The Saints Should Make Darren Rizzi Their Full-Time Head Coach

New Orleans’s interim coach has proved to be adept in key areas, and it may be harder to fill one of the carousel’s least desirable jobs with a better candidate.

Rizzi went for a two-point conversion with no time on the clock in an effort to beat the Commanders. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Since receiving the New Orleans Saints’ interim head coaching job Nov. 4, Darren Rizzi has proved adept at handling complex game-management situations in a league that is glaringly absent of that skill set. And, in a white-knickle ending against the Washington Commanders on Sunday, he also separated himself from other interim coaches in showing he is not afraid to eschew personal safety and cushy football platitudes to make a call of faith in a team on the heels of a tremendous upset.

This 20–19 defeat at the hands of the Commanders still moved the Saints to nine in the loss column, but the staggering number of levers Rizzi had to pull in order to keep the game remotely close was eye opening, not to mention that horrid officiating cost the Saints at least three points and possibly six due to confusing penalties or a kicker being allowed to attempt a field goal with the clock having been dead for more than five seconds. In a game without Taysom Hill, Derek Carr and, for a portion, Alvin Kamara, Rizzi made a fortuitous quarterback change that sparked his offense. Rizzi made that decision, he said after the game, based on his knowledge of fifth-round rookie Spencer Rattler’s preparation during the week, having been given a full menu of plays and instructed to be ready. Rizzi’s timeout usage at the end of the game, which began at the 2:36 mark in the fourth quarter and allowed the Saints to be backstopped by the two-minute warning, gave the Saints more than just a prayer against the Commanders on their final drive, as well as a critical “fourth” timeout that allowed the Saints to run a balanced play set with a handful of gashing runs that took pressure off Rattler. 

Rattler sparked enough confidence to put the ball in his hands for a potential game-winning two-point conversion with no time left on the clock. 

Juxtapose this with, say, the performance this season of Antonio Pierce, who has struggled not only with fourth down decision making throughout the season, but juggled quarterbacks like circus knives for most of the year. Matt Eberflus lost the Chicago Bears a handful of games this season alone due to the curious budgeting of his timeouts. It took the New York Jets’ Jeff Ulbrich until Sunday to win his first game and, by not forcing the Jacksonville Jaguars to take a single timeout with a fresh set of downs at the goal line, he only managed to do so by the length of a beard hair (Ulbrich, it should be noted, has been uniquely stressed and was placed in a markedly worse position than either of these other coaches). 

I know that the Saints will not give Rizzi the full-time head coaching job simply because he’s performing better than Pierce, Ulbrich or Eberflus, which is a low bar to clear. But this was the kind of game that should at least remove Rizzi from the pool of interim coaches who are merely successful because the head coach no one could stand has been removed from the building and, thus, gets a mysterious tailwind behind the team for the remainder of the season. It should place him in a pool of very serious candidates who deserve a legitimate crack at the full-time gig. 

When we consider the Saints’ job from a broader perspective, it’s not an attractive one. When I asked around about the opening after Dennis Allen was let go, there was a belief among industry insiders that the Saints needed to pursue someone who was not only talented but dynamic enough as a personality to weather a decline from the team’s aging roster and mightily complex financial situation. The top candidates on the market are going to gravitate toward openings like the one in Chicago. 

Again, I’m not saying the Saints should simply hire Rizzi because no one else is going to want the job. But I am saying that he has already proven dynamism. His quirkiness and intensity are beloved, his painful honesty is appreciated and he’s gone viral only for the best of reasons (on Sunday, that meant gently caressing the hair of his benched quarterback). A week ago, against the New York Giants, Rizzi was in the spotlight for shaking nearly every piece of technological equipment off his body while dressing down his punter, but we didn’t discuss why. Rizzi was so locked into the game that he noticed how far the punter had come up toward the return man, sacrificing a kind of deep safety presence on the play. 

It’s clear he possesses the kind of win-in-the-margins gene that everyone praises John Harbaugh for, though no one wants to go through the process of trying to hire another Harbaugh (also special teams coordinator before getting a top job) because it would be a battle of optics that no style-points owner is willing to endure. 

Rizzi has done the hard work already. And, keeping him would allow the team to hold on to OC Klint Kubiak, who has been more than adequate amid a promising first year as a play-caller. The Saints have outscored the Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals, Los Angeles Chargers, Indianapolis Colts, Dallas Cowboys and more this season. They have a better EPA per play rating than the Houston Texans and the seventh—seventh!—highest rush EPA in the league. 

It’s hard to believe the Saints would do better than this on the open market this offseason. And, it’s hard to believe anyone else could kick the door in and announce their candidacy better than Rizzi. Even in a loss, he’s made that known.