3 Saints quotes that say it all after awful week for Dennis Allen and Mickey Loomis

The New Orleans Saints (2-7) will try to end a seven-game losing streak today at home against Atlanta (6-3) at noon central on FOX. It is the franchise's longest losing skid since the 1999 season when coach Mike Ditka lost seven in a row in a 3-13 season and was fired. The Saints have not lost eight in a row since 1980 when they opened the season 0-14 and finished 1-15 with coach Dick Nolan getting fired.

Head coach Dennis Allen was fired Monday in this third season and replaced by special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi on an interim basis. Amid the fallout, three quotes stood out from one of the most tumultuous weeks in the Saints' sometimes sordid history.

3. Alvin Kamara appreciates accountability from interim Darren Rizzi

"Rizz doesn't want anybody on the ground at practice. You see somebody go down, and he gets right in their face," Kamara said of Rizzi, who has been with the Saints for six seasons with Kamara in his eighth at running back. "That just hasn't been a thing."

That was a shot at Allen not getting on players in Kamara's mind.

"He (Rizzi) is going to hold you accountable," Kamara said. "He's setting a certain standard. He's hard on everybody, but he loves you at the same time. He's setting a certain standard and he wants that standard met and really surpassed."

Kamara, by the way, can become the Saints' all-time leading rusher against Atlanta with 12 yards. He is at 6,489 entering the game. Mark Ingram holds the record with 6,500 from 2011-18 and 2021 and '22.

2. Saints owner Gayle Benson overrules GM Mickey Loomis

Saints general manager Mickey Loomis wanted to keep Dennis Allen as head coach through the end of this season, according to multiple reports, despite a seven-game losing streak and a loss last week to the NFL's worst team - then-1-7 Carolina.

But in stepped Saints' owner Gayle Benson, the widow of previous owner Tom Benson, who died in 2018 after buying the Saints in 1985.

"This decision is something that I felt we needed to make at this time," Benson said.

Benson went against Loomis' wishes. He made an infamous remark about results after Allen's 2-4 start this season.

"Results matter. They do," he opened with at the time. "But one of the things that I think good organizations do is look beyond the results."

As long as Loomis remains with the Saints, Benson is looking beyond some of Loomis' results. Without former Saints' head coach and de facto general manager Sean Payton, Loomis' results are not good. Payton coached the team and largely ran the draft and free agency from 2006-21 before "retiring," while Loomis focused on the salary cap and other administrative duties.

Without Payton, Loomis is in his fifth losing or .500 season out of seven (2002-05 and 2022-24) with a record of 46-61 over that span.

1. Interim Rick Venturi's blistering comment from 1996 may still hold true

In 1996, the Saints were 2-6 when head coach Jim Mora stepped down after a loss at Carolina as well, amazingly enough. And linebacker coach Rick Venturi stepped in on an interim basis. Then Saints owner Tom Benson summoned Venturi to his office.

"What's wrong with my team? Everybody tells me I have a playoff team, and look where we're at," Benson told Venturi, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate this week.

Venturi held nothing back.

"You've got a (expletive deleted) team," Venturi said, according to the Advocate story. "You've got a bad team, and the problem is everybody is feeding you this BS. You don't have a playoff team."

The Saints were not a playoff team until 2000 after a 3-13 finish in that '96 season, followed by 6-10 marks in 1997 and '98 under coach Mike Ditka and a 3-13 in 1999 that got him fired.

Benson should have seen this himself. The Saints were building to that 2-6 start in 1996, having gone 8-8 in 1993 and 7-9 in 1994 and '95. But his then-brown-nosing, BS-ing lieutenants were acting out of self-preservation. And that could be happening again now with Loomis and Saints' president Dennis Lauscha.

Benson and her late husband had no football experience whatsoever before getting involved with the Saints. If all the football she knows is what self-preservation-motivated Loomis and Lauscha have been telling her over the past three Allen seasons (7-10, 9-8, 2-7), the Saints may be in deep doo-doo again, unless a top level change or changes are made.