GM Explains Trade Deadline Move and Fires Head Coach
8 mins read

GM Explains Trade Deadline Move and Fires Head Coach

General manager Mickey Loomis made his weekly appearance on WWL Radio with Mike Hoss on Tuesday night, address the obvious with trade Marshon Lattimore and burning Dennis Allen. Loomis did not speak to the media after the move, so except statement it’s the first time we’ve actually heard from him. Loomis said it was only recently that conversations took place around Lattimore.

Loomis said, “I really think it’s just been in the last week when there was some speculation that he was going to be traded, given our record, you know, it’s going to spur conversations and we had a number of them in the last , you know, four or five days.”

Trading Lattimore gave the Saints multiple draft picks for next year’s draft, getting a 3rd, 4th and 6th round pick from Washington in exchange for him and a 5th round pick. The 6th rounder was the one the Saints used to acquire John Ridgeway III. Loomis sees it as moving up in the draft. The fallout from moving on from him is the dead money added to the salary cap, which comes to just over $36 million.

“It gets complicated because it’s acceleration from bonuses that were amortized and some things like that, but yeah, I mean, listen, we’re not — it’s, you know, you said it right. It’s $18 million over the next two years, every year, that we’ll be able to use somewhere else, but let me just say this, Marshon has been a great draft pick. You know, he was a defensive rookie of the year the year we drafted him, ’17, and made the Pro Bowl a number of times. He was a great teammate and, you know, I have nothing but good things to say about Marshon. He’s had some soft tissue injuries the last few years to deal with and a couple of other injuries to deal with, but he’s still, I think, one of the better corners in our league and Washington is getting a good player for their playoff run here, so I wish him nothing but the best , I really do. It was just, you know, in the end it came down to a deal that I thought was, you know, good for us, good value for us and that’s why we did it.

When it came to Dennis Allen, Loomis repeated much of what was said in his statement, but explained it. He also brought up the column about the players and the parking lot.

Dennis Allen's term lasted less than three years

March 11, 2023; Metairie, LA, USA; New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen and executive director Gayle Benson and quarterback Derek Carr and general manager Mickey Loomis pose at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center. Mandatory credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

“Look, I think Dennis Allen is a great football coach, and I think everybody in our league who would talk about him thinks he’s a great football coach. He is. I think in this case, look, the circumstances created the record. It’s just the truth, and a lot of people don’t want to hear it. I mean, we get stupid things written, like, ah, the players don’t park in the right places. It’s ridiculous. Players have been out there for 15 the years, you know, because we’ve got 100 more employees than we had 10 years ago, and equating that with discipline is also stupid. I mean, we’re 8th—when we going into this last game we were 8th fewest penalties in the league. It’s more of a comment on discipline than where a player parks, for crying out loud, but it just comes back to what’s staring you in the face is that we’ve had an abnormal number of injuries, including to our quarterback, and we haven’t been able to overcome that, so it puts pressure and stress on the organization and ultimately that was the reason for a change.”

Loomis did not address the team on Monday, leaving it to Darren Rizzi. He thought he did a good job talking to the team, the media and described something he wanted to do differently. The goal is to hopefully kick-start the back half of the season.

“I think he’s a pretty obvious choice, given his experience, his role as a special teams coach, as you just described, you handle, you know, almost every player on the team when you’re in that role, so it’s a vote as our players have heard before. He’s used to standing in front of a large group of players and presenting and watching, he’s got a great personality and a great positive attitude all the time, and, you know, he was a candidate, you know, when we hired Dennis Allen, he was one of the candidates and had a really strong performance in his interviews, so I think it was an obvious choice.

“Rizzi’s always had this bubbly personality. He’s got kind of a fighter mentality, and you feel that even when you just have a normal conversation with him, you know, and so I think that was received positively by our team and certainly by our staff and players in a really, really, really difficult circumstance.”

We'll see if Mickey Loomis will be part of the rebuild for New Orleans or not

July 27, 2022; Metairie, LA, USA; New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and president Dennis Lauscha during training camp at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center. Mandatory credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Loomis said the team won’t be very active with a coaching search right now, but will when the season is over. He’s focused on what’s in the building and addressed the fact that he’s been through the process before with setbacks back in 2005. He also talked about the state of the team and obviously the frustration the fans are feeling.

“It’s no fun losing games. It’s, you know, I can’t describe to you, as bad as our fans feel and the things that, you know, they feel, believe me, we all feel ten times worse, but you can’t just wallow in it. You have to get up off the mat and show some fight, and that’s true for every single person in this building, and so we’ll see what we have in the next eight weeks. . “

Loomis added that he doesn’t question the effort of the coaching staff and players, something Dennis Allen also said. However, it hasn’t been good enough yet and needs to improve to win as much. He addressed how they have lost their top two receivers, top two corners, their top three interior lineman and quarterback this year. The Saints know there have been several games where the game came down to one last possession and had a chance to win the game but didn’t.

“The other team made some plays, and so it’s as close as it is, you just quoted it, it’s not that far from being 5-4 as opposed to being 2-7 and yet it’s 2-7, I mean, we have got to own it’s what we are.

Wednesday marks a new era for the Saints, and they have three critical months to assess where they are, where they’re going and how they’re going to get there.