Force Feeding DA is About Loomis Trying to Prove that He Can Win a Championship Without Payton and Brees
Loomis is over his head. His background was more in accounting and managing a salary cap. He is not a talent evaluator or true football guy. So, he is not someone with a vision on how to build a team. He relied on Payton for that. I strongly suspect Payton left because he saw there was no immediate future success with Saints and was ready for a change. Obviously, he wasn't really burnt out from coaching. He took one year off. Everyone remaining after Payton left has lacked the confidence and vision to admit to rebuilding. They have been mortgaging future in delusion of being a few players away from success. Draft picks have been subpar for too long. Injuries haven't helped. Coaching hasn't helped. Loomis is one part of the problem, but he was fine in his original capacity.
Loomis has worked in NFL front offices for nearly 40 years and has been an NFL GM for 22 years. The idea that he is "in over his head" or not a football guy is baffling to me. He knows more about running an NFL team and frankly scouting and talent evaluation than anyone on this board. It's doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes, and he is making a mistake keeping DA, but it's not because he is in over his head or isn't a football guy.
No, he's not a professional scout and that's why he has a head of pro scouting and college scouting. Below them he has a bunch of actual scouts. And Loomis, like pretty much so every other NFL GM leans heavily on his head coach to to tell him who to draft and who to sign because they know the players that fit in their system. So, even if he's not a "talent evaluator", he doesn't really have to be since all NFL teams use heads of scouting, scouts, and coaches to picks players. If there is a dispute, Loomis makes the final decision, but according to everyone involved that seldom happens. Instead Loomis, the head coach, and Ireland come to a consensus regarding who to pick. And in fact, Loomis apparently lets Ireland run the draft from round 3 to 7 and pick whoever he wants to picks.
So, if your issue is with talent evaluation, that's really more a problem with DA and Ireland than Loomis. Loomis like most NFL GMs leans heavily on the head coach and the director of college scouting and Pro scouting for player evaluations. So, sure he needs a good head coach and good heads of scouting to be successful, but that's true of every NFL GM. The bad NFL GMs are the ones who don't let coaches pick their own players and no good coach wants to work for a GM that won't let them pick their own players.
As far as Payton, to the extent that he left because he didn't like the direction the team was going, he was more or less the person who set them on that course so it is a monster of his own making. Especially since he's the one that recommended DA to Loomis.
That being said, football guy or not, if Loomis keeps DA beyond this year, I think he needs to be let go too.