The abnormal reason Saints fired Dennis Allen during horrific losing streak

Dennis Allen couldn’t coach his way through a grueling run of injuries.Saints general manager Mickey Loomis cited an “abnormal” amount of injuries that led to a 2-7 start as the impetus for why the franchise fired its head coach Monday.New Orleans has lost seven straight games while 10 players are on injured reserve and three are on the reserve/PUP list, according to the team’s website.“Dennis Allen, I think, is a fantastic football coach,” Loomis said Tuesday on WWL Radio.“I think anybody 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.That’s just the truth and a lot of people don’t want to hear it.”He added: “It just gets right back to what stares at you right in the face is that we’ve had an abnormal amount of injuries, including to our quarterback, and we haven’t been able to overcome that, and so that puts pressure and stress on the organization and ultimately it was cause for a change.”The Saints opened the season with blowout wins over the Panthers and Cowboys but have since entered the race for the No.

1 pick following a stretch of awful play.Sunday’s 23-22 loss to the lowly Panthers marked the nadir for the once-proud franchise.As Loomis noted, the team has struggled to keep its stars on the field this season.Quarterback Derek Carr missed three games and has not played that well since Week 2, even while healthy, while receiver Chris Olave has sustained multiple concussions.The Saints have also been without offensive lineman Shane Lemieux, Erik McCoy and Ryan Ramczyk, among others, while emerging receiver Rashid Shaheed recently landed on injured reserve, too.Loomis disagreed with the notion that Allen oversaw an undisciplined football team, dismissing a recent Nola.com story citing players parking in the wrong spot as a sign of that lack of focus.He added he did not question the effort of both the coaches and the players.“We g...