By Jordan Long
The New Orleans Saints have their new Head Coach. They went in-house and hired Defensive Coordinator Dennis Allen. He replaces Sean Payton.
Payton decided to step down as Head Coach of the Saints on January 25. Payton was the best coach in the history of the New Orleans Saints taking over in 2006 after the Saints fired Jim Haslett. Haslett was the Head Coach of the Saints from 2000 to 2005. He was a disappointing 45-51, a winning percentage of .469. The Saints let him go following a 3-13 finish in 2005.
Payton didn’t have any head coaching experience when he was hired. That didn’t matter. He turned the Saints’ franchise around. The Saints went an outstanding 152-89 under him, a winning percentage of .631 sending him to the playoffs 9 times. It helped he had future Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees who ran his offense from 2006 to 2020. Brees’ play made life easier for Payton because Brees found his open receivers and rarely turned the ball over. With Brees as his quarterback, the Saints won Super Bowl 44 when they defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17, giving the franchise their first ever Super Bowl win. Payton decided it was time to leave the Saints following this past season. His 152 regular season wins as Head coach are the most in Saints history.
Allen has been the Saints’ Defensive Coordinator since 2015. This season, his defense was pretty good. They were the 7th ranked defense, giving up 318.2 yards per game. The Saints passing defense ranked 14th in the league. Teams passed for an average of 224.8 yards per game. The best part of Allen’s play calling was the fact they stopped the run. They didn’t allow teams to get the running game going, giving up 93.5 yards per game, 4th in the NFL. When opponents drove into the red zone, they had a difficult time scoring. The Saints permitted 19.7 points per game, 4th in the NFL.
His defense played well all year. It wasn’t his fault the Saints went 9-8 and missed the playoffs. Now he is the Head Coach and hopes to have the same amount of success Payton did.
Allen has been a Head Coach in this league before. It didn’t last long. He was the Raiders Head Coach from 2012 to 4 games into the 2014 season. The Raiders let him go after an 0-4 start in 2014. Overall, he was an awful 8-28, a winning percentage of .222.
The Saints expect to have better results with him as their Head Coach. Allen knows how to coach a defense but he is now responsible for the whole team. He must be able to coach them to winning records. If the Saints don’t win under him or even earn a playoff spot, he could be gone. Allen will have at least a few years to do so. Allen must show what happened with the Raiders franchise was a fluke. He has his chance and Allen needs to make the most of
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