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Fire ML

Fan filing · New Orleans · Case 2002–2026

FireMickeyLoomis

He had a real run. Drew Brees, Sean Payton, a Super Bowl, and a decade of January football. But, the latest run is the bill for paying every cap statement with the next card — signings that missed, a coaching hire that was a promotion, veterans he would not release, and dead money that now eats the roster.

Read the five countsSee who he passed onCast a vote
Cartoon of Mickey Loomis in a black and gold shirt, wearing a clown nose and hat
36–49
Five full seasons since the last playoff game
0
Playoff berths after January 2021
$112M
Dead money on a 2026 public cap sheet
2002
The year he took the chair

2026 is underway at 1–2 through three weeks. Cap figures are public snapshots — OverTheCap and Spotrac, as reported — and they move every time someone restructures. This is a fan argument, not a front office.

The record

The run was real. It ended in January 2021.

Credit him for the part that mattered. He signed Brees and hired Payton. Super Bowl XLIV is not a rumor. From 2017 through 2020 the Saints were a January team four years running. Then the quarterback retired, the coach left, and the same general manager kept refinancing a contender that no longer existed.

Gold bars made the playoffs. Ember is every miss since 2021. Muted bars are the ordinary misses inside the Payton years — the ones a Hall of Fame quarterback could absorb. 2026 is three games old and still drawn short on purpose.

Allen, then Rizzi

2024

5–12

Missed the playoffs

Gayle Benson fires Allen in November. Reporting said Loomis did not want the move. 5–12.

Saints regular-season record, 2006 to 2026
YearRecordPlayoffsCoach
200610–6YesSean Payton
20077–9NoSean Payton
20088–8NoSean Payton
200913–3YesSean Payton
201011–5YesSean Payton
201113–3YesSean Payton
20127–9NoPayton suspended
201311–5YesSean Payton
20147–9NoSean Payton
20157–9NoSean Payton
20167–9NoSean Payton
201711–5YesSean Payton
201813–3YesSean Payton
201913–3YesSean Payton
202012–4YesSean Payton
20219–8NoSean Payton
20227–10NoDennis Allen
20239–8NoDennis Allen
20245–12NoAllen, then Rizzi
20256–11NoKellen Moore
20261–2NoKellen Moore

Five counts

What the latest run actually is.

Not a mystery slump. A pattern: spend like a contender, hire from the hallway, keep the old roster, and push the accounting into a year that has not happened yet.

Count I

Signings that did not cash

When the quarterback who covered every cap trick retired, the replacements were priced like the window was still open.

  • Derek Carr, March 2023: four years, $150 million, to be the post-Brees answer. In March 2025 the Saints converted most of the $40 million due that year into a bonus and cut a cap charge near $51.5 million down to about $20.4 million. He retired in May. The refinance outlived the player.
  • That retirement produced one of the largest single-player dead-money hits on record, about $50 million, with roughly $36.7 million of it still sitting on the 2026 cap.
  • Chase Young: a three-year, $51 million edge deal with four void years attached. He is still near the top of the 2026 cap sheet, about $9.6 million against roughly $1.2 million of base salary.
  • The draft was supposed to bail the checkbook out. Payton Turner (2021, first round) never became a rush. Trevor Penning (2022, No. 19) was later moved for a 2027 sixth-round pick. Marcus Davenport, the 2018 first-round edge, is the one they kept spending belief on while Trey Hendrickson walked.

The opportunity cost

The cap did not just keep the wrong players. It lost the right ones.

Hendrickson, Baun, Armstead, Williams. Plus the first-round swings that were supposed to replace them and did not. A sheet this tight cannot miss in both directions.

  • Walked

    Trey Hendrickson

    Left in 2021 free agency. Three-time Pro Bowl edge with Cincinnati. One public tally put 35 sacks on just the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

  • Miscast

    Zack Baun

    A special-teams piece here. Year one in Philadelphia: 151 tackles and a real Defensive Player of the Year case.

  • Priced out

    Terron Armstead

    The blind-side tackle of the era left for Miami. The sheet made the decision, not the film.

  • Priced out

    Marcus Williams

    Homegrown safety. The cap was already promised to older deals.

  • Traded, still paid

    Marshon Lattimore

    Dealt to Washington. A 2025 snapshot still charged the Saints about $31.7 million in dead money.

  • First round

    Trevor Penning

    No. 19 in 2022. Later sent to the Chargers for a 2027 sixth-round pick.

  • First round

    Payton Turner

    The 2021 first-round edge never turned into a weekly problem for quarterbacks.

  • First round

    Marcus Davenport

    2018 first-round rusher. The one who became a rusher was Hendrickson, and he was allowed to leave.

Also out the door in the same squeeze: Sheldon Rankins, Alex Anzalone, Vonn Bell. None of them had to become All-Pros for the pattern to count. The building spent its flexibility keeping the past employed.

Count V, demonstrated

Still on the board.

Pick the name he called. The list under it is who was still sitting there — later in that draft, after the trade that bought the pick.

He took · No. 14

Marcus Davenport

Traded No. 27, No. 147, and a 2019 first to Green Bay to move up. The name in the room was Lamar. They took the edge rusher.

  • +18

    Lamar Jackson

    No. 32 · Ravens

    Two-time MVP. Still available.

  • +21

    Nick Chubb

    No. 35 · Browns

    The back they could have had for a second-round price.

  • +22

    Darius Leonard

    No. 36 · Colts

    Defensive Rookie of the Year.

  • +56

    Fred Warner

    No. 70 · 49ers

    A third-round linebacker. The defense of the decade.

The booth

Gayle called firing him ridiculous. The ballot is yours.

“It may not be what the fans want to hear, but as far as firing Mickey Loomis, that’s ridiculous. [He] does a great job.”
Gayle Benson, November 2025, as reported by Bleacher Report. She has also said she holds him in high esteem.

The defense is not nothing. He hired Payton, signed Brees, and won a Super Bowl. The prosecution is the five years after that coach and that quarterback left: 36–49, no playoffs, and a 2026 cap sheet still carrying nine figures of dead money. This booth only counts ballots filed in this browser.

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