As a New Orleans Saints fan, I must admit that the team's Thursday Night Football loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, albeit a narrow one in the end, necessitated a personal break from the discourse around the team.
I knew that the days following the loss would feature thoughts of potential trades and drastic changes the team should make, some of which I find reasonable to explore. But most of all, I was worried to even check out postgame press conference tapes to see what the Saints top coaches and players said, fearing it would only make the loss feel worse.
Sunday, against my better judgement, I went to the pressers to make sure I kept informed and up to date. What I found was a still-passive team that seems to be waiting for its luck to fall into place and for some sort of change to catalyze without an activating force.
Dennis Allen needs to be that force, and I -- along with plenty of other Saints fans -- are growing frustrated with his seeming lack of passion for the issues at hand.
Dennis Allen continues to approach team with passive mentality, and it won't solve anything
Look, I'm willing to acknowledge that 75-90 percent of what is said in any given coach press conference, especially after a loss, is regurgitated cliche to simply fillibuster for the media's stories to be filed that night or the next day.
But after a loss that featured essentially three (more) quarters of offensive ineptitude, Allen seemed none too concerned about the performance. His press conference focused more on all the "good things," he saw from his team on the offensive side and how much progress they've displayed the last two weeks.
Though New Orleans staged an impressive offensive comeback on Thursday and nearly went away with a win, that was after they had come out on their home field ice cold, drawing boos from home fans from the first quarter onward.
We're really acting like what we saw Thursday was OK and encouraging? It was not.
Then, late in the press conference, asked by a reporter what some of the things the team could do to be more consistent Allen said:
"We're not going to try to point fingers at anybody. You know, we all gotta be better."
Not wrong, but also not the expert diagnosis you want to hear from the main person in charge of fixing problems related to gameplan execution. Generic, vanilla answer that really makes it look like Allen is unaware than anything else.
Clearly, there is a massive disconnect between quarterback Derek Carr and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael. Their animosity working together on the sidelines has been a public display.
There are very clear fingers to point. Yet, Allen seems to be content pushing forth the idea that all is well in New Orleans, that he's encouraged with the progression, and that there is no one specific to blame.
There is.
Carmichael has been a poor play-caller throughout the season (though the Titans game was a far better display than we had seen from him in the first six weeks). Carr has been less than the professional he was advertised as, his public outbursts on the sideline are bad for team culture and moreover, an apparent lack of accountability.
Carr admitted in his own presser that he's been showing his emotion a bit too much and needs to be the cooler head as the leader. He's right. But he also didn't approach his diagnosis nearly as passively as Allen. "There are some things in football that are completely controllable that I think we can do better."
Look, if this Saints team is something Allen is content with, then this is simply what the Saints are, and they're not going anywhere.
Maybe Allen is addressing the issues more directly behind closed doors. He called the 10-day break coming off of a mid-week game a good opportunity to reset several times on Thursday night. One can only hope, if you're a Saints fan, that such a reset brings about real progress. But actual change and applying pressure and stakes at this point, seems necessary. I'm not sure a simple 'reset' does the trick.
What we've seen and heard public-facing doesn't look good. I'll let the results do the talking from here on out.
