There are various shades of evil in the world today. NFLbut the New Orleans Saints might be more tattered and bruised than anyone. After winning their first two games to start the season, the Saints are now in the middle of a seven-game losing streak. Their last loss came on the road to the equally bad division rival. Carolina Panthers. It was the end of the line for former head coach Dennis Allen.

Allen will never be an NFL head coach again after failing in New Orleans and a decade ago in Oakland. The worst part of all this is that the talented defensive coordinator by trade was finally put in check by the organization, which has been in constant decline since Drew Brees could no longer throw the ball 10 yards down the field. Sean Payton is already gone, but Mickey Loomis stays.

After Allen’s dismissal, here is Loomis who excites the Saints fans in what is so far from the truth.

“Dennis Allen, I think, is a fantastic football coach and I think anyone in our league who would talk about him thinks he’s a fantastic football coach. He is. I think in this case, the circumstances created the record. It’s just the truth and a lot of people don’t want to hear it.”

I may have been born at happy hour on a Monday, but I’m not that drunk to believe what Loomis is selling. He made it his mission to kick the can down the road, rolling the money around like there was no tomorrow. Eventually the bill comes due. Whether it’s Brees’ decline, Payton’s arrogance and lack of patience, or Loomis pretending to be the smartest man in the room who reads books, here we are…

It’s all about ownership, because Loomis shamelessly threw smoke in Gayle Benson’s eyes.

Allen is the proverbial sacrificial lamb fed to us by a much larger and fiercer beast.

So where do the saints go from here? If it was me who took the lead, I would have left Loomis too. The Saints need a complete reset to get back on track. They have overcome much worse historically to achieve national relevance. What I would do is hire an offensive-minded coach, preferably someone who looks certain things, and allow him to recruit a new franchise quarterback.

When was the last time the Saints used a first-round pick on a quarterback? Honestly, it might be Archie Manning, and that might be the only time they’ve done that. This isn’t the strongest quarterback class, but it offers plenty of intriguing options to navigate. If Kevin Stefanski is fired, hire him immediately and see if Andrew Berry wants to go with him.

From there, I would take a long, hard look at this year’s quarterback class. Does Quinn Ewers’ arm appeal to you? Does Shedeur Sanders float your boat? Is Carson Beck’s charm still attractive? How about a Heisman contender in Cam Ward? Maybe Dillon Gabriel can be the next Drew Brees? These are the questions you need to answer first before determining who your face in the franchise will be.

In the end, this was always going to happen to the Saints. The roster Loomis built for years was essentially a house of cards, which collapsed on their bumbling former head coach running into it. With arch-rival Atlanta soaring and Gulf Coast foe Tampa Bay circling the wagon, what does it say about the Saints when even Carolina looks down on you? He says it’s time to pivot.

It was an act of self-preservation and posturing by Loomis, but I don’t buy into it for a single nanosecond.