Saints Fire Rob Ryan

            After two and a half seasons as the man in charge of the Saints defense, Rob Ryan is now looking for new employment. He will probably be better remembered by Saints fans for his long flowing hair and headlong embrace of New Orleans culture than for any of his on the field contributions. When he was hired following the disastrous one year tenure of Steve Spagnuolo, Ryan seemed like an improvement. The 2013 Saints finished 10^th in Football Outsiders DVOA rankings (a metric that measures every play against league average, negative rankings are better for defense). Since then, however, it’s all been going downhill.

	Defense DVOA (rank)	Pass Defense DVOA (rank)	Run Defense DVOA (rank)
2013	-5.8% (10)	-9.2% (6)	-1.5% (20)
2014	13.1% (31)	19.2% (27)	6.3% (32)
2015	19.4% (32)	43.5% (32)	-12.8% (18)

            Some of Ryan’s problems were not of his own making. He can only coach the players that general manager Mickey Loomis provides. Loomis has done a poor job in the past few years of finding quality defensive players, mostly due to his penchant for signing over the hill veterans and poor draft decisions. Loomis’s poor decisions, however, don’t excuse Ryan’s faults. As head coach Sean Payton admitted today, “And we just had to look closely at some point to at least give this an option because the direction we were heading wasn't good. We really struggled with substitutions, getting lined up, getting guys on the field and being able to function.” These are not personnel issues, they’re coaching ones usually resolved in training camp, not in the middle of a game. In the offseason, the Saints asked Ryan to reduce his overly complex and confusing playbook in order to make it easier for the players—Ryan had received similar complaints during his stint as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator.

            And it’s not like Ryan has been a tremendously successful coordinator elsewhere. He has been a coordinator since 2004 with Oakland, Cleveland, Dallas, and New Orleans. Ryan has never found consistent success. Ryan has finished inside the top ten once in DVOA (Oakland 2006). It’s hard to imagine him getting this many chances if his name had been Ryan Roberts.  Ryan’s brother Rex is currently the head coach of the Buffalo Bills after a six year stint as the head coach of the New York Jets and his father Buddy was known as a defensive savant.

That's the same expression most Saints fans have felt all season watching Rob Ryan's defenses 

             Now that Ryan is gone, what’s next? In the interim, Dennis Allen will take the helm of the defense. Allen was the Saints secondary coach in 2009 when they won the Superbowl. Allen then assumed the job of Broncos defensive coordinator in 2011 before becoming the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 2012-2014. After being fired as the Raiders coach last offseason, Allen returned to the Saints as defensive assistant. How much Allen can turn around the defense is an open question. On Sunday the Saints allowed Kirk Cousins to throw for 324 yards and four touchdowns for a perfect 158.3 passer rating and a 90.1 (out of 100) QBR. The Saints have allowed 45 points to their opponents twice this season, and four times they have allowed more than 30 points. Will the Saints defense get better? Who knows, but it’s hard to see how they can be any worse.