The New Orleans Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen on Monday and special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi was named the team’s interim head coach.

The move comes after the Saints lost 23-22 to Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers, who are widely considered the NFL’s worst team. It was New Orleans’ seventh straight loss after opening the season 2-0.

The Saints went 16-18 through his first two years, and his previous tenure with the Oakland Raiders didn’t provide much encouragement as to whether he could pull off a major turnaround. The Raiders were 8-28 in his two-plus seasons.

Even if New Orleans won on Sunday, Allen was likely on borrowed time at that point. Saints insider Nick Underhill reported that team owner Gayle Benson began meeting with players well before the Panthers game “to get a sense of what was wrong.”

Losing to Carolina was clearly a bridge too far. The result was bad enough for defensive linemen Cameron Jordan and Khalen Saunders to apologize to fans on social media:

Following the retirement of Drew Brees following the 2020 season, New Orleans went with a pair of stopgap solutions in Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton instead of developing a draft pick. Expenditure $150 million about Derek Carr turns out not to be much better than that approach.

Now the team will most likely miss the playoffs and carry a payroll projected to be $77.4 million over the salary cap per year in 2025. Spotrac.

Maybe it’s time to consider wiping the slate clean at an organizational level.