New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson created a stir this week with her public criticism of her team's performance
-- taking aim specifically at head coach Kellen Moore and longtime general manager Mickey Loomis. After the Saints lurched into a 1-4 start to their season and sparked the possibility of a six-year playoff drought, Benson has made it clear these results are, in her words, "not acceptable."But the reactions to her comments reached beyond New Orleans. The Athletic's Jonathan Jones spoke with team sources around the NFL about the pointedness of Benson's address, which caught many executives off-guard. Loomis has been seen as a made man. A "lifetime appointee to the Saints GM position" was how Jones characterized it; one rival exec remarked
that "The GM has been there as long as Methuselah."
Loomis is on a 25-year run that only found success when Sean Payton was coaching his team. New Orleans has gone 28-45 since Payton left town, which makes for a 56-81 record for Loomis when you combine the last five years with the four that preceded him hiring Payton. That certainly puts Benson's points into perspective. Jones quoted one team source who said "It obviously means get (expletive) together."
Nobody needs Moore to figure out this head coaching thing more badly than Loomis. If the Saints lose one or both of their next two games, that long flight back from Paris will end with an uncomfortably lengthy bye week. Loomis has been the top decision maker in New Orleans for a very long time. But if his designs go up in smoke, he wouldn't be the first shot caller to get left on the tarmac and tasked with finding his own way home.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Rival execs react to Gayle Benson pressuring Saints GM Mickey Loomis
