Dennis Allen never would be confused for a game-show host. The New Orleans Saints coach, with his salt-and-pepper goatee and trademark visor, is a serious football coach through and through.
But here was Allen on a Tuesday morning in June, instructing players to come on down to the front of the room.
They were going to play “Family Feud” — with a Saints twist.
“(The idea) started off initially as ‘Jeopardy,’ and then it went to ‘Family Feud,’ because I thought that’d be easier for us to manipulate,” Allen told The Times-Picayune.
Five offensive players squared off against five defensive teammates as Allen pressed each unit on various franchise trivia. Who is the Saints’ career leader in pick-sixes? Who is their all-time sacks leader? Top five answers on the board.
By the end of the game, the offense emerged victorious. The result didn’t sit well with defensive players, but they would have plenty of other opportunities to get revenge.
New Orleans Saints Dennis Allen smiles at fans before the start of a preseason NFL football game against the Kansas City Chiefs at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com)
This year, Allen has made it a priority to begin his team’s morning meetings with some competition. The day after playing “Family Feud,” the Saints had a water balloon toss. Other activities have included go-karts, a home run derby, a Louisiana-themed spelling contest, a 3-point shootout in the Pelicans’ facility and even watching members of the equipment staff run through an obstacle course set up on the Saints’ indoor practice field.
Is this really the same Dennis Allen?
When training camp begins Wednesday in Irvine, California, Allen will look to build upon the camaraderie that he has spent so much of the last few months establishing with players. In a season that’s setting up to be crucial for his job security, Allen told the Times-Picayune he determined the Saints needed “significant change.” That change was headlined by a new offensive staff, but the full extent of Allen’s vision went deeper.
If the Saints needed to change, Allen needed to change with them. The messages players heard for years from the no-nonsense, defensive-minded teacher had to be presented differently.
No matter how much it takes them by surprise.
“You could tell guys in the room, they’re like, ‘DA is cool now,’ ” safety Tyrann Mathieu said.
* * *
Continuity was supposed to be the main selling point for Allen. You remember, don’t you? This was in 2022, when former coach Sean Payton stepped down and the Saints wasted little time promoting Allen from defensive coordinator to the top role.
Allen’s familiarity with the Saints — seven seasons as coordinator plus another five-year stint as an assistant earlier in his coaching career — boosted his candidacy for the head job. At Allen’s introductory news conference, owner Gayle Benson noted the coach’s “deep knowledge” of the Saints’ culture “because he’s been a part of building that culture.” Allen, who had turned the defense into an elite unit, said then that the Saints had a “great foundation,” adding he wasn’t taking over a “broken job” in the slightest.
New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen discusses an unnecessary roughness call against the Saints with referee Carl Cheffers (51) during the first half of an NFL football game between the New Orleans Saints and the New York Giants Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Three years in, the Saints might not be broken, but the pieces hardly resemble the foundation he inherited. Initially, Allen retained all but three of the 21 assistants from Payton’s final year, not including those within the team’s strength and conditioning program. Now, only seven of those holdovers are still with the Saints. The roster has undergone a similar upheaval: Only 18 players coached by Payton in his final year remain with the franchise.
Roster churn and coaching departures are the norm for the NFL. And yet part of what has made the Allen era so different from his predecessor is how significant changes have been an annual occurrence. After the coach’s first year, he revamped his defensive staff (bringing in defensive coordinator Joe Woods to replace Ryan Nielsen and Kris Richard) and had a big say in signing quarterback Derek Carr.
Then this year, Allen scrapped most of his offensive staff. Out went Pete Carmichael and in came Klint Kubiak.
“Continuity is important,” Allen said. “But continuity is only important if you’re continuing to get the results you’re looking for.
“To have continuity and not have the results is insanity.”
The results don’t lie: The Saints are 16-18 in Allen’s two-year tenure and have missed the playoffs the last three seasons.
So when Allen went to review what went wrong after this last one, he wasn’t tempted by an offensive hot streak over the last five games that helped the Saints finish 9-8. Nor was he swayed by the history of a scheme that New Orleans had deployed for almost 20 years and used to win its lone Super Bowl.
When Allen watched, he saw a unit that needed “juice.”
Somewhere, somehow, whatever they were running — and how they were running it — had grown stale.
“Look, we were in the same offense for 17 years or whatever it was,” Allen said. “I think every now and then, you just got to change some things up to reinvigorate the unit.”
* * *
By hiring Kubiak, Allen very well could be entrusting the fate of his job with a coach he’s never worked with before.
A coach’s third season often is a make-or-break year. Just ask Allen. The last time he was in this position, when he was the coach of the then-Oakland Raiders, Allen didn’t even get a full season: The Raiders fired him after an 0-4 start in 2014.
For Allen, Kubiak was the clear standout in a crowded field of candidates to replace Carmichael. Allen repeatedly has spoken this offseason about how he feels Kubiak’s scheme is one of the NFL’s best. But beyond that, Allen hopes Kubiak’s arrival creates an impact similar to what Gregg Williams’ hiring did for the Saints defense in 2009.
That season, when he was just a rising assistant on Payton’s staff, Allen remembers how Williams came in as the New Orleans defensive coordinator and “changed the culture” by pushing players to play tougher and more aggressive. He saw the unit take on “a new attitude,” fueled by Williams’ fiery demeanor.
Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, in his first year with the team, gives instructions as quarterback Jake Haener throws a pass during an organized team activity on Tuesday in Metairie.
In terms of personality, Kubiak couldn’t be more different from Williams. Kubiak, much like his father and former Super Bowl-winning coach Gary Kubiak, would not be mistaken for a coach who constantly barks at his players on the field. But according to Allen, the two share a keen attention for detail — one that creates a standard of “who we are … what we are, and this is how we are going to play.”
They simply know how to hold players accountable, Allen said.
If Allen also feels there needs to be a new level of accountability for the Saints next season — and his comments over the last few months certainly have suggested that — then making a coordinator change is one way to make that happen.
ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum, the former general manager of the New York Jets, said staff shakeups like the one the Saints endured this offseason are a way to show there’s “accountability across the board.”
“It becomes a very powerful message that he’s going to hold everybody accountable,” Tannenbaum said. “And I think (Allen) made the right decision — not the easy one.”
Firing Carmichael was effectively a final step for Allen to move on from the Payton era. When the season begins Sept. 8, the Saints will have an entirely new offensive playbook for the first time in 6,573 days.
At his introductory news conference in 2022, Allen said he was “at peace” with the idea that he’d always be compared to Payton. But as much as the Saints would rely on continuity to guide them, Allen made clear that he also wanted to carve his own path. He was a different coach from Payton, one who could bring his “own spin” on things.
More than two years later, in a hallway just outside the Saints’ locker room, Allen doesn’t hesitate when asked whether he sees Kubiak’s hire as an example of that.
Absolutely, he said.
“It’s not the same as it’s been,” he said. “I want everybody in the building to feel that this year is different.”
* * *
Tyrann Mathieu was born and raised in New Orleans, so if anyone on the roster should know how to spell Tchoupitoulas by memory in a Louisiana-themed spelling contest, it would be the Saints safety. Right?
T-C-H-O-U-P, uh, T? O?
“There’s like a P and a T and the O and a L and U,” Mathieu said. “You’re like mix and matching.”
Mathieu’s mistake fortunately didn’t cost the defense. His unit still won that morning’s competitive session. It was needed, too, given that it was behind the offense on the scoresheet.
Yes, they keep track.
“Coach be cheating, too,” Mathieu said jokingly. “He’s got to suck up to the offensive guys. He’s a defensive guy, so he’s got to suck up to them all the time.”
After last season, Allen admitted the team’s mindset had to be different for 2024. It had to get back to the “grind,” which now starts early in the mornings when the offense and the defense are pitted against each other in all sorts of creative ways.
Players seemingly have bought in, even when they aren’t participating in the activity directly. Though he wasn’t one of the five defenders selected for “Family Feud,” Mathieu found himself rattling off names such as Darren Sharper and Malcolm Jenkins when the sides tried to figure out who led the franchise in pick-sixes.
Wide receiver Chris Olave and linebacker Demario Davis were more than down for a head-to-head, 3-point shooting competition in the Pelicans’ gym. Davis won. On another day, the offensive and defensive lines went head-to-head — for a punt-catching competition.
“You can imagine that,” center Erik McCoy said before lowering his voice. “We lost that one.”
New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen walks across the practice field during the second day of Saints minicamp practice at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center in Metairie, La., Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
McCoy said the new activities have lightened the mood before the seriousness of work begins. To be clear, Allen and his staff haven’t put football on the back burner. Players repeatedly have noted how Kubiak and his offensive staff have stressed accountability and attention to detail, while Allen said other changes this year include the offense having more mandatory meetings as a unit.
“We didn’t meet a lot as a unit offensively last year,” Allen said with a stern voice. “It’s not optional.”
But maybe a change in tone was just as needed. Allen felt like it was, and players seemed to agree. Tight end Foster Moreau said the Saints now start every day “smart, tough and competitive.” Beginning every day in competition paves the way the Saints carry that attitude for the rest of day, he said. And the activities, no matter how silly or embarrassing, require players to be smart and tough.
“Those are our slogans,” Moreau said. “We’ve had a ton of fun with it.”
Funny enough, Mathieu and a few other Saints have been on actual episodes of “Family Feud.” NFL players get invited to be on the celebrity edition of the show from time to time. But there’s something about that experience, Mathieu said, that feels oddly tense. There’s host Steve Harvey in the flesh, mustache and all, cracking jokes in front of a studio audience.
In the Saints’ morning meetings, the only audience is the players and coaches. But that’s just fine. Allen has done plenty to earn their attention.
“He’s definitely reading the room,” Mathieu said, “and understanding, ‘Man, these guys need to have a little fun.’ … Having that perspective, I think it’s going to end up being really good for him.”
