With win tomorrow, Dennis Allen will have identical record as Payton through 37 games as Saints head coach

First of all, nobody is "right" about DA yet. Not the naysayers who believed he failed over his first couple of seasons, nor the sunshine pumpers who are crowning him after a wildly successful first two games of this season. He's 18-18 and in the very early stages of a pivotal season.

Even if you're of the opinion that we're legitimately good/great this season and that our early success will carry forward throughout the rest of the year, the fact is, DA has behaved differently than previous years. Pete Charmichael had zero business being hired as DA's 1st OC. ZERO. We all knew it at the time. He had less than zero business being retained for a 2nd season. Both seasons were predictable, miserable failures and wasted two years of our aging veteran defensive stars' opportunity to play meaningful football in the postseason and to compete for a title. I'm sorry, but getting off to a good start this year doesn't magically wash that away. That's 100% on DA. He mishandled the JW/AD situation. The lack of attention to detail was evident in our team's play. There was an obvious lack of accountability, something that was indirectly vocalized by some of our players. There were the numerous borderline comical sound bytes that paralleled mediocre-at-best performance on the field against two of the easiest schedules I can remember in nearly 40 years watching the NFL. He was in over his head the last two seasons.

To DA's credit, he's been a different dude since the end of last year. Pete was rightfully shown the door. He hired a bright young offensive mind from a proven system. He brought in proven, high-quality assistants to work with our young players on the offensive line. He ran a tough training camp, as we've heard directly from the players. He's called out and challenged players. He's more confident and charismatic this year. We're scouting our opponents better so far, and attacking matchups that favor us. Is it any wonder that we're playing better?

I hope we win the SB this year and DA goes down as one of the great coaches in Saints history. Having said that, we've had every reason to strongly question his capabilities through the first two seasons, because that version of DA simply wasn't cutting it. I like this version much better. Kudos to him for turning the page and being a noticeably better coach thus far.
A different possibility is that he wasn’t responsible for keeping Pete in year one or year two. Mickey had a continuity program. They tried to lighten the blow of losing Payton by selling the snake oil that suggested things could be the same. It was a terrible plan and Mickey set him up to fail. Thankfully Mickey has let him bring in his guys (coaches and players) to combine with the good that he did inherit.

I don’t see DA behaving differently. I do so a coach who finally has his own coaches and players and is enjoying seeing it come together. The defense was always in his corner, on offense he inherited a very difficult situation. The bad outweighed the good. As they say, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. He inherited a situation that Sean ran away from.

Sean needed a strong DC to find success. He got a pass when it didn’t work out. Why? It was his guys, why did he get a pass? Oh yeah, he had a HOF QB who could put up 40 points a week.

DA on the other hand needs a strong OC. He didn’t get a pass when that didn’t work out. It wasn’t his guys and he had suspect QBs. His defense still played well, but so what. Its not as flashy as putting up 40 on offense. As a result he was treated horribly by many of our fans. I was embarrassed for our fan base. We’re better than that. We’re smarter than that. Well, at least we should be. DA has been with our organization and has done a very good job for a long time. He deserved better. While I’m critical of Loomis, I’m glad he had the patience and class to give the guy a fair chance after he had to be Mickey’s scapegoat for 2 years.

In Allen I see a coach who has a vision and plan for the team. He pays no attention to noise. He’s busy being a leader, a football coach. Football is in his DNA. Day by day, week by week, season by season, he keeps pushing forward. I’m happy he has this chance to redeem himself from the dumpster fire he inherited in Oakland, where he played scapegoat for a different organization.