New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi joined Voice of the Saints Mike Hoss and Saints legend Bobby Hebert on the Saints Coaches Show on WWL on Monday, Dec. 16 to talk about the loss to the Washington Commanders, generating more takeaways, the upcoming game against the Green Bay Packers and more.
Here are the top five takeaway’s from Rizzi’s appearance:
1. Going for two and the win
The Saints lost to the Washington Commanders 20-19 on Sunday, Dec. 15. The game came down to the final play as the Saints opted to go for a two-point conversion and the win with no time remaining on the clock rather than kicking an extra point and taking the game to overtime. Rizzi stood by his decision to go for the win following the touchdown pass to Foster Moreau.
“In every game, as you guys know, there’s ebbs and flows to the game and that’s the beauty of this game,” Rizzi said. “And I think any time you’re talking about game management, time management, fourth-down decisions, two-point plays, all that stuff, I don’t think you can make a blanket statement as far as analytics go, I know we’ve talked about that on this show before. And so, I felt like the way that game had gone, we obviously dug a big hole in the first half, but we dug our way out, and we gave ourselves a chance, one play on the two-yard line to win the game and I don’t regret it for one second, making a decision. I think it was the right decision at that time and obviously it didn’t work out.
“You guys all know how this works. If we complete the pass, and we get the two-point conversion, it was the greatest call in the history of the world, and we didn’t. It’s easy to second guess. And so, I just felt like it was the right call for the moment. I didn’t want Jayden Daniels to get the ball back. We saw him, although we did a phenomenal job defensively for the game … we saw him also make some plays with his feet, throwing the ball, they missed on some deep shots in the second half that were damn close to being explosives. We didn’t want to bring him back on the field. And so, I would tell you that I think the decision, I don’t regret it looking back on it.”
As for whether he would do the same if it came down to a similar situation in Green Bay, Rizzi said it would depend.
“If we’re in that situation in Green Bay, we’ll see how the game plays out,” he said. “If the game plays out differently, then maybe I would make a different decision on the road. Who knows? And then the other thing you have to factor in is this: in the regular season, it’s sudden death only if the other team scores a touchdown, and the other thing you have to take it into account is it’s only a 10-minute half and coming out of there with the tie wouldn’t have really helped us either which is a possibility obviously in the regular season. And they had control of the ball for 40 minutes out of 60 for that game. So, there’s just a lot of factors as we went through there and I just felt like: last play the game, two-yard line, here we go. So, it was a decision for that particular game. I understand the criticism and I understand the second-guessing but I don’t regret it for one second.”
