Sean Listened to or Followed the Example of the Wrong Bill

26ISTHEMAN said
I for one am glad Payton is no longer coaching the Saints. As much success as he brought the franchise, I think it was his ego and arrogance that kept the Saints from winning another championship. Sure there were other factors, but his failure to field competent defenses during the prime of Drew's tenure is inexcusable. We forget that he briefly put his ego aside and gave up part of his salary in 2009 to hire Gregg Williams, and it netted us a Super Bowl victory. After that, he decided only he knew how to build a team, and he fired Rob Ryan after he had put together a very good defense because Ryan didn't do it the way Payton wanted it done.

Maybe he'll luck into drafting a franchise QB and will find success again, but I have my doubts.

Rob Ryan's defense named Junior Galette a captain for the 2014 season and their performance plummeted from 4th to 28th. in 2015, the defense named Brandon Browner a captain, and 28th wasn't good enough that season - they dropped to dead last. Fans tend to believe that Payton, an offense-minded head coach, didn't much meddle in the affairs of the defense, preferring instead to let his DCs (he hired five in total, and worked the sidelines with four of them) do that work. The numbers seem to reflect that the offenses were his and the defenses were theirs. Somehow the defenses under new coordinators Gibbs, Williams, and Ryan performed well in year 1 but fell off a cliff after. Gibbs' defense went from a respectable 13th in 2006 to mid-20s by 2008. Williams' defense was second in takeaways and led the league in turnover differential in 2009, but he had to go for other reasons. Ryan's defense was 4th in points allowed but then tumbled as mentioned. Allen has been the one to make it a consistent top-half defense, in terms of points allowed and takeaways.