An NFL head coaching debut has to rank high up there among nerve-racking experiences — and that goes double if you are taking over for a coach who was fired the week before.
Dennis Allen led the Saints to a 2-7 record to start the season, including seven losses in a row after two season-opening wins. New Orleans fired Allen in Week 10, then promoted Darren Rizzi to interim head coach.
As a result, the ship seemed to have sailed on the team’s 2024 campaign. But Rizzi led the Saints to a huge 20-17 win Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons. And he capped the win with a memorable postgame quote.
NFL HQ: Live NFL scores | Updated NFL standings | Full NFL schedule
Darren Rizzi postgame interview
Nerves hit everyone differently. Rizzi gave a window into his own pregame jitters after Sunday’s win — and he may have been a little too transparent.
Rizzi revealed that he had actually clogged a toilet in the locker room ahead of the game. More than an embarrassing anecdote, he worried the clogged toilet in the bowels of the Superdome was an ill omen suggesting he and his team were in for a “crappy day.”
“This is how my day started,” Rizzi said in his postgame press conference. “I get down to the Superdome. I go in the head coach’s locker room, which I’ve never used before.
“So 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.”
In the end, though, the Saints’ day proved far from crappy thanks to the surprising 20-17 win, which moved them to 3-7 on the season but 1-0 under Rizzi.
MUST WATCH!!!!!
Darren Rizzi: insightful, informative and very real!
The #Saints interim head coach with a no B.S. glimpse into how his day started in the Superdome.
How can you not love this guy!!!!! pic.twitter.com/QrBjLjhMB2
— Fletcher Mackel (@FletcherWDSU) November 10, 2024
Who is Darren Rizzi?
Rizzi’s first coaching gig came in 1993, when he was a graduate assistant at Colgate. He worked through various college programs at the D-I and D-II levels through 2008.
He then jumped to the NFL, joining the Miami Dolphins as an assistant special teams coach in 2009. He moved to New Orleans in 2019 as the special teams coordinator and held that position until he was promoted to the interim head coach after Allen’s firing.
