Dennis Allen confident in Saints team he has to work with

(Crescent City Sports is counting down to the Saints season opener against Tennessee on Sunday in the Caesars Superdome with a week-long series of feature stories. Here’s Part 4: Dennis Allen.)

METAIRIE – The New Orleans Saints first season with Dennis Allen as head coach did not go well.

The Saints had won four consecutive NFC South championships from 2017-2020 before narrowly missing the playoffs with a 9-8 record in 2021.

When Sean Payton resigned as head coach, the Saints promoted Allen from defensive coordinator and Allen’s first team slipped even farther – finishing 7-10.

That produced a lower winning percentage (.412) than the team had in any of the previous 16 seasons after Payton’s arrival – including the 2012 season during which Payton was suspended and his job was filled by a hodge-podge of assistants.

Allen was promoted to succeed Payton after an impressive tenure as defensive coordinator. The organization was confident going into the 2022 season because of the continuity of mostly keeping Payton’s staff in tact as well as a core group of players that had spearheaded the success in the latter stages of Payton’s tenure.

Locally, fans and reporters generally felt similarly – that a return to the playoffs and perhaps more was a realistic possibility, though national reporters and oddsmakers were more skeptical about such a smooth transition from Payton.

After a season-opening win the Saints won just three of their next 12 games and were shut out for the first time in 333 games. A modest three-game winning streak briefly revived their hopes of winning the unusually bad NFC South, but they were eliminated with one game remaining.

The unexpectedly bad season naturally raised questions about whether the organization had miscalculated by promoting Allen, whose first Saints team performed only modestly better than the Raiders teams had in his only previous stint as a head coach – 4-12 in 2012, 4-12 in 2013 and 0-4 before his firing in 2014.

While social media featured verdicts that Allen had to be fired, the organization didn’t hesitate at the end of the season to announce that he would be back. The small sample size of one season, an inordinate number of injuries to impact players and the team’s competitiveness to the end all worked in Allen’s favor.

Regardless of social media preferences Allen has been given a second season, which begins at noon Sunday against the Tennessee Titans in the Caesars Superdome.

Allen has been asked many times during the summer about his comfort level as he enters his second season, compared to how he felt entering his first.

Generally he has responded about his comfort level with a reference to the team he has rather than his personal comfort level.

“I’m confident in our football team,” Allen said. “I think we’ve had a really good camp. I think we’ve executed at a high level in all three phases throughout training camp and so I feel confident in what this team is able to do.

“I like what we’re building here. I like the trajectory that we’re on as a football team. When you feel like you’ve got a pretty good team you feel pretty confident about it.”

Linebacker Demario Davis is an 11-year NFL veteran and is entering his sixth season in New Orleans.

“D.A. is like a fine wine; he just keeps getting better with time,” Davis said. “As long as I’m around him I learn more and more from him. He’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve ever been around.

“When he’s talking, I’m taking notes just because I don’t want there to be something that he said that I missed. I think that just raises our mental IQ for the game. He makes us better football players just by making us better thinkers. We’re all physically talented, but if you can’t think about the game situationally and know what you can and can’t do while you’re out there you’re going to struggle so being in year 12 and having a coach that I can learn so much from that’s a blessing.”

There is plenty of evidence to support Davis’ description of Allen as a smart defensive coach. He was part of Payton’s original staff, serving as assistant defensive line coach in 2006-07 and as secondary coach from 2008-10, helping the Saints win the Super Bowl after the 2009 season.

Allen’s contributions to the Saints’ success led John Fox – a three-time NFL head coach whose ascension was based on his success as a defensive assistant – to hire Allen as defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos in 2011.

In one season Allen coordinated enough improvement in a playoff team to convince the Raiders to hire him as head coach at age 39.

After Allen’s failed 36-game tenure, Payton brought Allen back for the 2015 season as a senior defensive assistant and Allen ascended to coordinator when Rob Ryan was fired in Week 11.

The Saints showed modest improvement in Allen’s first full season as coordinator before the team started its run of division titles as Allen was molding one of the consistently better defenses in the NFL.

When Payton was sidelined by COVID-19 protocols for a road game against Tampa Bay late in the 2021 season Allen guided the team to a 9-0 victory over a team that would win the NFC South with a 13-4 record.

It was just weeks later that Payton decided to take a hiatus and Allen was a logical choice to succeed him, though the Saints did survey the NFL to find a few other candidates.

Allen’s first season – somewhat reminiscent of his Raiders tenure – demonstrated that being a smart and successful coordinator doesn’t automatically translate into success as a head coach.

The question heading into the 2023 season is whether the attributes that earned Allen two head-coaching opportunities – and what he has learned from them – have him poised to produce a winning and perhaps playoff team as he approaches his 51st birthday in less than three weeks.

Davis said he has seen “a little more swagger” on Allen, but dismissed questions about the coach being “more comfortable” this season.

“If he was uncomfortable I never saw it,” Davis said. “He’s been here before. He’s had a head coaching job before. If there’s any discomfort I think that’s on us as players to take that off of him. We’ve got a talented defense. We’ve got a talented offense. It’s for us to be in the right position to go out and make plays.

“He’s not a new coach. He’s been doing this. We’re not looking in the past. We’re looking forward.”

(Next: Derek Carr.)

[contentcards url=”https://crescentcitysports.com/saints-have-the-parts-to-build-a-more-dynamic-offense/”]