Saints legend talks Drew Brees’ return to the sales space, what went flawed for New Orleans post-Brees-Payton, and his most popular head coach candidate

Former New Orleans Saints Professional Bowl LB Jonathan Vilma joined Arizona Cardinals insider Kyle Odegard for an unique interview with SportsLens to debate a spread of matters, together with the excitement across the black and gold and a few acquainted faces.

Brett Davis-Imagn Pictures

The revival of Drew Brees’ broadcasting profession

With Brees returning to the sales space for this season’s set of Christmas Day video games—Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and Houston Texans vs. Baltimore Ravens—streaming completely on Netflix, his longtime teammate and present Fox Sports activities’ colour analyst, Jonathan Vilma, shared his ideas on Brees’ upcoming shot at redemption.

Vilma emphasised the quantity of strain that gamers of Brees’ stature are confronted with after they start their careers in entrance of the digicam and shared some recommendation for his former quarterback: “But I would say one: the fans are always uber critical of the play by play when calling the games, right? So, if you know that they’re going to hang on to your every word whether it’s good or bad, you just go out and be relaxed and call it.”

When requested whether or not he feels Brees can deal with his weaknesses by reviewing the tape from his first stint on TV, Vilma pointed to the long run first-ballot Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer’s work ethic: “Drew, I know that he is a workaholic. I know he watched his tape 20 times over on how he wants to improve, etc. And so, what I see from Drew coming in the second time around, from whatever happened at NBC, I know he’s going to be very natural. I know he’s going to be much more relaxed. I know that he’s going to really just enjoy it.” He burdened the significance of the Tremendous Bowl 44 MVP letting his unmatched soccer IQ prepared the ground: “If I’m Drew Brees, let that come out. Just go out, be natural, be relaxed. And look, if you flub something, move on, right? If you mess something up, who cares? Because it’s three hours of football. It’s meant to be fun. It’s not meant to be perfect. Just go out and enjoy it.”

One other quote from Vilma on Brees that Saints followers will get pleasure from: “…at the end of the day, there was nobody better than Drew and it may be a little biased, but there was nobody better than Drew at that quarterback position. And I know people reading will think it’s Tom Brady, but I don’t care, I’m biased!”

Picture by Kaitlyn Morris/Getty Pictures

What went flawed for New Orleans post-Brees-Payton?

Vilma disagrees with the notion {that a} full reset ought to have taken place following the departure of the 2 most prolific icons in franchise historical past, as a substitute giving credit score to the All-Professional-studded protection that was one of many league’s greatest on the time.

The final perception surrounding the Saints was that they had been only a QB away from being contenders after Brees introduced his retirement in 2021, however Vilma feels the two-sided narrative they confronted afterwards was unfair: “So it’s like, how are you going to at one time say, well, the defense is really good and they can just get a few pieces and then now come back and say, oh, they should have just dismantled the whole thing. Alright, some of those guys were a little older and at some point, you do want to move on, but I would argue that they shouldn’t have done a wholesale change.”

Nevertheless, Vilma did stress the necessity for the Saints to search out success within the draft in the event that they need to flip issues round. He famous that it’s been an space of concern for New Orleans in recent times, pointing to the first-round alternatives of edge rushers Marcus Davenport and Payton Turner as picks that haven’t panned out and have set the workforce again. Vilma cited the later phases of future HOF DE Cam Jordan’s profession for instance of how persistently whiffing within the draft can considerably influence future roster building:” Cam Jordan’s an ideal instance. He’s all the time been an ideal participant, all the time relentless, nice effort, and so on. You drafted two or three guys. In that interval, none of them actually panned out. So, it’s like, how can I do away with Cam Jordan? He’s nonetheless our greatest defensive finish and we don’t have something to interchange him. We thought we had been getting one thing within the draft, and we didn’t. So, if you have a look at it from that perspective, they tried, it seems to be like they tried and so they had been making an attempt to make it possible for they’d a pleasant succession plan, and it simply didn’t work out.”

Fortunately, the emergence of the Carl Granderson-Chase Younger duo has created extra alternatives for Jordan and the remainder of the line of defense as they proceed to complete the season sturdy. Luring Younger again for a second season within the Large Straightforward needs to be one of many prime priorities this offseason and will permit the Saints to handle one other place of want by way of the draft or free company.

Amid a disastrous season for the black and gold, Odegard requested Vilma if he thought now can be the precise time to lastly pull the set off on a complete rebuild, to which he was adamant on the worth of holding a handful of skilled leaders on the roster all through this tough patch: “…absolutely have to keep two, three, four key veterans that, yeah, they’re past their primes, they may rotate in and out, they may be a backup, whatever it is, but they’re going to continue with the culture because the Demario Davis of the world, the Cam Jordans or the Tyrann Mathieus, they’ve known success a lot of their career. This is foreign to them, being .500 in consecutive seasons and just not looking like themselves. What is natural to them is being contenders, winning the division, contending in the playoffs…if you just fill this team up with young players, they could be as talented as they want but you don’t know if they’re going to be leaders. And that’s always the tricky part where if you don’t have a nice mix of solid veterans, yeah, they’re past their primes, but they’re bringing along the young guys, not just play wise, professionally to be professionals, to then lead this team into the next 10 years.” It’s extremely seemingly that the listed veterans will return for the 2025 season, so New Orleans must nail the upcoming NFL Draft and usher in some promising prospects for them to mentor.

Picture by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Pictures

Is Aaron Glenn one of the best match to be the following head coach of the Saints?

The largest query surrounding the 2025 Saints is who will take the reins because the workforce’s subsequent head coach, prompting the query of who Vilma believes can be one of the best match for New Orleans: “I like what I’ve seen from Darren Rizzi so far as an interim coach, bringing more energy to the team, holding the team accountable, making sure that they play. If they’re going to move on from Darren Rizzi, they had a coach who’s done a phenomenal job in Detroit now in Aaron Glenn. He was there with the Saints under Sean Payton. I like that hire because Aaron Glenn is about developing players. He’s about structure, organization and not that other coaches aren’t, but you can see proof in the pudding of what he’s done in Detroit. And it’s not with a bunch of superstars at all. It’s with fourth-round guys, fifth-round guys, backups to the backups that are playing and playing well.”

Having performed a season in New Orleans as a cornerback in 2008 and later serving because the workforce’s defensive backs coach from 2016 to 2020, Aaron Glenn’s connection to the Saints is obvious. Previous to becoming a member of the Detroit Lions as a defensive coordinator, Glenn performed a key function within the growth of gamers like Marshon Lattimore, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Vonn Bell, and Marcus Williams. It’s been reported that folks throughout the facility suppose extraordinarily extremely of Glenn, and he was even interviewed for the open head coach place in 2022.

Vilma added, “There are going to be some really good players that may not stay on the team. But three, four years from now, like you see in Detroit, that didn’t happen overnight. That took four years. And there was a point where people were calling for Dan Campbell to be fired. All of a sudden they start to win a few games, they get hot. Then last year they got really hot and now this year they’re on a roll. So you gotta preach patience and allow the coach to do what he does best and Aaron Glenn, he does a phenomenal job of developing the players, but you have to give them time and if the organization is going to buy into that and buy into Aaron Glenn and what the vision is going to be four years from now, then I think it’s a great hire. If they move on from Darren Rizzi, I think that’d be the next best option.”

Which candidate would you wish to see the Saints take into account in the event that they in the end resolve Darren Rizzi isn’t the long-term answer?