USA Today Ranks Dennis Allen Worst Head Coach in the League

Of course. Payton was the head coach. He tested positive for covid, but he was still running the entire operation during the week.
The offensive line was a MASH unit (no Armstead, Ramczyk, & Peat), the starting WRs & TE were Marquez Callaway, TreQuan Smith, & Adam Trautman, and the QB had an injured throwing hand...while being on the road against a top 3 run defense and against a team that was 6-0 at home at the time. The operation was to not try to do too much offensively while relying on the strength of Dennis Allen's defense to carry the day, which it did as the Saints shut out Brady and the Bucs 9-0. Payton wasn't there to give the locker room pre-game speech, or halftime speech, or make halftime adjustments or anything like that. Dennis Allen's serving as head coach that week was brought back up in defense of the Saints' hiring him for that position two years ago. I am not commenting on how that has worked out, but the view on that week was certainly that Dennis Allen assumed head coaching duties.