League insiders tells Tony Pauline that Aaron Glenn will end up being Saints Head Coach [Edit: Underhill says no decision is close to being made]

My thoughts:

1. The coach the Saints would love to hire is Mike Vrabel. Vrabel will be the top choice of several teams. I do not believe he will have any interest in the Saints, and he will sign elsewhere.

2. Like Vrabel, Ben Johnson will be highly sought after. I do not see him interested in the Saints job.

3. Glenn is not the "sure thing" that Allen was three years ago. But I believe he is the favorite and logical choice. Three years ago, the coaching search was largely for show--the job was Allen's unless someone else blew the front office away in presentation. This year, there will be a legitimate coaching search.

4. The Saints will be considered one of the least attractive openings. The reasons are a lack of core young players to build around, the lack of a young quarterback likely to be a quality starter with time, too many aging players, major salary-cap challenges going forward, and the need to dramatically rebuild with an aging general manager who has repeatedly rejected the need to dramatically rebuild. The Saints may not be considered the least attractive job--there are many questions with the Jets. And we still don't know what head coaches will be dismissed next week and thus what teams will be looking for a new head coach.

5. Someone is going to post that in 2006 the Saints were an even less attractive job. Agreed. Of course, Payton wanted the Green Bay job (and Brees wanted to play in Miami). Luck, good and bad, often determines what happens in life.