Dennis Allen appears to blame Saints players for faking victory formation

The Saints closed their regular season with a 48-17 win over the Atlanta Falcons, and likely pushed Arthur Smith out of his job in Atlanta, according to reports from before the game. The final score should have been 41-17, were it not for a final two-minutes touchdown that the Saints tacked on when in first-and-goal in victory formation.

New Orleans faked the victory formation and got Jamaal Williams the ball for a touchdown, notably his first-ever touchdown of the regular season and first in a Saints uniform.

Arthur Smith hated it, clearly finding it disrespectful and bringing choice words to his postgame meeting with Allen at the 50 yard line, with all of America reading his lips and hearing his anger on hot mics.

Allen said, "I understand that," when Smith told Allen how much he disagreed. In the moment, that seemed like something to say to diffuse the situation, but later it appeared Allen actually didn't call the trick play at all.

Dennis Allen's postgame apology to Arthur Smith is so weak it hurts

Dennis Allen has not been a coach that Saints fans have been able to get behind. He seems extremely passive and disengaged, and has been generally unable to solve the squad's offensive inabilities despite management doing everything it can to get him good weapons on that side of the ball.

Saints fans hate the Falcons. To some degree, the players and coaches of these two teams hate each other, too. It's a storied rivalry that does not come with warm fuzzy feelings twice a year.

So when Allen appeared to be the leader of the team who whipped up a fake victory formation, fans were actually, for once, excited about his leadership. Then, we found out he had nothing to do with it at all, and he used his postgame platform to more or less chastise his own players for trying to get a teammate a touchdown.

It pulls Saints fans away from the feelings of elation and optimism about Allen's leadership and reminds us that this guy, this is not their kind of guy.

If anything, this is what Allen should be pushing his team to do. The Saints are, if a miracle happens and two afternoon slate games go their way, going to be in the playoffs. He should be using the end of a game like this to figure out who needs to get a rhythm going, and one of those players is Jamaal Williams, who has struggled to get any sort of consistent run game going this year. Him scoring a touchdown, even after the game has been decided, could be huge for his ego going into a Wild Card game.

Instead, Allen basically told his players they were losers and poor sports for... you know... playing competitively.