Remember on Monday when Firing people was #2 on My Fave 5? I honestly thought it would end there. Plenty of coaches were canned to satisfy the seemingly unquenchable thirst NFL owners have for blowing up their own teams. The ceremonial distribution of walking papers in the NFL had come and gone, that is until Sean Payton made one of the biggest and ballsiest decisions of his coaching career…..HE FIRED EVERYBODY!
Assistant Head Coach / Linebackers Coach Joe Vitt, Special Teams Coordinator Greg McMahon, Defensive Line Coach Bill Johnson, plus assistants to assistants Stan Kwan and James Willis were all sent home on Thursday. The reason this was ballsy for Payton is that almost all these guys were his friends, his brothers to the bone, his ride or die T-BOYS!
Greg McMahon played college ball with Payton at Eastern Illinois. Joe Vitt was the first guy Payton hired in ’06 when he got the gig in NOLA! And Bill Johnson joined Payton’s staff in ’09. All there since the SB win!
These guys have been through some (&%$##CENSORED FOR RADIO&&^%$$#), but as we all know, things in New Orleans have been way too comfortable as evident by the consistent 7-9 finishes. Payton probably didn’t want to do it, but today is a day Saints fans should be patting their Hed Coach on the back because this was a tough move and he had the guts to pull the trigger.
The Saints’ special teams were an absolute joke this year and it cost them 2 or 3 wins. McMahon’s close relationship with Payton allowed him to finish the season with a special teams overlord, Kevin O Dea, watching over him but McMahon knew even being one of the broskis wasn’t going to save him.
Saints linebackers have been pretty bad for awhile now and that’s because none of the young players have become good players. Stephone Anthony was hurt but digressed and had a bad year. Luckily the Saints scored with Craig Robertson and Dannell Ellerbe actually played in some games! So Vitt had to go too.
Bill Johnson, more than any of them had to go. Nothing has been more glaring than the Saints lack of pass rush. Even though that unit improved in 2016, Bill Johnson had real talent to work with for years and he was only able to get minimal results. Even before Fairly and Rankins, Bill Johnson was living off the success Cam Jordan had and that’s it.
Give it up to Sean Payton for firing his friends. It shows he knew change needed to be made and that change was not running for the hills of Hollywood. 2017 is make or break, do or die, feast or fired….all the cliches about urgency you can come up with apply! Sean Payton showed he is a man willing to take that extra step and willing to grab pair if he needs to, or even in this case, stab his own friends in the back. That’s just business in the NFL and this was a smart business decision.