Darren Rizzi's outburst is exactly why he's not ready to be the next head coach of the Saints
There's something kind of fun and exciting about interim head coaches. It's this idea that a guy can come out of nowhere and lead a team out of obscurity and put them on the right path. You always want to find out if that guy can do it and then get the head coaching job […]
There's something kind of fun and exciting about interim head coaches. It's this idea that a guy can come out of nowhere and lead a team out of obscurity and put them on the right path. You always want to find out if that guy can do it and then get the head coaching job after that.
Sometimes it happens. Raiders coach Antonio Pierce is a good example of that, even if he might not last much longer there. But he did enough to do the thing that most interim head coaches have a hard time doing. He got the team behind him and showed why he was the right choice at the moment.
Saints' interim head coach Darren Rizzi did the opposite of that on Sunday when he lost his composure and berated his punter in front of everyone and had to be pulled away by players.
Look, I know there's some people out there that might think this is the way you coach players and that you have to scream at them and try to break them or something. I'm sure those same people would be in favor of Rizzi making this guy do laps and then have two-a-days in the sun with no water breaks because "that's what football is."
It's not. Just because your high school coach did this and you guys made it to the playoffs that one time, that doesn't mean he was right. It's one of those sun shines on a dog's butt type things. Kind of like how the Saints won this game. They didn't do it because Rizzi lost his temper. The Giants pooped the bed and missed a big kick.
Rizzi is a good special teams coach and that's why he's been in the NFL for a while now. I'm not at all going to act like coaches don't yell at their players ever. That happens all the time. What I will say is that you don't often see the head coach of any NFL team ripping off his headset and throwing his hat on the ground before screaming at his punter. You just don't. When you do it always fails.
From someone that cover the Lions during the Matt Patricia era, I can tell you how quickly that team fell apart because Patricia tried to go all high school on his players. The players then toasted champagne in the locker room at the end of the season because they were so happy to get away from him. He was fired shortly after and players celebrated openly on social media.
It's stuff like this that is likely going to hurt Rizzi's already slim chances of taking the job for good. You have to be able to get your team to buy into what you're selling and make them want to follow into hell and whatnot, this isn't going to accomplish that.
