We were surprised to learn that New Orleans Saints Head Coach Dennis Allen had been fired Monday morning.
Surprised, yes, but not disappointed: The Saints' on-field performance had been deteriorating for weeks and culminated in Sunday's moribund effort on the road against the Carolina Panthers, one of the worst teams in the National Football League.
Eight weeks ago, when the two teams met in the season opener, the Saints flexed their muscles in a 47-10 win. A week later, they beat the vaunted Dallas Cowboys 44-19. But the next seven weeks proved those early season hopes to be just a mirage.
Since then, the Saints have stagnated on offense and struggled on defense. On Sunday, Panthers second-year quarterback Bryce Young, who had been benched earlier in the season for ineffectiveness, led the team down the field for a go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
After the game, the brother of star wide receiver Chris Olave, who was carted off the field after taking a hit early in the game, took to social media to chime in on criticism of quarterback Derek Carr and the Saints. Stalwart defensive lineman Cam Jordan offered an apology to fans, and Allen vowed to keep fighting. But it wasn't enough.
We are sad for Dennis Allen, who was described by this newspaper's sports columnist Jeff Duncan as a coach who loved the city and "a good man who worked tirelessly" to make the team better. But the NFL is a results-oriented business and the Saints' results fell far short of expectations too often.
It was probably foolish to expect the good fortune the team enjoyed with a stellar head coach in Sean Payton and a future Hall of Fame quarterback in Drew Brees to continue. But this season's issues have been so pronounced that a change finally had to be made.
It's also probably foolish to lay all of this at Allen's feet. It's true that injuries played a role. So have poor management decisions that have squandered some draft picks and created a hellish salary cap situation.
Even before Katrina, the Saints, through decades of highs and lows, occupied a special place in the psyche of Louisiana. Since 2006, though, when the team returned to the Dome after the storm, that place has grown to become a reflection of everything that we hope and believe about the future of our state. It's a shame that as there is so much fuel for optimism in New Orleans -- crime down, a successful Taylor Swift concert series, the upcoming Super Bowl -- the team is headed in the other direction.
It's probably too late for this season, but we can hope that this change signals a willingness to look honestly at the team's problems and the fortitude to tackle them.