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Darren Rizzi talks stepping in as interim head coach, coaching roles, rest of season

Recapping the top five takeaways from the Saints Coaches Show on WWL 

New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi joined Voice of the Saints Mike Hoss and Saints legend Bobby Hebert on the Saints Coaches Show on WWL on Monday, Nov. 4 to talk about his new position, how the team will move forward following the dismissal of Dennis Allen and more.

Here are the top five takeaway's from Rizzi's appearance:

1. First day in the new job

Rizzi was named interim head coach for the New Orleans Saints following the dismissal of Dennis Allen on Nov. 4, 2024. Rizzi has worked as the special teams coordinator for the Saints since 2019 and added the assistant head coach position in 2022. He said his first day on the job was "a little bit of a whirlwind."

"I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't a little bit of a crazy day," he said. "Start off, obviously, this morning with the change and then really been kind of hit the ground running and obviously there's a lot of a lot of moving parts here in terms of talk with all the different department heads, and the coaches, and the players. Try to really touch as many people as possible today, just to kind of get a beat on the building."

Rizzi had worked alongside Allen since he joined the team in 2019.

"Any time you go through a change like this, it's not easy," Rizzi said. "It kind of makes you step back and realize just how sacred these jobs are. And at the end of the day, it's a business. It's a production business. And I think I said this in my press conference, there's a personal side to this that sometimes gets lost. I've been working with Dennis now for six years. And, you know, we develop a friendship. And so at the end of the day, a man lost his job today and so that's the difficult part. At the same time, it's where we are. And, I've been honored by Mrs. Benson and by Mickey (Loomis) and the rest of the organization, to lead the ship moving forward. And that part is an honor and a blessing, so there's definitely some mixed emotions, a little bit of a bittersweet day, to say the least."

2. His role moving forward

Rizzi said that he will still be involved in special teams but will have to take a step back in a portion of his capacity.

"At this point, the leadership role is the No. 1 most important thing in my opinion. And so, that's where I need to be," Rizzi said. "I need to be a leader of the organization at the same time, from a football standpoint, yes, I'll definitely still have a hand in the special teams. I'm very fortunate to have a coach like Phil Galliano, who really should be a special teams coordinator. He's by far one of the better special teams coaches in the league. The organization is blessed to have him here."

Rizzi announced that the team would be adding Marwan Maalouf to the coaching staff to help with the special teams group,

"Marwan worked with me, at couple different spots, the Dolphins and as well as Rutgers. I've known him a long, long time, and he's a veteran special teams coach. He's going to come in and help us in that area as well, and take a little bit off my plate in terms of the day-to-day kind of the quality control type of work. And he knows our system. He was my assistant before Phil was in Miami and so kind of a hit the ground running there. And so for sure, I'm going to have a hand in the special teams, and we're going to keep trying to do things, the way we've been doing them."

3. Other coaching roles

As for how the rest of the coaching staff will function, Rizzi said he is going to let offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and defensive coordinator Joe Woods do their jobs.

"Listen I think Klint has done a hell of a job. I know that our record is what it is, so I'm not blind to that. But I think we've done a lot of good things offensively this year, and we've had a lot of moving parts. There was a lot of positives to take out of the game the other day, but I think Klint is great young mind. I think he's a great coach. I think he's done a great job of stepping into a tough situation. So, I'm gonna let him, obviously he's going to call the plays to keep doing what he's doing on off. And certainly I'm going to handle, the game management part of it which I've been doing, for the last couple of years, not all of it, but a lot of it.

"And then, Joe Woods is a veteran defensive coach who's been a coordinator. We have some veteran coaches on that side of the ball. You got Joe Woods. You got a guy like Peter Giunta who's got three Super Bowl rings. You got a guy like Marcus Robertson and Mike Hodges, all these guys that have, and Brian Young is a guy that's been here. You got all these guys that have, some veteran coaches here that kind of know what we've been doing. And listen, we haven't played a lot of great defense. That's not a surprise to anybody. There's some things we got to get go get cleaned up. But we've done a pretty good job right here defensively. We got to get back to our basics and all that."

4. Finishing games

The loss on Sunday, Nov. 3 to the Carolina Panthers was another game where the Saints were in a position to win, holding a five-point lead with less than three minutes remaining before surrendering a touchdown and failing to mount a game-winning drive upon receiving possession with 2:18 left.

"We haven't done a good job of closing out some games that we had a really, really good opportunity to win," Rizzi said. "I think there's three games that come to mind and all sudden we're in a different position than that."

The Saints held leads late in the Week 3 and 4 games against the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons.

On fourth-and-four with 1:09 remaining on the Saints' 46-yard line, quarterback Derek Carr attempted a deep pass to wide receiver Cedrick Wilson Jr. that fell incomplete, sealing the loss.

"The last play of the game that might have been a read or whatever defense they were in, certainly, but there's a lot of plays. We really shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. Quite frankly, in my opinion, we should have been, at that point, we should have been in the lead. And so, you can look back at a bunch of different plays throughout the course of that game and point the finger at. So it really shouldn't have come down to that one. But I'd be lying to you and I'd be lying to the fans if I told you that we don't have to do better finishing because we do."

5. His resumé to take on the role

Special team coaches often are not looked at in coaching searches as frequently compared to offensive and defensive coordinators, but Rizzi will get the opportunity to show what he can do with the Saints for the remainder of the season. Rizzi pointed out several successful head coaches like John Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, Marv Levy and Bill Cowher spent time as special teams coaches and is confident in his resumé.

"I'll tell you what, I think my passion probably comes through the phone a little bit. I think I'm a really good leader. I've been doing this now, this is my 32nd season. I've been 16 seasons in college, and this is my 16th year in the NFL. I've coached, on all sides of the ball," Rizzi said. "Probably one of the things that fans don't know about me, because I've been a defensive coach, I've been a defensive coordinator, I've been an offensive coach. I've obviously been a special teams coordinator, and I was the head coach on the collegiate level at the lower levels. At one point in in 1999, I was the youngest head coach in NCAA. I was 28 years old and I was the youngest head coach. And so I was very, very fortunate to get a lot of experience at a young age and kind of baptism by fire, if you will. And, so there's no doubt in my mind, that I'm prepared to be in this seat. It's been a long time coming. This is not the way … really not the way I envisioned it. But you know what, the situation is what it is. And here I am, and I got a lot of eyes on me. I got the players, the coaching staff, the front office, the fanbase, the city, the media, everybody. And I know this, I have a ton of confidence in what we're going to be doing, and I got a ton of confidence, that I know what it takes to win in this league."

Check out the game action photos from the New Orleans Saints game against the Carolina Panthers for Week 9 of the 2024 NFL Season on Nov. 3, 2024 at Bank of America Stadium.

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