NEW ORLEANS — It appears the time on Dennis Allen’s tenure as the head coach for the New Orleans Saints is fast coming to an end.
At the rate things have been going the last couple of weeks he may not make it to Halloween. Yes, it’s gotten that bad.
Nobody should really be surprised. In the NFL, when you lose five games in a row, you don’t get an awful lot of room. If it comes after winning a couple of games, well, it can get downright nasty.
Especially when you consider he’s only 18-23 in his third year with the Saints. Despite general manager Mickey Loomis’ public support at some point — usually when it becomes a liability — they find a way to get around that. Right now, the odds are not good Allen will be around by the New Year.
In early October, when the sharks started circling, he brought up some names out of the past like Chuck Noll, Bill Belichick, Tom Landry and Bill Walsh as a comparison. Considering their contracts in some cases 60 years ago didn’t have buy-outs like they do now, most owners weren’t too fond of paying people to not work.
They also didn’t have social media and most of the yapping was in newspaper columns. That was in the days when the internet and sport radio didn’t even exist. It was a different world and there’s no comparison to today. Loomis knew it was going to come up and had notes prepared for it.
The only thing that could remotely save Allen’s job at this point is the shocking amount of injuries this team has had over the last couple of years. Playing without quarterback Derek Carr the last few games hasn’t worked out well. It seldom does in the NFL. Spencer Rattler needs some more experience.
What should be more concerning, though, is an apparent lack of interest at times among the players. They look like guys just there for the paycheck.
To use a popular phrase from the college world these days, that’s “culture.” NFL teams don’t use that much, but it’s just as true.
I saw the “culture” first-hand in the Landry days in Dallas. When it changed towards the end, the losses sailed past the wins so fast it almost blew Landry’s hat off.
The others retired as it was starting to slip a little. They were smart enough to see it coming.