The New Orleans Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen on Monday after Sunday brought their seventh consecutive loss, a 23-22 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Panthers. It was a move telegraphed by many things, like the win-loss column, but none more strongly than a quote from running back Alvin Kamara.
After the Panthers loss, Kamara was asked if he and his teammates were still confident in their ability to execute in the midst of such a brutal losing streak. Kamara explained that everybody in the locker room has played a lot of football and retain confidence in their skills, but that confidence may be… lacking elsewhere.
“I feel like dudes is confident,” Kamara said. “It’s a lot of guys who played a lot of football in here. You just talked about Tyrann (Mathieu), he a confident dude, I think. Demario (Davis), Cam (Jordan), me, Derek (Carr), even some of the younger dudes. Chris (Olave), even (Mason) Tipton. We got guys who are confident… I can keep going. We got guys. I’m naming guys. I think there’s confidence there.
“But it might not be confidence in something else.”
If it wasn’t clear Allen lost the locker room before his dismissal, that quote should make it so. Those kinds of soundbites are never a good sign for a coach’s future, and that was the case again here.
Perhaps the players will rally behind likely interim head coach Darren Rizzi. Either way, the rest of the season will probably feel quite long to Saints players with the team sitting at 2-7.
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