General Manager Mickey Loomis made his weekly appearance on WWL Radio with Mike Hoss on Tuesday night, addressing the obvious with trade Marshon Lattimore and shot Dennis Allen. Loomis did not speak to the media after the move, so in addition to the statement It’s the first time we’ve heard of him. Loomis said conversations surrounding Lattimore have only recently occurred.

Loomis said: “I think it was really the last week when there was some speculation about him being traded, given our history, you know, that will spur calls and we’ve had several of them in the last, you know, four or five days.”

Trading Lattimore gave the Saints several draft picks for next year, getting a third, fourth and sixth round pick from Washington in exchange for him and a fifth round pick. The sixth round was the one the Saints used to acquire John Ridgeway III. Loomis considers it a move up in the draft. The consequences of leaving him behind are the dead money added to the salary cap, which amounts to just over $36 million.

“It gets complicated because there’s an acceleration of bonds that were redeemed and some things like that, but yeah, I mean, listen, we don’t, you know, you said it right. That’s $18 million over the next two years, every year, that we can use elsewhere, but let me tell you one thing: Marshon has been a fantastic player for us. He was a great draft pick. You know, he was the defensive rookie of the year the year we drafted him, 2017, and he made the Pro Bowl multiple times. He is a fantastic player. He was a good teammate and, you know, I have nothing but good things to say about Marshon. Unfortunately, in recent years he’s had to deal with some soft tissue injuries and a couple other injuries, but I think he’s still one of the best cornerbacks in our league and Washington is getting a good player for their playoff run. here and his career, so I wish him nothing but the best, I really do. In the end it came down to a deal that I thought was good for us, good value for us and that’s why we did it.”

As far as Dennis Allen is concerned, Loomis reiterated much of what he said in his statement, but expounded on it. He also addressed the column about players and parking.

“Look, I think Dennis Allen is a fantastic football coach, and I think anyone in our league who talks about him thinks he’s a fantastic football coach. He is. I think in this case, look, the circumstances created the record. That’s the truth and many people don’t want to hear it. I mean, they write us stupid things, like, oh, the players aren’t parking in the right places. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Players have been parking there for the last 15 years, you know, because we’re under construction. We have 100 more employees than 10 years ago. That is just nonsense, and equating it with discipline is also nonsense. I mean, we’re eighth. Coming into this last game we were the eighth with the fewest penalties in the league. That’s more of a comment about discipline than where a player is stationed, for God’s sake, but let’s get back to what’s staring you in the face: We’ve had an abnormal number of injuries, including to our quarterback, and we haven’t been able to overcome that, which puts pressure and stress on the organization and, ultimately, was a reason for change.”

Loomis did not address the team on Monday, leaving it in the hands of Darren Rizzi. He thought he did a great job talking to the team, the media and describing something he wanted to do differently. The goal is to hopefully boost the second half of the season.

“I think he’s a pretty obvious choice, given his experience, his role as a special teams coach, which you just described, you deal with almost every player on the team when you’re in that role, so he’s a voice that our players have heard. before. He’s used to being in front of a big group of players and presenting and look, he has a great personality and a great positive attitude at all times, and, you know, look, he was a candidate, you know, when we hired. Dennis Allen. He was one of the candidates and he did really well in his interviews, so I think he was an obvious choice.”

“Rizzi has always had that effervescent personality. He’s got kind of a fighter mentality, and you feel that even when you’re talking in a regular conversation with him, you know, and I think that was received positively by our team and certainly by our staff and players in a really, really, circumstance way, really difficult.”

Loomis said the team won’t be very active looking for a coach right now, but will do so when the season ends. He focused on what’s in the building and mentioned the fact that he already went through the process of dealing with adversity in 2005. He also talked about the state of the team and obviously the frustration the fans are feeling.

“It’s not fun losing games. It’s, you know, I can’t describe to you, as bad as our fans feel and the things that, you know, they feel, believe me, we all feel 10 times worse, but you can’t just wallow in it. You have to get up off the mat and show some fight, and that’s true for every person in this building, so we’ll see what we have in the next eight weeks.”

Loomis added that he does not question the effort of the coaching staff and the players, something that Dennis Allen also stated. However, they still haven’t been good enough and have to improve to equal wins. He mentioned how they’ve lost their two best receivers, their two best cornerbacks, their three interior linemen and their quarterback this year. The Saints know there have been several games where the game came down to one final possession and they had a chance to win the game, but didn’t.

“The other team made some plays, that’s how close it is, you just quoted it, it’s not that far from being 5-4 instead of 2-7 and yet it’s 2-7, I mean, we’ve got to be owners of that. That’s what we are.”

Wednesday is a new era for the Saints and they have three critical months to evaluate where they are, where they are going and how they will get there.