NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Darren Rizzi would be an unconventional choice to take over the New Orleans Saints' head coaching job on a permanent basis.
That doesn't mean it can't happen.
The Saints (4-7) had been on a seven-game skid when Rizzi, the club's special teams coordinator, was promoted. They've since won two straight, and as the club entered its Week 12 bye, prominent players were already discussing their desire to continue improving Rizzi's resume.
“He’s definitely had an impact on our football team,” quarterback Derek Carr said after New Orleans' 35-14 victory over Cleveland last weekend. “We want to keep winning so that maybe he gets a chance to be the coach here for a long time.
“That’s what we want as players,” Carr continued. "Hopefully, we can continue to have success, keep winning and give him that opportunity.”
Before the Saints' demoralizing defeat at Carolina precipitated the firing of third-year coach Dennis Allen, Rizzi had never been a head coach at the NFL or major college level.
The north New Jersey native and former Rhode Island tight end got his first head coaching job at Division II New Haven in 1999. He also coached his alma mater in 2008 before moving to the NFL with Miami in 2009 as a special teams assistant.
By 2010, he was the Dolphins' special teams coordinator and added the title of associate head coach in 2017 before ex-Saints coach Sean Payton lured him to New Orleans in 2019.
A common thread shared by Payton and Rizzi is that both worked under Bill Parcells.
Parcells — known best for winning two Super Bowls as coach of the New York Giants — was coaching the Dallas Cowboys when Payton was his offensive coordinator.
Rizzi, who grew up a Giants fan during the Parcells era, got to know his childhood idol during his first couple years in Miami, where Parcells executive vice president of football operations.
Since his promotion, Rizzi has spoken to both Payton and Parcells. And he has begun to employ motivational techniques reminiscent of Payton, who left New Orleans in 2022 as the franchise leader in wins (152 in the regular season and nine in the postseason — including New Orleans' lone Super Bowl triumph).
Payton as a big believer of symbolic imagery and motivational props, from baseball bats distributed before contests that were expected to be especially physical to gas cans left in the lockers of aging veterans whose performance was key to the club's success.
Rizzi, who describes himself as a “blue collar” guy, has his own spin on such things.
He began his tenure by asking players to accept individual responsibility for the metaphorical hole the team had dug itself and asked them all to embrace the idea of filling it up — one shovelful at a time. He even has brought a shovel — as well as a hammer, tape measure, level and other construction tools — to team meetings to help make his points.
Saints tight end Taysom Hill, who also plays on special teams, has gotten to know Rizzi well during a half-decade of working together. Hill doesn't sound surprised to see Rizzi's combination of work ethic, enthusiasm and personal touch resonating across the entire team now.
He also made a lot of changes, from weekly schedule adjustments to reconfiguring players' lockers by position.
“He has a really good pulse on what we need collectively as a team to get ready for a football game," said Hill, who scored three touchdowns and accounted for 248 yards as a runner, receiver, passer and returner against Cleveland. “Guys have responded to that.”
Because Rizzi's first victory came over the first-place Atlanta Falcons, and because the Falcons lost again last week, the Saints now trail Atlanta by just two games with six to play.
Suddenly, the idea of the Saints playing meaningful football down the stretch is not so far-fetched.
“We’re starting to get our swag back, and that makes me happy,” Rizzi said. ”We’re going to have some downtime now to kind of press the reset button again and see if we can make a push here."
When the Saints return to action at home against the Los Angeles Rams on Dec 1, they'll do so with a level of momentum and positivity that seemed to steadily drain out of the club between their first loss of the season in Week 3 through the six straight setbacks that followed.
While Saints players have tended to blame themselves for Allen's demise, they've been quick to credit Rizzi for the turnaround.
“He’s pointed us and steered the ship in the right direction,” Carr said. “Hopefully, we can just keep executing at a high level for him, because we love him.”
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Brett Martel, The Associated Press
