The New Orleans Saints defense is a disaster, and the franchised used its bye week as a crutch to fire coordinator Rob Ryan.
Ryan’s final act was a 47-14 drubbing by the Washington football team, which used a 324-yard, four-touchdown performance from Kirk Cousins to fuel the blowout and ultimately send Ryan packing.
Per NFL Media’s Kevin Patra, Ryan had a clever comment about the futile week.
Rob Ryan on Redskins and Kirk Cousins: "They made my bye week turn into a bye-bye week"
— Kevin Patra (@kpatra) November 22, 2015
New Orleans entered its bye week at 4-6, meaning the team is 2.5 games out of the NFC playoff picture. The defense is currently ranked dead last in the league, surrendering 424.3 yards and 31.5 points per game.
Every opposing quarterback has accounted for at least two touchdowns except for Brandon Weeden, who was recently released by the Dallas Cowboys. Eight of the 10 gunslingers tallied more than 300 yards of total offense, and three straight have tossed at least four scores.
Statistics can often be manipulated to reflect a narrative, but there’s any number of stats to reinforce the Saints’ issues. Whether that’s a problem with his scheme—and considering Ryan’s overall lack of success, that’s possible—a lack of talent or a combination of both, there are problems in New Orleans.
The first fix for the franchise in correcting the weakness was to make like *NSYNC and say bye-bye-bye to Ryan.