Latest / AFR Saints / Mickey Loomis Responds to Gayle Benson: Will the Saints GM Finally Be Fired? | AFR

Transcript

Mickey Loomis Responds to Gayle Benson: Will the Saints GM Finally Be Fired? | AFR · AFR Saints

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: AFR On Demand is brought to you by Breck Golf.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Try Beaver Creek today. Just 20 minutes from downtown Baton
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Rouge in the Zachary area. They've got a PGA Tour
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: driving range, a short game practice area, 30 to 40
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: yard practice shots. It's a great place to chip and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: putt and practice if you don't have time for a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: full round. Book your tee time today. Golf.breck.org. Golf.breck.org. One
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: week ago, Gail Benson put everyone... on alert with these
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: comments that she made at the New Orleans Quarterback Club.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Kellen Moore and his coaches are responsible for preparing our players.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Mickey Loomis and our football staff are responsible for building
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a roster capable of sustained success. Our players are responsible
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: for their preparation and execution. And I am responsible I
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: didn't actually make out the last part of what she said.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: She said, I'm responsible for something, this organization. I don't
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: know what she said. But a lot of people made
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a big deal about her mentioning Kellen Moore and Mickey
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Loomis by name. Actually, she didn't mention Kellen Moore by name.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: She mentioned Ellen Moore by name. Ellen Moore. Play it again.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Ellen Moore. Yeah, she called him Ellen again. Anyway, she
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: thinks the man's name is Ellen. Last week, Moore had
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: obviously multiple media, much media availability, so he addressed those comments.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Wednesday in Paris, Mickey Loomis had media availability, so this
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: was the first time he had met with reporters since Mrs.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Benson made those comments. This is what Mickey Loomis said
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Yeah, um... Look, I understood where she's coming from,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and I think every once in a while we all
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: need to be a little uncomfortable. That's okay. So I think,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you know, again, this is an outcome-based sport, and it's
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: not good enough yet. Okay. Outcome-based sport, not good enough yet.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It's okay to be uncomfortable sometimes. Okay. You'll know how
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I feel about this, but it is interesting to hear
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Mickey address it for the first time. And this is
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the first time, as I recall, in his tenure that
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: he's had to address something along these lines. Now, Mickey
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Loomis has been the Saints general manager since 2002. He
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: had 16 years with Sean Payton and 15 years with
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Drew Brees. This is his ninth season without having Sean
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: or Drew there. In that time, he has had two
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: winning seasons. 2002, his first year, the Saints went 9-7.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And then in 2023, they went 9-8. It was the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: second year under D.A. You know, the... And I would
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: even argue, aside from just the two winning seasons outside
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of Peyton Breeze, are the six non-winning seasons with Peyton
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and Breeze. In the decade and a half that you
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: had the greatest coach combination in... the franchise's history, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: among the winningest coach-quarterback combinations in NFL history, there were
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: six seasons when you went 500 or below. And there's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: so much evidence that points to why. It's your inability
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: to manage the salary cap. It was your inability to
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: sign quality free agents. It's atrocious drafts like in 2014,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: where you took Brandon Cooks in round one, and then
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: went Stanley, Gene Baptiste, Kyrie Fort, Vinny Sinceri, Ronald Powell,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and Tavon Rooks. You just flushed that draft down the toilet.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Or the turlet, as my Grammy would say. A year later,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Andrus Peet, Stephon Anthony, Haole Kikaha, Garrett Grayson, P.J. Williams,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Davis Tull, Tyler Davis, and Damian Swan, Marcus Murphy. You
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: want to know the surest way to make sure you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: don't remain competitive? That's the surest way to make sure
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you don't remain competitive. And it continued. Remember the COVID year?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Cesar Ruiz, Zach Bond, Adam Troutman, Tommy Stevens. You had
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: four picks. Because you traded away all your other picks,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you used four of them, and you missed on all
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: of them. Bond became great just with somebody else. And
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: then there's also The commitment, the investment of resources on
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage where you keep missing. Marcus Davenport,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Peyton Turner, Cesar Ruiz, Trevor Penning, Isaiah Foskey, Brian Brzee.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: You've used so much capital on the line of scrimmage.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Where are the New Orleans Saints weakest this year? What
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is the worst position group in this year? It's offensive line.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: You can't run the football. You can't protect your quarterback.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Your offensive line is your worst position group. You have
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: three first round picks, a second round pick, and a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: $ 61 million free agent. How are you that bad? Either
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you mis-evaluated or you hired a coach that runs a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: style that's not conducive to what you've drafted to. Either way,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: it falls on the general manager. So for Mickey Loomis
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to say it's an outcomes-based business and it's not good
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: enough yet, it's never been good enough with him as
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the general manager. And I know, I know, Peyton Breeze
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and he was the GM during that time and you
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: want to give him credit. Okay, I would also point
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: out that the reason you got Drew Brees is because
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the doctor in Miami failed him on a physical, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the reason you got Sean Payton is because Green Bay
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: decided to hire Mike McCarthy. Neither one of those guys
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: wanted your job. And everybody else that he's hired, every
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: other free agent quarterback he's brought in, Derek Carr, Andy Dalton, Jameis,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you want to go back to Aaron Brooks? Okay, whatever.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: This is what you are. Outside of Payton Brees. My
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: point is, I'm not dismissing Peyton Breeze. What I'm saying
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: is he has shown through a long enough sample size
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that he does not know how to put together a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: winning team. I mean, how is the offensive line your
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: worst position group on the team with that kind of
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: investment you've made? Every other organization in the NFL is outcomes-based.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Every other one. Do you know the longest-tenured general managers
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in the NFL are? Do you know? Muse, do you know? Pauly,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: do you know? Longest-tenured GM in the NFL. It's okay
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: if not. Not off the top of my head, no.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: It's okay. So Jerry Jones is the longest-tenured GM. 1989.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He's also? The owner. The owner. Yeah. You know who
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the second-longest-tenured GM in the NFL is? I kind of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: gave it away a little bit there. It's Mike Brown
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in Cincinnati, who also is? The owner. Yeah, thank you.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: You can say it. That's fine. Thank you. The third
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: longest-tenured general manager in the NFL? Oh, no. Yeah, I know.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think, but no. It's Mickey Loomis. Oh, no.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So the only GMs that have a longer tenure are
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the two guys that own franchises that won't fire themselves,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and then Loomis. Two GMs were fired after last season,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Terry Fontenot and Chris Greer. Fontenot and Atlanta Greer in Miami.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Fontenot had five years in Atlanta. Did not have a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: single winning season. They were 36-48. Greer spent ten years
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in Miami. Ten years in Miami. He had five winning seasons.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Made the playoffs three times. Hired three coaches. Adam Gase,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Brian Flores, Mike McDaniel. They fired him. Ten years, five
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: winning seasons, three times in the playoffs. He got fired.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Go back two years, 2024. Two GMs got fired. Joe
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Douglas and Rand Carthen. Douglas with the Jets and Cartham
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: with Tennessee. Douglas had six seasons. This was the win-loss record,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: or the wins. 7-2, 4-7, 7-5. In the five, he
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was fired midway through the year. He hired three head coaches. Gase, incidentally.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Robert Sala and Aaron Glenn. Never made the playoffs. Ran
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Cartham in Tennessee, was there for two years. And, well,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, we saw. It is a outcomes-based business everywhere
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: else except New Orleans and Dallas and Cincinnati, where the
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: GMs aren't going to fire themselves. So I'll keep going
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: back to it. How does Mickey Loomis have uncompromised job security?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: In his words, an outcomes-based business where the outcomes are bad, repeatedly.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Free agents, drafts, hiring coaches, salary cap, all of it.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: It's bad. And the rest of the NFL understands that. Mrs.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Benson is the only one who seemingly doesn't, except maybe
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: she's starting to come around. Now, I'm not one of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: those that cheers for my team to lose so they'll
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: fire somebody. I would rather the Saints go on a
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: 10-game winning streak, make the playoffs, win the division, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: go and run. I would rather see that. That's way
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: more fun than firing people and starting over and all
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. But I do believe in the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: sunk cost fallacy, and I don't believe this team is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: going anywhere. I don't believe Kellen Moore... has the respect
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of the locker room. I don't believe this is a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: team that is pointed in the right direction, unfortunately, and
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to fix it. I would
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: love it if they did. Sincerely, I would rather them
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: figure it out and go win because that's way better.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to cheer for them to lose so
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: they'll fire people. I would rather them win. That's a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: better outcome. Go win. Go win a lot of games.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Make the playoffs. That's way more fun. I just don't
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: believe that's going to happen. And when, as I think
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that inevitability comes... My hope is Mrs. Benson wasn't feeding
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: us a line, a bunch of drivel at the beginning
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of that commentary she made a week ago. That she
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: actually is willing to make changes within this organization, finally recognizing,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: like every other organization in the NFL does, that it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: is an outcomes-based business. And the guy that's running this
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: team has not delivered those outcomes for the large part
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of a decade without Sean Payton and Drew Brees, front
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and back end. We'll see how they do this weekend
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: against Pittsburgh.