This whole team needs to be blown up! The New Orleans Saints might very well be the most disgraceful and disastrous team in football right now as their players committed open rebellion on their coach!
How is this just “not a thing” for the Saints ownership and management?
Despite being up 41-17 and being told by head coach Dennis Allen to kneel down the clock and cap off a chaotic 9-8 season, the Saints offense, led by Jameis Winston, disregarded what their coached ordered and tricked the Falcons defense by running play on a victory formation to give Jamaal Williams a touchdown. And, if you couldn’t tell, I think this situation stinks worse than rotten trout.
There’s no two ways of saying this: Jameis Winston and all his co-conspirators on offense should be either terminated (especially Jameis Winston) or fined at least $500k by the organization…and Dennis Allen needs to be fired IMMEDIATLEY.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Saints were playing the Falcons in their regular season finale with both teams having an outside chance of winning the NFC South division and making the playoffs. Now, that didn’t come to pass as the Bucs clinched a 3rd-straight NFC South title with their 9-0 win over the Carolina Panthers, but the Saints didn’t know that yet and ran up the score 41-17 on the Falcons to give them as much of a chance for a playoff push as possible.
And, after a Tyrann Mathieu interception late in the game that he nearly returned for a TD before being stopped at the 1-yard line, the Saints offense lined up for victory formation and looked like they were about to run the clock out…until they didn’t. No, despite being in the victory formation, the Saints ran a fake-out play for Jamaal Williams to get last year’s leading TD scorer from the ground score his first TD of the season to win the game 48-17.
Obviously, the Falcons and their head coach, Arthur Smith (who is now out of a job), were pissed off and furious with the Saints and Dennis Allen…who also seemed to be upset and concilaitaory to the Falcons and Smith. Isn’t that kind of strange? Why would the Saints head coach, who just told his offense to trick the Falcons defense into a victory formation defense and then score a cheap touchdown, be upset and concilator to their divisional foe Falcons?
Well, it’s for one simple reason: he never called for the fake-out play to be run. Jameis Winston and the offense ignored him and ran a play anyway!
And that’s where I have a massive issue with this franchise, and the players and coach more specifically. You CAN’T allow players to blatantly and conspiratorially overrule the head coach and decide to call another play completely on their own whims and wishes. It’s great that Jamaal Williams got his first touchdown of the season…but he didn’t deserve it as he didn’t earn it.
Tricking your opponents into letting their guards down in the dying embers of a blowout game is the most underhanded, deceptive way to score a touchdown that Williams might as well have lost 10 yards on the play as that would have been the more honorable outcome. Jamaal Williams did not EARN the right to score a touchdown in ANY of the Saints 17 games this season and did not EARN the right to rush into that endzone on the merits of his own talent.
But, even that’s beside the point as the act of ignoring your head coach, the lead play caller and authority on the gameday roster and doing what Jameis Winston felt as “right” is a slap in the face of all the authority and responsibility built through the 17 weeks of practice, film study, competition, and respect for coaches.
I completely agree with Shannon Sharpe when he says that Jameis Winston should be cut from the Saints as that kind of disrespect and intolerance for hierarchy authority NECESSARY for winning football is too much to have in a locker room as he’s shown he can lead other members of the team astray. And I’d also punish all those who took part in play for they are just as responsible for this blight on the Saints franchise.
Yet, Dennis Allen is not blameless in this situation either as it’s clear he has no authority or respect from this locker room, and the Saints poor play over these last two seasons proves a new, more powerful voice is needed to reign in some of the guys one that team. And that means Dennis Allen needs to be packing his bags the same day Jameis Winston is as neither one of them can win you serious games in the NFL.
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