Mike Florio bringing the proper perspective to our organization: “Saints are a solid long-term destination for a new coach“

Elvis said
I agree with almost everything you said. However, the reputation the Saints have as an organization is tied 100% to the Sean Payton and Drew Brees years. The years before were not great and the years after have not been great, yet. I know Loomis is a smart guy. He CAN turn this around if he wants to do it. But I also know he is arrogant and doesn't listen to a lot of outside voices. We will know very quickly how things are going to look long term by what he does to get under the cap, what he does in free agency and by how the draft is managed. This is either the year we're going to change course or the year we're going to replace the coaches while not changing much else. But for me to say this is a good organization in the long term, I want to see that they can pivot from past mistakes. I have yet to see that but I hope to.

I agree this is the year we see what Loomis will be going forward and if he gets it. And I would think that talking to the perspective HC hires would have to show him the issues with the team and that he needs to change to fix them. He either does it right and retires in a few years with a good legacy in tact or he fails and gets fired in a few years after destroying what should have been a great legacy.

I don't have this dim view of his ego that others have. I think essentially all people in the position he is in, in the NFL and in the real world, have big egos. Payton certainly had/has a giant ego as do most coaches, players, and front office people in the NFL. But, Loomis has in the past, when Haslett was here and when Payton was here, been willing to stay in the background and he seemed happy to be there. Will he go back there now? I tend to think he didn't really change as much as he was forced to be the face of the franchise because DA wasn't good at it. So as long as he hires the right HC, he will return to being facilitator in the way that he was with Payton. His biggest failing to me is that he wouldn't tell DA no when he wanted to do things that were detrimental to the long term future of the team.

Anyway, this was never a historically great organization, but at least since Benson took over, it has been a respectable organization that does things right and managed to build to a Super Bowl. And that is the situation with most NFL franchises. Only a few are truly dumpster fires. The rest hover in the middle rising and falling based on the quality of their HC and QB. It was never and probably never is going to be one of the top 5 jobs in the NFL but it has been and should continue to be a solid NFL job that most coaches would want.