Polymarkets has Mike McCarthy as odds on favorite to be Saints next head coach (4 Viewers)

[St. Widge]

And Belichick has an even better track record. He got an interview too. So what's the narrative? What is it that me and the GMs for several teams are missing? I'd prefer the Saints hire a younger coach, that's more likely to stay with the team at least 8 years. What narrative are YOU trying to push on me?

Look man, maybe they are going with the safest option, that is if they hire McCarthy, but it's not "lazy". And the Bears requested to talk to McCarthy while he was still under contract in Dallas and flew him in by private jet as soon as he was free. So, I'm not sure why you think no other GM thought of McCarthy as an option. In addition, neither Vrable nor Carroll interviewed with teams other than the Raiders and the Patriots. That doesn't mean other GMs didn't think of them as options for their HC jobs.

So, either none of those three guys were in demand, you aren't taking into account the wider view of the coaching cycle this offseason, or you are seeing what you want to see because you are just done with Loomis. I don't know which it is, but I also know that you are a smart guy so it's not likely to be the ones involving ignorance of the facts. I want Loomis gone too, but that doesn't mean everything he does is lazy or incompetent. I try to look at each thing objectively without just assuming he will do everything wrong. And, frankly, he is playing this HC search right with all of his top options still left on the board, other than Glenn, despite the fact that he couldn't do anything for 4 days due to the snow storm here.

And I have no narrative. I'm not even sure that McCarthy would be my pick and I'd honestly be good if they hired McCarthy, Brady, Moore, Kafka, Kingsbury, or even Weaver. I see advantages and disadvantages to all of them. But, yes, I think McCarthy is the safest choice because he has the highest floor, but, if I'm honest with myself I also know that he may also have the highest ceiling since we know he has gotten to the pinnacle. We don't know if the younger guys can get there.

 

[harrty]

I think everyone is so excited for a new coach because of the last one we had. But I dont know why people are so quick to want another lame coach. McCarthy is not the answer.

Yea, Andy Reed was seen that way at one time.

 

[harrty]

Are we getting Aaron Rodgers in his prime? Those 4 NFC championship games are what? 10 years old at this point?

We might. Never can tell.

 

[St. Widge]

At the risk of being creating another kerfuffle about Aaron Glenn being their “top choice”, if you believe that he was their top choice (as I do) and then now they are pivoting to MM, then that makes 3 straight candidates (DA, Glenn, MM) that have a pre-existing relationship with Loomis and the Saints.

Which is not automatically a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just how (I think) they operate these days.

nothing wrong with hiring someone you know (happens every day in the real world) as long as it’s the right guy.

He probably was their top choice, but he was also the top choice of the Jets and possibly other teams. Consensus seems to be that he was the #2 candidate behind Johnson of the young unknown coaches. So, I don't think having him as the top choice, when Johnson turned them down, was mostly about familiarity. It's just that he was the best options left, and the Jets agreed, after Johnson. Did his familiarity have something to do with it? I'm sure it did, but that's pretty standard in the NFL and in the rest of the world. But, I will say that Glenn, compared to McCarthy, would not have been a safe choice. It's pretty risky to go with a guy that is an unknown as a HC that goes against the trend of hiring young OCs to be HC for all the reasons we have discussed here.

 

[livefromDC]

Look man, maybe they are going with the safest option, that is if they hire McCarthy, but it's not "lazy". And the Bears requested to talk to McCarthy while he was still under contract in Dallas and flew him in by private jet as soon as he was free. So, I'm not sure why you think no other GM thought of McCarthy as an option. In addition, neither Vrable nor Carroll interviewed with teams other than the Raiders and the Patriots.

So, either none of those three guys were in demand, you aren't taking into account the wider view of the coaching cycle this offseason, or you are seeing what you want to see because you are just done with Loomis. I don't know which it is, but I also know that you are a smart guy so it's not likely to be the ones involving ignorance of the facts. I want Loomis gone too, but that doesn't mean everything he does is lazy or incompetent. I try to look at each thing objectively without just assuming he will do everything wrong. And, frankly, he is playing this HC search right with all of his top options still left on the board, other than Glenn, despite the fact that he couldn't do anything for 4 days due to the snow storm here.

And I have no narrative. I'm not even sure that McCarthy would be my pick and I'd honestly be good if they hired McCarthy, Brady, Moore, Kafka, Kingsbury, or even Weaver. I see advantages and disadvantages to all of them. But, yes, I think McCarthy is the safest choice because he has the highest floor, but, if I'm honest with myself I also know that he may also have the highest ceiling since we know he has gotten to the pinnacle. We don't know if the younger guys can get there.

Vrabel went quickly because he went where he wanted to go. You know his history with NE. To pretend otherwise is silly. Carroll is also a head scratcher, but what does that prove about the Saints? I would also call that a lazy hire.

I dont really want to rehash this again. In my opinion, McCarthy has the highest floor for sure, but not the highest ceiling. We dont have to agree. I'm an analytical person. Analytics say a first time coaches will win a Superbowl before McCarthy wins a second. You can believe what you want or not trust the current data, and that's okay. I've stated why I believe what I do. That's all. You claimed I had some narrative. This is my narrative. I'd prefer Brady tbh, but any of the first time guys, I'd rather see get a shot. I think long term the Saints will be better off. I know I could be wrong, but everyone else here is doing what I'm doing, giving an opinion. That's what we're supposed to do here. Listen to other opinions and share our own opinions. There's a lot more "let me tell you why you're wrong!" On the board these days and it's really off putting.

 

[St. Widge]

Vrabel went quickly because he went where he wanted to go. You know his history with NE. To pretend otherwise is silly. Carroll is also a head scratcher, but what does that prove about the Saints? I would also call that a lazy hire.

I dont really want to rehash this again. In my opinion, McCarthy has the highest floor for sure, but not the highest ceiling. We dont have to agree. I'm an analytical person. Analytics say a first time coaches will win a Superbowl before McCarthy wins a second. You can believe what you want or not trust the current data, and that's okay. I've stated why I believe what I do. That's all. You claimed I had some narrative. This is my narrative. I'd prefer Brady tbh, but any of the first time guys, I'd rather see get a shot. I think long term the Saints will be better off. I know I could be wrong, but everyone else here is doing what I'm doing, giving an opinion. That's what we're supposed to do here. Listen to other opinions and share our own opinions. There's a lot more "let me tell you why you're wrong!" On the board these days and it's really off putting.

I didn't pretend otherwise with Vrabel. But the point still stands that just because he didn't go on a bunch of interviews it doesn't mean that other GMs didn't have interest. They just couldn't get interviews with him. And while the Bears did get an interview with McCarthy, he may not have wanted interviews with the other teams that he really didn't consider options. Much like Vrabel didn't bother with anyone other than New England. Same goes for Pete Carroll.

But, the thing is you aren't just saying that you think the analytics show that hiring a young HC is statistically a better chance to get the the Super Bowl (which I do disagree with), but instead you are just calling a hire of McCarthy lazy and talking about how the front office is lazy. That's not just giving your opinion based on analytics and then me attacking you for your innocent use of analytics. And that is the post I responded to and took issue with.

Anyway, message boards involve people disagreeing and saying why they disagree. Then you can discuss those disagreements. I'm not sure there is any place in the world where you just say what you think and nobody ever disagrees.

 

[St. Widge]

Are we getting Aaron Rodgers in his prime? Those 4 NFC championship games are what? 10 years old at this point?

No we aren't. Are we getting Joe Brady or Allen in his prime? How about JD5? Mahomes? How about even Hurts in this prime? No? Well then I guess we can't hire any HC since all the ones we are looking at had success with those QBs.

 

[OldTimeGamer1966]

None of us know who is or isn’t going to be the answer, no matter how confident we feel about it. Even if a coach turns out to be a bust, it’s not quite the validation of a prediction some might want to make that out to be; the failure rate for coaches is really high. Predicting failure (in all the ways people measure that) - whether a coach, a player, a team - is about the safest call in sports.

But I get why McCarthy doesn’t excite some people. I’m one of those people. I feel the most confident about him, and the short term future of the team, because he’s achieved success to an extent that places him among the game’s all time best. Can he continue that success here if given the chance? History says yes but that’s not a given.

He’s been around a long time and people feel like they know all there is to know about him - good and bad. The unknown of an unproven coach can be a lot more exciting. The risk calculation changes with that unknown, too. Brady and Moore are the kinds of candidates that I can get a lot more excited about while also accepting that odds are heavily in favor of neither one of them working out long term. McCarthy has built a decades long career because he’s consistently found a level of success that has earned him trust and ongoing employment as a head coach.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Snakehead]

McCarthy has achieved something that few HCs have and none of these OCs/DCs looking for their first HC job have achieved. He led a small market team built through the draft to a SB victory, that is the leadership, team culture and mindset we need.

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

No problem with McCarthy. I don't have big expectations or even many delusional hopes for our team over the next couple of years, but we gotta start somewhere. Might as well be with a coach who has proven production over the past four decades in all. Not a sexy hire by any stretch, but I agree with an earlier post in this thread. Our front office leans heavily towards familiarity.

I'm not super familiar with him other than reading through his coaching stats. But from memory, he was a good OC for us in the early 2000's with some weak QB's and still had us in the middle of the league on that side of the ball.

He built a champion in Green Bay where some internal stuff of one sort or another ended with him being let go late in the season. (Seem to remember some strife with him and Aaron Rodgers?) One thing for certain there, he didn't wait for the franchise legend to completely collapse before he had another future HOFer ready to go. Although I'm not sure if he actually drafted A-Rod or not, the whole Rodgers/Farve thing shows that he wasn't afraid to make a change, popular or not, which has been sorely lacking here in New Orleans.

I have a really hard time counting a tenure in Dallas as a plus or a minus for a head coach. That team seems to be poorly managed in a lot of ways from the top down. Not sure how much "say-so" a head coach has in that building. Still, in his 5 years with the Cowboys, (outside of the 2020 season which will always have a huge asterisk attached to it for me) he led his team to 3 straight 12-5 seasons. In 2022 he even went 4-1 with a back up QB to achieve those 12 wins. He wasn't able to do the same in 2024 but we Saints fans should understand as well as anyone that getting wins with your back-up QB is a tough task.

I do remember something about how he had quit even interacting with the team in Green Bay his last few years there. I found that hard to believe back then and after finding some success in Dallas, I really can't put much stock in that. Media has a way of exaggerating and twisting things to fit or form a narrative. Click bait isn't a new thing.

Side note: To me it's kinda be funny that after all the Januarys and Februarys we spent watching the same BS storyline pop up that the Cowboys were going to take our coach, here we are in January, heading into February, talking about getting theirs.

A Aron was drafted in 2005 and MM joined them in 06. But he rode Favre for 2 years before turning it over to A Aron. Fun fact, we destroyed them in 2008 with Jason Burnt Toast David getting 2 picks on him and would've had a TD if he didn't let A Aron tackle him.

 

[livefromDC]

I didn't pretend otherwise with Vrabel. But the point still stands that just because he didn't go on a bunch of interviews it doesn't mean that other GMs didn't have interest. They just couldn't get interviews with him. And while the Bears did get an interview with McCarthy, he may not have wanted interviews with the other teams that he really didn't consider options. Much like Vrabel didn't bother with anyone other than New England. Same goes for Pete Carroll.

But, the thing is you aren't just saying that you think the analytics show that hiring a young HC is statistically a better chance to get the the Super Bowl (which I do disagree with), but instead you are just calling a hire of McCarthy lazy and talking about how the front office is lazy. That's not just giving your opinion based on analytics and then me attacking you for your innocent use of analytics. And that is the post I responded to and took issue with.

Anyway, message boards involve people disagreeing and saying why they disagree. Then you can discuss those disagreements. I'm not sure there is any place in the world where you just say what you think and nobody ever disagrees.

We clearly disagree. I'm talking about you saying I have some hidden agenda or mysterious narrative. That's not the same as honest debate, Widge.

I responded to you with a post stating why I have this opinion and you accused of me having some narrative. That's not debate, that's an attack.

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

The Bears flew McCarthy in on a private jet. The bears normally fly HC candidates in coach (no pun intended). So, they clearly had serious interest in McCarthy and McCarthy in them.

And, McCarthy is in a position where he can pick and choose who he wants to talk to. He's not a young coach who has to do the entire interview circuit.

And it's possible that other teams already know that McCarthy wants to come here and that we are going to hire him as soon as we comply with the Rooney rule.

Also, I don't think anyone other than the Raiders bothered to talked to Carroll. And, IIRC, Vrabel didn't talk to anyone other than New England and it's not like he wasn't a sought after coach.

I think Vrabel talked to us virtually and maybe one other team, but he only visited NE in person.

 

[Snakehead]

I think Vrabel talked to us virtually and maybe one other team, but he only visited NE in person.

Yeah, he's someone I wanted, but as soon as NE kicked Mayo to the curb that job was going to Vrabel.

 

[soggymoss84]

Yeah, who we need on offense pretty much doesn't matter what scheme we run, although I'd prefer to keep building KK's offense.

On defense, I had been getting guys who were scheme flexible, but sometimes I would do a draft with the thought of switching to a 3-4. We might be closer to being able to field a 3-4 than many think. It's the easier defense to get players for. We may actually be able to use Foskey as a OLB in a 3-4 as opposed to a DE in a 4-3 where he gets exposed. Now, finding a NT for a 3-4 will be a huge need, but there are some in the draft.

We are closer to a 3-4 defense than people think.

DE: Bresee, Cam, Tanoh, Shepard
Nose: Saunders, Ridgeway, Boyd
OLB: Young, Grando, Foskey, Turner(if we keep him)

I think a 3-4 would help us more also with our players on defense getting older and slower

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

Yeah, he's someone I wanted, but as soon as NE kicked Mayo to the curb that job was going to Vrabel.

I'm looking it up and apparently he didn't interview with us, but he was supposed to.