“A Crappy Day, Pun Intended”– Darren Rizzi Clogged The Toilet The Morning Of His NFL Head Coaching Debut For The Saints

If transparency is important to the New Orleans Saints as they search for the full-time successor to recently-fired coach Dennis Allen, they're unlikely to find a better candidate than Darren Rizzi in that particular department. The interim boss in New Orleans took the reins from Allen for Sunday's game against the Falcons. Rather than allowing Atlanta to waltz into the Superdome and extend its NFC South lead, Rizzi's men showed fight — but not before he showed some fight amid some morning-hour adversity. After Rizzi led the Saints to a 20-17 win over their division rival, he revealed that perhaps a bigger moral victory for his NFL Sunday was taking the Browns to the Super Bowl this AM: "I'm a pretty open guy, so this is how my day started. I get down here to the stadium, get down to the Superdome. I go to the head coach’s locker room, which you know, I've never used before, right? So here I am, early in the morning, I go to the bathroom, and that's how my day started: I clogged the toilet. And I'm like, this is going to be a crappy day, pun intended! I'm like OK, this is not really a great start to the day. Here we go. And so yeah, I'm not really feeling like a head coach of an NFL team right now!" https://twitter.com/FletcherWDSU/status/1855726845926543467 Rizzi is the Saints' typical special teams coordinator. The vast majority of the time, you want to remain anonymous in that role. You'll get the occasional shine if your unit returns a punt or kick for a touchdown or something, but more often than not, they're cutting to you if your coverage unit gives up a big return, your dude muffs a punt, or your kicking operation misses a field goal. It's sort of like offensive line. Underappreciated because by definition, if you don't notice them, they're doing their jobs for the most part. But once the spotlight is on you, it's often not for the reasons you want. This guy Darren Rizzi is hilarious. I wonder what's running through Derek Carr's mind. The last time he got Dennis Allen fired was as the quarterback of the Raiders. Their interim coach Rich Bisaccia — another special teams coordinator! — steadied the ship and lifted the Silver and Black to the playoffs. Alas, the Raiders didn't stick with Bisaccia, leading to the debacle of Josh McDaniels' tenure. The Raiders axed McDaniels last year, and this time around, stuck with their interim guy Antonio Pierce — only to post a 2-7 record to date. Quite a mess in Vegas right now. Speaking of messes, good on Rizzi for at least keeping his house in order and getting the main job accomplished this week. Sure, it took Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo almost literally s******g his pants, missing three field goals, and wrecking my fantasy team almost as badly as Anthony Richardson. But still, a win is a win in the NFL. Never apologize for any of 'em. I'm skeptical that Rizzi has the rizz to lead the Saints for the long haul, though. Love the guy, but if I were New Orleans, I'd leave no stone unturned on this coaching search. You have to get it right. You hung onto Dennis Allen for far too long. The biggest steaming pile of dung around Saints headquarters is their salary cap situation. They're due to be more than $62 million in the red for next season. Sunday's win actually hindered New Orleans' hopes of landing the top QB in the 2025 draft class, or any other top prospect they might be interested in. To be fair, injuries really rocked the Saints hard this season after their scalding-hot 2-0 start. They're now 3-7 and are basically a rudderless ship. Or at least they were with Allen at the helm. We'll see if Rizzi provides more than a one-week spark. I'm not holding my breath, that's for sure.