Tag: Darren Rizzi

How does Darren Rizzi’s new position impact his future in New Orleans?

Becoming Saints interim head coach could lead to Darren Rizzi leaving New Orleans in 2025. Their next coach may want his own special teams coordinator:

History suggests Darren Rizzi will either be the New Orleans Saints head coach or not be on the staff at all in 2025.

There have been 23 interim head coaches in the last 10 years. Antonio Pierce, Doug Marrone and Mike Mularkey are the only three to be retained as full-time head coach. Other than those three, none of the other interim head coaches were on the staff the next year.

Losing Rizzi would be big loss for the team. He’s one of the league’s leaders in special teams. This is evident my his efforts, and success, to change the kickoff rules. Rizzi spearheaded that.

On top of his schematic contributions on the field, he’s has displayed great leadership. Rizzi is the type of coach you’d want to remain from the previous regime.

However, Rizzi may feel slighted if he didn’t get the job and not want to return to his previous position. The incoming coach also may not want last year’s interim still on the staff. Both are reasonable reasons why Rizzi could move on in this situation.

Derek Carr details the benefits of Saints’ new fast-paced practice

Darren Rizzi picked up the tempo at Saints practice on Wednesday. Derek Carr said it’s been a long time since he ran that many plays in practice:

Darren Rizzi’s first practice as the interim coach of the New Orleans Saints was extremely fast paced. Every coach has their own individual style and certain tweaks were expected when making the switch to Rizzi from Dennis Allen. While Klint Kubiak is still coordinating the offense, Rizzi is putting an emphasis on time on task at practice.

It started with the locker room layout, then shifted to coaching staff changes, and the latest change is the pace of practice. Derek Carr described the practice as “Extremely fast. Upbeat, fast, nonstop moving.”

Carr said, “That’s the most plays we’ve ran in a practice in my career in a long time.” The increase in plays gives more time to hone in on specific looks and also attack a larger array of objectives.

Rizzi’s approach should lead to a greater attention to detail and, in turn, lead to better performances. That’s the quarterback’s hope as well. Carr added: “You get more time on task on something, we get better at it. Lord knows we need to get better at what we’re doing right now.”

It’ll be interesting to see how consistently they use this pace throughout the week and the season. The benefits are there, but it may simply be unsustainable on the regular. Regardless, it’s a change of pace that hopefully leads to change of results.

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Darren Rizzi on the Marshon Lattimore trade: ‘That was Mickey’s call’

Darren Rizzi had no part in the Marshon Lattimore trade, but the New Orleans Saints interim head coach does ‘stand by it’

Darren Rizzi may not have made the call to trade Marshon Lattimore, but that doesn’t mean he disapproves of the decision. This is unsurprising. An interim head coach wouldn’t get the power to make that decision on his second day.

That decision was all Mickey Loomis, Rizzi revealed on Wednesday: “I felt like that was Mickey’s call, he felt like that was a great decision, and certainly I stand by it.”

Rizzi has been around the NFL for a long time. He understands what a rebuild looks like, so he’s aware moves like this happen when you’re breaking the team down.

Lattimore has been a great piece, but there was enough reported tension between he and the Saints to have his future in New Orleans in question even if there wasn’t a pending rebuild.

Rizzi also added that he believes the compensation was fair in return. Lattimore garnered a larger return than Jalen Ramsey or L’Jarius Sneed. He did that with a growing injury history and dealing with a hamstring as we speak.

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Darren Rizzi spoke with Dan Campbell after being named Saints interim coach

Darren Rizzi spoke with Dan Campbell after being named Saints interim coach. He had a front-row seat when Campbell was the Dolphins’ interim coach:

Did you know Darren Rizzi coached with Dan Campbell? Both men were on staff with the Miami Dolphins way back in 2015. Before he rose to  prominence as the Detroit Lions’ biggest personality, Campbell was raising eyebrows by running Oklahoma drills to set the tone in his first practice as the Dolphins’ interim coach.

After getting a laugh at that — of course the kneecap-biter ran physical one-on-one Oklahoma drills — Rizzi confirmed that he had spoken with Campbell after being named Saints interim coach. That’s an experience he felt he could draw from.

“I did speak with him, had a nice, long conversation with him,” Rizzi began, speaking Wednesday. “Dan’s a close friend. Dan’s quite frankly, if not the biggest reason I’m here, certainly one of them. One of the first things he said to me the other morning was, ‘Rizz, when we did this we did it together. Remember we did A, B, and C, we did X, Y, and Z.’ And I thought those were great things we did.”

Campbell wasn’t the only resource he pulled from. Rizzi also spoke with Todd Bowles (another former coworker with interim coach experience, now a head coach like Campbell), and Chris Tabor, another special teams coach who led the Carolina Panthers last year as their interim head coach. He said he also sought advice from legendary coach Bill Parcells, Sean Payton’s famous mentor.

“Dan, all those guys had some great advice, I certainly took it in,” Rizzi added.

We’ll see if it made a difference. Rizzi said in clear terms that the Saints are not throwing in the towel on this season. They have a tense rivalry game to win this weekend with an Atlanta Falcons team that’s already beaten them once this season, and then the back half of their schedule laid out through January. He’ll have every opportunity to put those lessons learned from Campbell, Bowles, Tabor and Parcellls to good use.

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Todd Grantham’s responsibilities are changing under Darren Rizzi

Todd Grantham’s responsibilities are changing under Darren Rizzi. He’s moving from defensive line coach to an advisor role:

Todd Grantham’s responsibilities are changing under New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi. He’s moving from defensive line coach to a senior advisor role after the team dismissed Dennis Allen. Rizzi says Brian Young, a 15-year coaching veteran on staff as a pass-rush specialist, will run the defensive line room.

“It’s a shuffle. Shuffle the deck there a little bit on defense,” Rizzi told reporters Wednesday, when asked whether he would characterize these  changes as a demotion and promotion. “You have to understand the workload change because Dennis got removed. Dennis was, daily, in the defensive staff rooms so we quote-unquote lost a defensive coach. Not only a head coach, we lost the play caller. Now Joe, who is doing his stuff, he’s now coordinating, his workload changes. His day-to-day workload the fans may not understand completely, we just re-divvy it up. I just felt this was the best way to shuffle the deck there.”

Grantham’s focus will be advising defensive coordinator Joe Woods as he begins calling plays in Allen’s stead; it’s a less hands-on role than what he’s had here before. That isn’t the only change on the defensive side of the ball, but it is the most notable. Young will work with linebackers coach Michael Hodges to coordinate the defensive run game each week.

But change was needed. The Saints were on pace to set an NFL record for the most yards allowed before contact on running plays, which was a direct reflection on Grantham’s unit. The defensive line was getting pushed off the ball and not making plays. The lack of development for young draft picks like Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey speaks for itself, even if Rizzi took the high road here.

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Darren Rizzi is changing the Saints locker room layout

The Saints locker room used to be grouped by position groups until 2020 shook it up. Darren Rizzi is bringing it back as interim head coach:

Darren Rizzi’s first public move as New Orleans Saints interim head coach is to change the setup of the locker room back to how things used to be. Instead of being grouped by positions, players were just randomly placed at lockers throughout the locker room. You could have an offensive lineman next to a safety and wide receiver.

This began in 2020 due to the league’s COVID protocol. The thought process behind the alteration was logical. They didn’t want one player to pass it to the entire position group. Dennis Allen kept this going when he became head coach.

As time passed, this became the standard locker room layout and just never changed back until this week. The Saints locker room is once again sectioned by position groups in hopes of building more togetherness. We’ll see if it makes a difference.

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Saints players had custom ‘Merry Rizzmas’ shirts ready for Darren Rizzi’s promotion

New Orleans Saints players were ready when Darren Rizzi got promoted. Some wore custom ‘Merry Rizzmas’ shirts around the locker room:

Darren Rizzi, the new interim head coach of the New Orleans Saints shared a few strong and emotional comments during his debut press conference on Monday. Despite all those comments being very cut and dry, he also had a few funny observations come up from his promotion.

Specifically one regarding T-shirts that Saints players had printed out last season, around Christmastime, in regards to him. These shirts read “Merry Rizzmas” a play on Rizzi’s last name and what he referred to as the “word of the year” in 2023.

“I got guys in the locker room (they) were wearing ‘Merry Rizzmas’ shirts,” Rizzi said, “You know Bink and those guys had the ‘Merry Rizzmas’ shirts. I didn’t even know what ‘rizz’ meant to be honest with you, I’m not a big social media guy. So, all I was told was I made the word of the year last year with r’izz.'”

Seemingly Khalen “Bink” Saunders was the one making this happen, and he followed up the quote on Tuesday saying he will wear his shirt on Wednesday as well. Some fun jokes developing around the Saints facility as they look to their new interim head coach to improve the team. Maybe it’s the start of a vibes shift in a positive direction.

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Darren Rizzi already expresses one thing he’d do differently than Dennis Allen

Darren Rizzi is taking over for Dennis Allen as interim head coach. He highlighted one decision he would have made differently than his predecessor:

Darren Rizzi will make his head coaching debut this upcoming week against the Atlanta Falcons, but if his debut was against the Carolina Panthers, he would have done at least one thing differently.

The New Orleans Saints were faced with a fourth and one in the fourth quarter at their own 46. Dennis Allen tried to draw the Panthers offsides. When it didn’t work, the Saints took the delay of game to give Matthew Hayball more space for the kick.

Rizzi may be a special teams guy, but he would have kept Derek Carr and the offense out to go for it. Not only does Rizzi disagree with Allen’s choice, he believes it is the objectively wrong call.

“I think the draw offsides play was a bad call,” Rizzi said on WWL Radio Monday night. He explained his thought process through analytics. “I think analytics tell you to go for it there.”

In addition to analytics, the flow of the game suggested to go for it as well. You’re up five points with a little more than five minutes left near midfield. You just followed up your second touchdown drive with an amazing interception. This felt like a chance to put the Panthers away.

From this quote, the change at head coach could lead to a more aggressive attitude and possibly more of a reliance on analytics.

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Saints will add a new coach to their staff after promoting Darren Rizzi

Darren Rizzi announced the Saints are bringing in a new assistant coach. With his attention divided, Marwan Maalouf will assist with special teams operations:

New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi announced the team is bringing in a new assistant coach. Marwan Maalouf will assist Phil Galiano in their special teams operations. Rizzi spoke on WWL Radio Monday afternoon to announce the hiring, which came mere hours after his promotion.

Galiano will likely take on many of the duties on special teams coordinating for the Saints, as he has been the assistant coach for them since 2019. However, adding in an additional coach to help out and let Rizzi build out his own staff a little bit is not a bad idea. Rizzi and Maalouf worked together in multiple instances including from 2013 to 2018 with the Miami Dolphins, and 2002 to 2003 at Rutgers.

They are now reunited after a few years away with Rizzi moving on to New Orleans, while Maalouf went on to be the special teams coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings from 2019 to 2020.

Ultimately, who knows if the Saints keep Rizzi or not after the season, but letting him make additions of his own and give himself a chance to prove himself is definitely a good choice. We will see how the special teams units look with Rizzi taking on a much larger role now at interim head coach.

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Quotes from Darren Rizzi after promotion to interim head coach

Darren Rizzi spoke to the media only hours after his promotion to interim head coach, here is some of what he had to say following the day’s events:

The New Orleans Saints firing of Dennis Allen and promotion of Darren Rizzi to interim head coach is still fresh as the Saints go through media appearances in the early afternoon on Monday. However, we now have the chance to hear from Rizzi regarding a wide variety of topics, and he most certainly showed his passion while discussing the team going forward.

One of the first points of emphasis he made was after he was asked what his message to the fans was, especially those who may have given up on the season. Rizzi responded with, “Listen, they should be pissed off. I’m pissed off, the fans should be pissed off, the people of New Orleans, the people of Louisiana, no one should be happy, and I think this city deserves a winner. They know what winning football looks like, and y’know it’s our job to bring that back. My message is this, I can’t promise alot, I can promise passion, I can promise fight, and I can tell you that team is gonna go out there every Sunday and that’s gonna be clear, that we’re gonna have a team that’s full of passion and a team that’s full of fighters. That I can promise you. Now the football’s gotta get better, the execution’s gotta get better, alright, but we’re not gonna lack those two things. We’re not gonna be boring to watch, that I can promise you.”

He also had a few other quotes regarding the team and moving forward from the 2-7 start, stating he wants to change how the team operates, going on to say “We’ve been doing things the same way around here for a long, long, long time.”

He would also say, “We’re going to look at everything. Everybody and everything is going to get evaluated and re-evaluated. Right now, the product is not acceptable.”

Regarding the injuries to the team, Rizzi mentioned he did not want to hear about the injuries, and that, “We have to execute better.” He also said that he spoke to Chris Olave on Monday, and that he was still being evaluated at this time.

One of the final notable points was regarding the quarterback position and where that stands, with Rizzi saying, “Derek Carr is going to be the quarterback on Sunday. … I’m not going down that road.”

Ultimately, for a first press conference, Rizzi did a great job showing his emotion towards the team and city, but also getting down to business and discussing what he intends to do with how the team currently operates.