Ask around and you’ll find some New Orleans Saints fans who are ready to call Dennis Allen the worst head coach in franchise history, which is a bit shortsighted. It’s very shortsighted, actually. Allen has his faults and the team wasn’t as competitive as it should have been last year because of his flaws as a coach and too-conservative game management, but he’s far from the worst coach to wear a headset in New Orleans. Anyone saying otherwise needs some perspective.
We’re only considering coaches who managed at least 15 games for New Orleans, which eliminates interims like Joe Vitt (10 games), Rick Venturi (8), and Wade Phillips (4). Some fans will be quick to suggest also-rans like Bum Phillips and Dick Nolan as the worst coaches in team history, but we believe these men take the cake. Do you agree with our list?
5
Hank Stram, 1976-1977 (7-21-0)
Stram is ranked low because of the situation he inherited. It’s not like he was building things up from scratch. He added a couple of quality runners in Chuck Muncie and Tony Galbreath to the backfield, and a young Henry Childs at tight gave him a pass-catcher with unrealized potential. His defense had several competent pass rushers, with ballhawk free safety Tom Myers coming off a career-high 5 interceptions the year before. But a season-ending shoulder injury for Archie Manning scuttled the plan on offense in 1976, and Stram’s defense ranked in the bottom half of the league in each of his two seasons despite the talent assembled. His teams should have at least matched the sum of their parts, but they didn’t, and that falls back on coaching.
4
John North, 1973-1975 (11-23-0)
Saints ownership wasn’t known for its patience in the 1970’s, quickly pivoting from Tom Fears to J.D. Roberts to John North (and after him, to Hank Stram and Dick Nolan, with some interims sprinkled in. They lasted an average of 15.6 games each from 1970 to 1980). And North’s teams were some of the lowliest of the bunch, ranking among the lowest-scoring offenses and least-intimidating defenses in the league in each of his three years at the helm. Archie Manning took a career-worst 49 sacks in 1975, leading the NFL. For perspective, he was one of just two quarterbacks to be sacked more than 38 times that season.
3
Tom Fears, 1967-1970 (13-34-2)
It’s easy to feel sympathetic for Fears — the expansion-era Saints were a clown-show, with the equipment staff working from a nearby hotel and coaches sometimes driving free agents to and from the airport in training camp. It was as messy and unprofessional an environment as you can imagine. But Fears has to take some blame for that, like it or not. At the end of the day he was most responsible for the on-field product, and it’s the reason he didn’t last any longer than he did.
2
J.D. Roberts, 1970-1972 (7-25-3)
No one has coached as many games and lost as many of them for the Saints as Roberts, who also leads the team record books in career ties (3). His defense couldn’t play competitively, and even the arrival of an all-star college quarterback in Archie Manning couldn’t get him to field a league-average offense. Some blame needs to go to ownership and the front office in the early days of the team, but Roberts had also been around long enough to put up better results than this.
1
Mike Ditka, 1997-1999 (15-33-0)
It has to be Ditka. And it has to start with the Ricky Williams trade. It looked insane at the time, and the years have only worsened the deal. Here’s a recap for what the Saints traded in 1999:
- 1999 first-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-round picks
- 2000 first- and third-round picks
It’s bad enough to give all of that up for a single player. That Williams put up pedestrian numbers before moving to the Miami Dolphins just a few years later makes it worse. Ditka bet big, and lost big. But Ditka failed to even establish competence on his defense — if anything, they regressed year over year by allowed 11, 13, and 15 touchdown runs in his three years running the team. Things started badly under his management and only worsened as time marched on.
