Saints expect changes, but Rizzi would like to stay and has some key players' support

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Saints expect changes, but Rizzi would like to stay and has some key players' support

2025-01-07 09:38 Last Updated At：10:00

METAIRIE, La. (AP) — New Orleans Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi agrees that major changes should be in store this offseason.

After a loss at Tamp Bay in Sunday's season finale, the Saints (5-12) are coming off their worst regular season in nearly two decades.

But Rizzi also has a case to make for why any changes regarding his role with the team should involve nothing more than dropping the “interim” tag from his title.

“I can sit here very confidently and say that it’s pretty clear that I’m a good leader,” said Rizzi, who took over following the firing of third-year coach Dennis Allen and guided New Orleans to a 3-5 record during their final eight games.

“One of the things I think I’m very, very strong in is leadership and communication and relationships," Rizzi continued. "There’s no more important trio than those three when you coach.”

Rizzi said the Saints must follow NFL rules in selecting their next coach, which require, among other things, for clubs to interview minority candidates.

Rizzi said he expects to be interviewed as a candidate for the permanent job next week. Until then, he'll remain on staff, helping the club complete end-of-season evaluations of its current roster and staff.

Rizzi inherited a club at midseason that was significantly injury depleted and in the midst of a seven-game skid.

“Let’s be honest, it wasn’t a blank canvas when I took over,” Rizzi said. “I did what I thought was best at the time for the circumstances that we had.

“There’s only so many things you can do,” Rizzi continued. “Once you get in the middle of a journey and you’re halfway through, it’s a little bit hard to change. Now, when you start over and you kind of press the reset button, I think there’s a lot of things you can do."

Several prominent Saints players, including running back Alvin Kamara, defensive captain Cameron Jordan and quarterback Derek Carr, said that while they would defer to management on the hiring of the next coach, they viewed Rizzi as a strong candidate.

“Rizzi is more than capable,” Kamara said. “He’s not scared to make change. He’s not scared to hold people accountable. He holds himself accountable. He’s just a genuine dude. ... If I had to throw a vote in the hat, I’m with Rizzi.”

The Saints might be able to interview some candidates in the coming days, but they could have to wait weeks for some top assistants on playoff teams to become available.

There are several high-profile veterans — most notably Carr and Jordan — whose future with the club appears to be uncertain.

The 35-year-old Jordan, who just completed his 14th NFL season, has one year left under contract with a base salary of $12.5 million. Carr, 33, is due $30 million in base salary next season after going 5-5 in 10 games this season as a starter and missing seven games with injuries.

Jordan, started the season as a rotational player and often on the interior of the line on third downs, came on strong after Rizzi took over and returned him to more of his traditional edge rushing role. He had four sacks and seven tackles for loss in the final eight games.

Jordan said his late-season productivity “let me know that I was nowhere close to being toward the finish line."

He fully intends to play next season and hopes it's in New Orleans.

“If you look at Jordan’s second half of the year, you would want him back," Rizzi said. "Strictly grading on production, he deserves to be back.”

Carr, meanwhile, said he also hopes to return, and said his conversations with general manager Mickey Loomis and owner Gayle Benson have been “super positive.”

Carr said the way the Saints offense played during the first two games was indicative of how good they could have been had injuries not piled up. They scored 91 points combined in a pair of victories, but against Carolina and Dallas teams that wound up struggling much of this season.

By the time the season finished, the Saints were without Carr, Kamara, receivers Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, Taysom Hill and center Erik McCoy, their most accomplished offensive lineman, among others.

“When we were all out there it looked pretty darn good,” Carr said. "Hopefully we’ll get a chance to do that again someday.”

With 950 yards rushing, the versatile Kamara, who has surpassed 1,000 scrimmage yards during all eight of his NFL seasons, was closing in on his first 1,000-yard rushing season when he went out with a groin injury with three games left in the season.

“I wanted it, but I’ve never chased records in this league," Kamara said. “Because of that, I think I’ve been able to keep the game pure, in a sense. Like, sometimes you squeeze something too hard and it falls out of your hands.”

Having signed a two-year, $24.5 million extension in October, Kamara said he remains committed to New Orleans and wants to be part of the effort to end what is now a four-year playoff drought.

“I could have forced my way out,” Kamar said. "I’ve been here and I’ve experienced the highs and just because it gets low, that don’t mean, ‘Oh, it’s over with, let me pack up.’ ... I’m here when it’s bad. I’ve got my hand in it. The thing that makes sense to me the most is to get it back to when it was good.”

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Los Angeles residents flee fire as potentially 'life-threatening, destructive' winds gain strength

2025-01-08 05:59 Last Updated At：06:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Firefighters scrambled to corral a fast-moving wildfire in the Los Angeles hillsides dotted with celebrity homes as a potentially “life-threatening, destructive” windstorm hit Southern California on Tuesday, fanning the blaze seen for miles while traffic out of the area was jammed as residents tried to flee.

Forecasters warned the worst may be yet to come with the windstorm predicted to last for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills.

Already the winds were toppling trees, creating dangerous surf and bringing extreme wildfire risk to areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

Fire crews were battling a handful of small blazes in the Los Angeles area, including in the foothills of the Pacific Palisades area in western Los Angeles where residents were ordered to evacuate. The Palisades Fire swiftly consumed more than 200 acres (81 hectares) of dry brush and sent up a huge plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 6 miles (10 kilometers) away, reported seeing the flames.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his Pacific Palisades home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the large homes on the steep hillside.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandon their cars to leave their keys behind so he can move their cars out of the way for firetrucks. He described fire burning in the neighborhood as people tried to evacuate.

“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

The erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, California, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. Biden will deliver his remarks in Los Angeles instead.

The National Weather Service said what could be the strongest Santa Anawindstorm in more than a decade began Tuesday across Los Angeles and Ventura counties and was forecast to peak in the early hours of Wednesday, when gusts could reach 80 mph (129 kph).

The weather service warned of possible downed power lines and knocked-over big rigs, trailers, and motorhomes. Strong offshore gusts will also bring dangerous conditions off the coasts of Orange and Los Angeles counties, including Catalina Island, and potential delays and turbulence could arise at local airports.

The Los Angeles Unified School District said it was temporarily relocating students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area due to the fire.

Utilities said they were considering preemptively cutting power starting Tuesday to about a half-million customers across eight counties. In recent years, California utilities have routinely de-energized electrical lines as a precaution against weather conditions that might damage equipment and spark a fire.

The winds will act as an “atmospheric blow-dryer” for vegetation, bringing a long period of fire risk that could extend into the more populated lower hills and valleys, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

“We really haven't seen a season as dry as this one follow a season as wet as the previous one,” Swain said during a Monday livestream. “All of that extra abundant growth of grass and vegetation followed immediately by a wind event of this magnitude while it's still so incredibly dry," elevates the risk.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season.

Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May. Much of the region has fallen into moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Meanwhile, up north, there have been multiple drenching storms.

Areas where gusts could create extreme fire conditions include the charred footprint of last month’s wind-driven Franklin Fire, which damaged or destroyed 48 structures, mostly homes, in and around Malibu.

The blaze was one of nearly 8,000 wildfires that added up to scorch more than 1,560 square miles (more than 4,040 square kilometers) in the Golden State last year.

The last wind event of this magnitude occurred in November 2011, during which more than 400,000 customers lost power across LA County, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“The grid is built to withstand strong winds,” said Jeff Monford, a spokesperson for the utility. “The issue here is the possibility of debris becoming airborne and hitting wires ... or a tree coming down.”

Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles contributed to this report.