Mickey Loomis’ End Of Year Press Conference

I suppose I am one of those who does not believe I need to be qualified to be an NFL head coach or general manager--or president of the United States (a general comment not aimed at any one president)--to be critical of the job being done.

The Saints are a sports-entertainment business with a current valuation of perhaps four billion dollars. I expect professionalism and a competence level at a high level in such a business. Before yesterday, Loomis in public did not appear often--and certainly did not say much of substance. In his years as head coach, Payton was the public face of the franchise. Yesterday, at least for a time, Loomis became that public face. The gum-chewing was inexplicably unprofessional. If Loomis were feeling ill, he should have postponed the press conference for a few days. But the gum aside, I have two criticisms of his performance--and that is what it was--yesterday.

First, the tone. Some have suggested that he seemed arrogant. What I saw yesterday was a combative tone trying to mask lack of confidence. Before yesterday, Loomis has always come across as a sovereign who simply did whatever he wanted without fear of criticism inside or outside the organization. Yesterday, I got the feeling that Loomis knows that the fan base, if not some inside the organization, finds the team's performance unacceptably poor and believes that he as general manager bears the responsibility.

Second, the substance. Some of his substantive arguments were insulting. Loomis could have said that he believes Dennis Allen is a good coach, that he was encouraged by how hard the team played in the final quarter of the season, that some NFL organizations are not sufficiently patient with their coaching hires, and that he believes it is in the best interests of the franchise that Allen return as head coach. Instead, in prepared remarks, he compared Allen's last two years to the first coaching years of Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, and Tom Landry.

For two reasons, his comparisons were patently absurd.

One, Noll and Walsh took over teams that had hit bottom and that needed to be rebuilt. And Landry was coaching an expansion team. The stated rationale for Allen being named head coach was that the Saints were a competitive team and that the continuity provided by Allen would keep the Saints competitive.

Two, for every example one can give of an NFL head coach whose record in his first two years was poor and who became a great coach, one can give 20 examples of an NFL head coach whose record in his first two years was poor and who never achieved any success.

Also, Loomis was asked about the team's age, and his response was "age is a number." Sadly, age is much more than a number in football and life, and the age of our star players and the relative lack of young players who are or can be star players are serious issues. (And yes, we have some very good young players, but not enough of them, and few have won postseason honors.)