Force Feeding DA is About Loomis Trying to Prove that He Can Win a Championship Without Payton and Brees (3 Viewers)

[Mamba]

I'm not getting the confusion part.....maybe because I felt after the 1st awful year with DA and the decision to retain him for a 2nd was the beginning of the force feeding?

He changed the thread title.

 

[St. Widge]

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.

 

[St. Widge]

This was Saleh's 4th season as HC for the Jets.

My mistake. I thought it was year 3 for him. But I guess that only reinforces the point that getting 3 years or more is pretty standard.

 

[sfidc3]

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.

I get what you are saying.....BUT you are making an assumption here, you are assuming his role hasn't changed......I think it has, I think he has taken on more with CSP gone, and I think it has led to disastrous results....

And before you say it's speculation (because of course it is), you are also speculating that his role hasn't changed.....neither of us really know, but all I do know is this organization has precipitously declined since 2022.....

 

[jimwnola]

IMO, ideally, you don't want a GM-controlled org chart. You want a Head Coach-controlled org chart. That's how most winning teams operate. Coaches like Kyle Shanahan, Mike Tomlin, Andy Reid, & John Harbaugh may work with GMs, but in all of those cases, it's the coach who really runs the team. The GM serves the coach's vision, even if he hired him.

That's what we had with Payton & Loomis. And it seems to some extent that's the way it's set up now under DA. It's just that it's not working.

There is a severe lack of true CEO-level, "Head Coaches." Most of these guys are just coordinators who call plays and leave the other side of the ball to someone else.

All that to say, I think the Saints system is fine. It's the same system under which we had so much success. We just need to find one of those rare coaches who has a clear vision and can build an organization that is aligned with that vision.

To clarify, I should have said the other option is that he hires another Sean Payton-type to hand over running the team, and he just sticks to salary cap handling. Loomis likely just got lucky with Payton. Now, it seems like he is holding onto DA because he was Payton's guy, and the Payton hire worked out for him. However, the problem with Saints started when they thought they were just a few players away from another SB with Brees, but many of the added players were duds. Then, Brees got old, etc. DA has had enough time to prove he can't run a team. Loomis is over his head if he thinks he can build a winner with DA and do anything else beyond cap management.

 

[St. Widge]

I get what you are saying.....BUT you are making an assumption here, you are assuming his role hasn't changed......I think it has, I think he has taken on more with CSP gone, and I think it has led to disastrous results....

And before you say it's speculation (because of course it is), you are also speculating that his role hasn't changed.....neither of us really know, but all I do know is this organization has precipitously declined since 2022.....

It's possible he has taken on more since Payton left, but if he has that is likely because DA isn't as good at player evaluations, or maybe doesn't care as much about player evaluations, as Payton did. And likely because DA hasn't earned Loomis' trust regarding his ability to evaluate players.

It's also possible that with Payton gone Loomis has given more deference to Ireland regarding picking players and that Ireland is the problem. It occurs to me that Payton was more involved in later round picks including wanting to make moves for Kamara where as it appears that Ireland is not in full control of the later rounds. Maybe that's because DA doesn't want to deal with picking later round players or lacks the talent or time to fully evaluate those players?

And sure, we are both speculating to some extent because nobody really knows exactly how it all works. I'm just going by what has been said in interviews by Loomis and Payton and how the beat reporters say it works. But those reports might not be completely accurate.

Anyway, like I said, Loomis makes mistakes. And, although I think it's really a DA and Ireland problem, maybe his mistake now is trying to be too involved in talent evaluation. But it's not because he's in over his head or isn't a football guy.

Edit: And to be clear, there is not doubt there is a giant Sean Payton shaped hole in this organization. So Loomis needs to move on from DA and find another head coach with the ability to coach the team, properly evaluate talent, and be the face of the culture of the organization. It's been clear to me since year one that DA was not and would never be that guy. It baffles me that Loomis doesn't see it. But I also know that he is very patient and gives people a chance to succeed. I just think he has given DA too long and if he doesn't fire DA at the end of this year, it will be clear that Loomis is patient to a fault and we need new blood as the GM.

 

[St. Geezy]

I don’t think he’s necessarily force-feeding that he can do it without Payton and Brees but more so it’s him trying to prove to everyone that he’s the smartest person in the room.

He’s being stubborn and doesn’t want to admit error. He must show everyone he was right all along; it would be his biggest thrill to say “I told you so.”

 

[St. Geezy]

This franchise is doing the equivalent of taking out new credit cards to pay old credit card debt and then filling the old cards up again anyway.

Recipe for disaster, as we're starting to see.

If your creditor perpetually ups your credit limit, minus one single instance where there was a global pandemic in the year your best draft class ever came up for contracts, what’s the harm?

 

[3ParStillDriver]

I get what you are saying.....BUT you are making an assumption here, you are assuming his role hasn't changed......I think it has, I think he has taken on more with CSP gone, and I think it has led to disastrous results....

And before you say it's speculation (because of course it is), you are also speculating that his role hasn't changed.....neither of us really know, but all I do know is this organization has precipitously declined since 2022.....

There is one logical thing I have realized that is a constant in life, and its patterns. There is no pattern of down trend with Loomis. We went down with Haslett, Loomis made a change and the trend went up for over a decade. Then Dennis Allen takes over and we trend down as an organization again.

However, with Dennis Allen there is a trend. When he was with the Raiders the organization trended down. With us, having him as head coach we started trending down. When he was with the Raiders, his depth and starters play trended down. With us, our depth and starters play have been trending down.

The one constant, dependable trend is DA as head coach. Not Loomis. I am a bit baffled that he extended Carr this past offseason instead of beginning cleaning up the cap. That really baffles me. But I'm not at a point where I can say Loomis is the problem yet.

If he takes on another coach after DA and the trend stays down, I have to begin questioning Loomis. If he continues with DA trying to squeeze the cap to get DA every bit of talent to win with next season, I will begin questioning Loomis.

We know Loomis plays poker and never shows his hand. Theres no reason to suspect he's not doing it here too. But this offseason will show his poker hand and what's instore for the future.

 

[SuperSaint]

If your creditor perpetually ups your credit limit, minus one single instance where there was a global pandemic in the year your best draft class ever came up for contracts, what’s the harm?

I have no problem with them occasionally doing the 'signing bonus' thing for an elite player, but you can't do it for everybody, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, this team's depth is terrible because so much of their future money is already spoken for in dead money from past years.

 

[St. Widge]

I have no problem with them occasionally doing the 'signing bonus' thing for an elite player, but you can't do it for everybody, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, this team's depth is terrible because so much of their future money is already spoken for in dead money from past years.

They could have, if they chose to, extended out more money and added void years to more contracts this year to have more money to spend. The lack of money to spend right now is a choice to cut back on kicking the can to slowly get the cap under control during a soft reset. So, it's really a consequence of not doing the cap like we always do and changing how we do business. Kicking the can certainly got us in the situation, but the cure is what is hurting us right now. And we did it for the right reasons right up until Brees retired. That does need to change now and should have changed 4 years ago.

But, frankly, the root cause of the lack of depth and lack of impact talent is that they haven't done a good enough job in the draft. We are never going to be big players in free agency and we are always going to bargain shop and hope on upside so not having cap space doesn't mean much as long as you are drafting good to great players and spending the cap space and kicking the can to keep them. But that all comes down to player evaluation in the draft and in deciding who you kick the can to keep. They should have kicked the can to keep Marcus Williams and Hendrickson. They shouldn't have kicked the can to extend Cam Jordan as much as I love the guy. So far doing it for Demario has worked out, but that could change quickly with age.

And no team can have enough depth to deal with the injuries we have had this year. But, good coaches overcome injuries and find a way even if the injuries are unprecedented. And good coaches win the Philly and Atlanta game so the 3 game losing streak after Carr got hurt still has you competitive.

 

[SuperSaint]

They could have, if they chose to, extended out more money and added void years to more contracts this year to have more money to spend. The lack of money to spend right now is a choice to cut back on kicking the can to slowly get the cap under control during a soft reset. So, it's really a consequence of not doing the cap like we always do and changing how we do business. Kicking the can certainly got us in the situation, but the cure is what is hurting us right now. And we did it for the right reasons right up until Brees retired. That does need to change now and should have changed 4 years ago.

But, frankly, the root cause of the lack of depth and lack of impact talent is that they haven't done a good enough job in the draft. We are never going to be big players in free agency and we are always going to bargain shop and hope on upside so not having cap space doesn't mean much as long as you are drafting good to great players and spending the cap space and kicking the can to keep them. But that all comes down to player evaluation in the draft and in deciding who you kick the can to keep. They should have kicked the can to keep Marcus Williams and Hendrickson. They shouldn't have kicked the can to extend Cam Jordan as much as I love the guy. So far doing it for Demario has worked out, but that could change quickly with age.

And no team can have enough depth to deal with the injuries we have had this year. But, good coaches overcome injuries and find a way even if the injuries are unprecedented. And good coaches win the Philly and Atlanta game so the 3 game losing streak after Carr got hurt still has you competitive.

Makes sense