“I’m confused, I’m vexed, I’m perplexed.” Richard Sherman’s words on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football halftime show cut through the air like a dagger. For a Saints team that started 2024 by outscoring opponents 91-29 in their first two games, their dramatic fall from grace has left even NFL legends scratching their heads.

The brutal reality check came on October 17, as Sherman watched the Saints defense stumble to a 16-3 halftime deficit against the Broncos. “It seems like they want to get their coach fired, that’s the effort they’re playing with,” Sherman declared, his analysis hitting harder than the Saints’ tackles lately.

The stark contrast between perception and reality couldn’t have been more evident. While Dennis Allen stood on the sideline during halftime claiming “we were better tackling,” his defense was busy proving otherwise. Tyrann Mathieu’s dropped interception – a play that could’ve turned into a game-changing return – became Exhibit A in Sherman’s scathing breakdown.

The numbers paint a painful picture of a defense in free fall. Just days earlier, the Saints had surrendered a staggering 1,000 yards in a week between their losses to Kansas City and Tampa Bay. The fundamentals have disappeared faster than their early-season momentum, with even ironman linebacker Demario Davis and newcomer Chase Young whiffing on crucial tackles.

Allen’s response to this defensive meltdown a week back? “We didn’t tackle,” he stated matter-of-factly after the Bucs game. “When you don’t tackle you give up explosive plays… and it kind of snowballed on us a little bit.” The understatement of the season from a coach watching his defense allow 6+ yards per carry in three of their last four games.

Dennis Allen’s job security hangs by a thread

The Saints’ 2024 season reads like a tale of two teams. The squad that dominated their first two games has vanished, replaced by a unit that’s dropped four straight – including crucial divisional losses to Tampa Bay and Atlanta. Now, at 2-4, they’re looking up at both the Falcons and Buccaneers (both 4-2) in the NFC South standings.

For Allen, these struggles aren’t new territory. His career head coaching record tells a sobering story: 26-50 across 76 games, with a meager .342 winning percentage. While his current Saints tenure shows improvement over his Raiders days (where he went 8-28), the specter of those struggles looms large.

“It’s something we’d better fix in four days,” Allen growled when asked about the tackling issues some days before the Broncos game. His seven-year stint as Saints defensive coordinator (2015-2021) once made him seem like the perfect successor to Sean Payton. Now, with Payton on the opposing sideline for Thursday’s game, the contrast between past glory and present struggles couldn’t be more stark.

The clock is ticking louder by the week. With two games remaining against both Atlanta and Tampa Bay – including a season finale in Tampa – Allen’s fate might well rest on his ability to fix a defense that appears to have stopped responding to his leadership. As Sherman’s halftime commentary suggested, sometimes the hardest reality checks come from outside the building.