hard to decipher from Mickey Loomis’ initial statements that firing coach Dennis Allen was a decision the Saints general manager didn’t want to have to make.

But when asked by NewOrleans.Football if that means he disagreed with it, Loomis said, “It’s probably more difficult than disagree. My philosophy in general is that I don't see a lot of benefit in general from making changes in midstream. So that's probably where you read the hesitancy.”

When asked if that means the decision was made primarily by owner Gayle Benson, Loomis said, “No, I’m not gonna say that. It was an organization decision.”

Loomis also acknowledged during an interview with NOF that he has already seen benefits from the switch to interim head coach Darren Rizzi.

“Look, I would say Rizzi’s done a really good job here these first three days, and there’s a lot of positive energy that you get when you make a change like that – but it just doesn’t make it any less difficult,” said Loomis, who later added, “This has brought a little energy to us. You see it, we see it. You feel it when you talk to the players, there’s a little bit more pep in their step, a little excitement. I think that’s natural. We’ll see if we can make it last.”

One thing Loomis will never back down from is his belief that Allen is a good coach and that he would have been more successful if the team had not been hamstrung by an avalanche of injuries to critical players.

“This is circumstantial more than anything else. You win and lose games based upon your roster more than any other factor,” Loomis reiterated. “The margin for error is so small to begin with, it becomes even tighter and smaller. And that’s not really the coach’s fault.”

But Loomis also acknowledged that “we” as a Saints organization were not able to overcome those circumstances. “And the head coach is the first line of defense, right? He’s the one getting the blame. And then there’s blame to go around, though.”

When asked what ultimately became the deciding factor, Loomis said “probably just the stress, the pressure from outside coming in. … And how do we get some positive energy going?”

That stress and pressure was coming from all angles. That’s what a seven-game losing streak will do. But Loomis said it wasn’t “any one thing” that created the most pressure, whether that be a disenchanted fan base or a locker room losing confidence and belief.

“I get the outside noise, I understand the outside noise. I don’t pay a lot of attention to it. I don’t ask them for advice, so I don’t pay attention to their critiques,” Loomis said when asked if fears of empty seats or booing fans or lost season-ticket sales could influence a decision like this. “If you're doing it because you're afraid of getting booed on the weekend, then that's not very good decision-making. And in terms of season tickets and all that, I just think you have to lose for a lot of years in a row before that has a significant impact, especially in a great market like we have with a loyal fan base.

“I'm not trying to poo-poo the reaction of our fans. They’re passionate, we care about that, but we don't govern the team based upon the fans' reaction. And we can't do that. Some teams do, historically we don't. And I think the best organizations don't. They tune out the noise. They hear it, but they try to tune it out.”

As for whether he felt the players’ belief in Allen eroding, Loomis said he still thinks players were playing hard and giving effort. But he said there is a human nature in sports where there is “no euphoria of winning if there’s not a despair in losing.”

“And so when you’re losing, you’re kind of feeling that feeling of despair. And you gotta fight your way out of it,” Loomis said. “And I felt like our team’s fighting, the effort’s there. But there’s also that kind of feeling of despair each week when the results are still the same.”

Loomis wasn’t ready to look ahead to the upcoming coaching search yet, saying multiple times that it’s too early in the process to narrow the scope. But he didn’t rule out the idea of wider changes in structure atop the organization.

When I specifically asked if Loomis would rethink his own role along with a new coaching hire, he said, “We’re gonna look at every coach and every opportunity and look for a good fit. Period. We’re not gonna be restricted or limited by anything. And I think we’ll be an attractive opportunity.”

Why will it be attractive?

“Because I think we have some elements for a pretty good team, I do,” Loomis said. “And I think that our organization does things in a first-class manner. I think we have a good reputation around our league.”

For now, Loomis said the focus will be on “letting this season play out.”

“You know, we're all – and this isn't any different whether the head coach gets changed or not – everybody's on an audition, right? Everybody's being evaluated and on an audition,” Loomis said. “So it's an opportunity for (Rizzi), it's an opportunity for Joe Woods, who's gonna be calling the defense now. It's an opportunity for some young players to step up. It's an opportunity for some veterans to show they still have it. It's an opportunity for everyone in the building to see how we react to this type of adversity.”

Loomis did dismiss the notion that trading cornerback Marshon Lattimore on Tuesday signals any wider shift in the organization’s approach or salary-cap strategy. The Saints had been considering the idea of a Lattimore trade dating back to January and finally got a strong offer for him. But they were never intent on trading him or any other players at any cost.

“I'm not in the selling mode. We're not here to sell off good players just to get anything. That's not what we're doing,” Loomis said. “And if we didn't feel like this was a really good value for the player, then we wouldn't have done it.”

When I specifically asked if someone like Derek Carr could be next before he is scheduled to make $40 million next year in salary and bonuses, Loomis said, “Don’t read anything into anything. All that has yet to be determined. We haven't decided on anything.”

“And I think (the idea of catching up on the salary cap) is overblown, as I've said in the past,” said Loomis, who said he believes the Saints appreciate their own long-term cap management strategy more than someone looking at it from the outside.

Loomis also said, “I don't believe in tanking.”

“Show me where that worked in the NFL. Now, some of it, you can say, ‘Well, this team was bad for four straight years, and then they got good.’ Well, they didn't do it on purpose. They were trying to win,” said Loomis, who referenced the Philadelphia 76ers’ “process” and said he doesn’t believe it can work as well in the NFL as it might in the NBA.

“I just think for football, I just don't see it. First of all, we've got 53 players, you know? Three guys or two guys, whatever, don't make a difference in terms of going from worst to first to worst, right? Different than the NBA,where, man, you might get one guy, and boom,” Loomis said. “Now, the one guy is if you hit on a franchise quarterback. But we all know how much of a crapshoot that is, right? You know, the best guy in the league was taken with the 10th pick, not the first pick (Patrick Mahomes). And Kansas City wasn't tanking when they got him. They got him by actually having a decent year and then trading up.

“Plus you don't want to get in the habit of losing. Every player wants to win. So they want to believe they're doing everything they can to win. That's what we ask of them. So how can we ask them to do everything they can to win, and then we're not?”

Loomis didn’t mention that the next head coach would probably feel the same way. But that could matter in the Saints’ upcoming search.

The next coach will want a chance to win early instead of sitting through 2-3 years of gutting the roster. Sometimes, like we just saw with the rival Falcons, the rewards aren’t experienced until the next head coach arrives.

For better or for worse, any candidate that considers New Orleans next year will know this is a team that wants to give its head coach every chance.