On Monday, the New Orleans Saints made a surprising move. They decided to fire defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and promoted Dennis Allen to take over. This comes after Washington beat the Saints 47-14. The defense allowed Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins to throw for 324 yards and four touchdowns. Is this the right move for the Saints?
The New Orleans Saints hired Rob Ryan as defensive coordinator on February 9th, 2013. They were hoping that his 3-4 defense would help the Saints win games. Last season their defense ranked 31st in total yards and 25th in pass yards allowed per game. Those aren’t great numbers but it was Ryan’s first year with the team.
This year was supposed to be when the defense was going to excel because it was Ryan’s second season. That never happened. The defense is one of the worst in the NFL. They are last in points allowed per game and yards allowed per game. They give up 31.5 points and 424.7 yards per game. Those numbers don’t allow the team to win many football games. The Saints had few turnovers. Total they have 4 interceptions. The one area the Saints are doing well in is sacks with 22.
The Saints defense has struggled allowing five quarterbacks to have 300 plus passing yards besides Kirk Cousins. Those were Carson Palmer, Cam Newton, Sam Bradford, Eli Manning, and Marcus Mariota.
According to ESPN Head Coach Sean Payton said “I’m disappointed for Rob it didn’t work out. I’ll tell you one thing now: He’s a fantastic staff guy, respected greatly, not only in the locker room but by his peers. And we just had to look closely at some point to at least give this an option because the direction we were heading wasn’t good. We really struggled with substitutions, getting lined up, getting guys on the field and being able to function.”
This was the right move for the team. They are 4-6 right now. With the defense struggling, more pressure is on the offense to score every time they have the ball. The Saints needed go a different direction on defense. Hopefully with a change at defense coordinator, the Saints will improve.
What do you think of the move to fire defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and promote Dennis Allen?
Yeah it is true that it was overdue but the Saints have many problems on defense. As we all know the Bus stops with the coach and that is Rob Ryan.