Darren Rizzi: How New Orleans Saints interim head coach inspired team during first week in charge

Darren Rizzi: How New Orleans Saints interim head coach inspired team during first week in charge

New Orleans voodoo is real. You could see it, you could feel it, resurfacing on demand as if summoned by the Bat-Signal when the city needed it most, tormenting a rival kicker, compelling an interim head coach to wildly overshare and conjuring a defiant party atmosphere at the Superdome.

Somewhere on Sunday the right leg of Younghoe Koo's voodoo doll was being poked, prodded and nullified as the Atlanta Falcons man missed three field goals to surrender a 20-17 defeat to the rejuvenated Saints, including the kind of doink for which only a mystic force could have been responsible.

The voodoo doll of this visiting journalist was meanwhile being forced to feast on countless portions of gumbo, jambalaya and bread pudding, powerless to world-class NOLA cuisine during a pre-Super Bowl tour of the city. It wasn't my fault, promise.

What had opened as a week of despairing uncertainty in light of Dennis Allen's dismissal as head coach and the departure of cornerstone defensive back Marshon Lattimore would evolve drastically into a picture of New Orleans vibrancy, where Mardi Gras-style beads glistened that little bit brighter, where cries of 'WHO DAT?' hit that little bit harder and where the Superdome became that little bit more suffocating.

Something had felt different, local spirit having been reignited and a family unity restored behind the infectious full-throttle attitude of the impressive Darren Rizzi.

From running back Alvin Kamara to Irish kicker Charlie Smyth, Saints players had spent the back end of the week bowing to the galvanising influence of their temporary (but how temporary?) leader, keen to insist there is no let-up behind the scenes from the fiery intensity evident on the sidelines.

Within just a few days, the lengths to which players would go to serve him and the reasons as to why were clear.

As much was underlined by the most unique post-game press conference story of the season as the former special teams coordinator, unprompted, admitted to blocking the toilet earlier in the day. Pre-game nerves, perhaps.

"I'm a pretty open guy," he said. "This is how my day started: I get down to the Superdome, I go in the head coach's locker room, which I've never used before. Here I am, early in the morning, I go to the bathroom. This is how my day started. I clogged the toilet.

"I'm like, 'this is gonna be a crappy day.' Pun intended!"

As reporters erupted into laughter, so too did safety Tyrann Mathieu while waiting for his turn at the podium from the side of the room. Rizzi and the Saints had just snapped a seven-game losing streak, victory over a division rival coupling with his toilet anecdote in transforming the mood entirely from that with which they had entered the week.

With that came another giggle-inciting recollection of losing all feeling in his arm after taking a 'stinger' from Payton Turner in celebration at the end of the game, as well as a shower of praise for Falcons kicker Koo as Rizzi leapt to his defense by reminding all of his success against the Saints in their previous meeting.

In just the few days I had spent in Louisiana, Rizzi had carried himself and been spoken of as every bit the perfect flag-bearer for New Orleans pluck and fortitude.

Among his initial moves to change things earlier in the week had been the decision to remodel the Saints locker room, bringing players closer together in a literal sense and ensuring they sat with new team-mates from different position groups.

Small adjustments reaped immediate rewards, including the no-brainer appointment of Kamara as a captain - as much being vindicated when the new Saints all-time rushing leader emerged from the tunnel to the loudest, most raucous cheer of the day at the Superdome.

"It was a culmination of a lot of things," Kamara told reporters after the game. "It was energy, it was our belief. I think we got some swag back. The preparation, details, the fundamentals. I think everybody was accountable to each other. We haven't had that. It hasn't been there.

"I've been saying this past couple weeks, we all want to win. The recipe was just missing something and I feel like we got that thing. Rizzi came in and he had a clear message for us. He told us, 'this is what we have to do to win,' and he gave us the recipe, gave us the formula."

A trip stateside always serves up a fun collision of alien slang and pronunciations, particularly for Americans fascinated by my omission of the letter 't' while asking for some 'wa'er'. It would occur to us that one phrase we do share is 'rizz', short for charisma, of course; you see where I'm going with this, right? Rizz? Rizzi? You get it...

While rizz tends to be used primarily in one context, the Rizzi rizz would prove the ability to revive the Saints spark with his passion, authenticity, accountability and the face-scrunching aggression and steely vocabulary of a tireless competitor.

Sometimes it is impossible to teach such a calibre of management and natural rapport, displayed not only through jubilant facial expressions and chest-bumping camaraderie, but also through more low-key methods, such as Rizzi approaching his defensive line only to leave hastily upon realising Demario Davis was saying all that needed to be said during a mid-game pep talk.

It was equally important to hear the admission of mistakes, for Rizzi knew better than anybody that the story might have been different had Koo nailed even just one of his three kicks.

Granted, the Saints missed their own chances, most notably Kamara's uncharacteristic drop for a would-be touchdown to make it a two-score game in the final minutes. But when you are in a hole - as the Saints had been, a spot of good, potentially voodoo-fuelled, fortune never hurts.

"I think all the changes that we made last week were received positively," Rizzi said. "But I want the guys walking in here every day thinking about, 'what's next?' And it might be the smallest thing.

"We've got to continue to do that, got to continue to keep everybody alert. I just don't want to get into that same old, same mentality. The good news is we made all those changes last week and we had a positive result.

"Are we going to see a few more wrinkles this week? Heck yeah. We're going to try to do that every week. Try to keep everybody on their toes and keep them fresh. I think you can always keep it fresh as a coach."

He might be the quintessential rah-rah interim head coach, and the embodiment of the animation and exuberance Saints fans had been desperately missing.

We strolled back from the stadium to the hotel on Sunday to the sight of bustling bars, a jumping Bourbon Street (isn't it always?) and hip-hop music blaring from cars as fans sat in the typical post-game city traffic far more willingly than might have been the case in recent weeks.

With rah-rah approaches must always come slick decision-making, acute playbook architecture, efficient quarterback play and, well, wins.

The Rizzi experience could yet prove a bumpy one such is the makeshift nature of a Saints roster that turned to Marquez Valdez-Scantling and Kevin Austin, who Allen's interim successor joked that 'nobody knew'. But he has given them life, there can be no doubt.

Rich Bisaccia was beloved by the Las Vegas Raiders during his brief interim stint, and such was Antonio Pierce's popularity among the players that he was rewarded with the full-time post despite more limited experience than other prospective candidates.

Not enough can, meanwhile, be said of Dan Campbell and the defining role his heart-on-sleeve emotion, unrivalled commitment to his players and contagious energy has played alongside smart play-calling, personnel identification and shrewd system-tailoring in spring-boarding a fresh era of contention for the Detroit Lions.

Rizzi has been part of the Saints organisation since joining as special teams coordinator in 2019, having also previously carried out the same role with the Miami Dolphins after serving as Rhode Island head coach in 2008.

With the organisation staring at an ugly cap situation over the coming years, would it be a surprise to see them put their faith in the 54-year-old while they encounter multiple obstacles? Perhaps not.

Upon landing in NOLA on Wednesday you wondered what atmosphere might await with the team skidding towards a losing season after its 2-0 start, and as Lattimore moved on in the kind of veteran trade that would often point to an admission that contention may be some way away.

But as you listened to a fired-up Kamara and Cam Jordan - not just the faces of the team but faces of the city - set the tone at practice on Thursday, and as you picked the brains of kicker Smyth - as devoted as any international player I have ever met to making it in the NFL, by the way - and as you wondered into Champions Square, and as you soaked up the latest rendition of The Saints Are Coming pre-game, you realised there was something new in the air. The mood of the city had changed.

It required only a few days to realise Rizzi is the type of character born to serve a city like New Orleans.

Sky Sports were in New Orleans as part of a visit organised by New Orleans & Company and the Super Bowl LIX Host Committee. New Orleans is preparing to host the Super Bowl for a record-tying 11th time on February 9, 2025.