The New Orleans Saints decided to run the score up against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, which sparked a heated interaction between the now-former Falcons head coach Arthur Smith and Saints head coach Dennis Allen at midfield after the game. Allen made it known that this was not his intention in his postgame press conference.
The animosity between Smith and Allen stems from the Saints’ decision to run the ball while leading 41-17 instead of simply kneeling the clock out with 1:13 remaining in the game.
This resulted in a one-yard rushing touchdown for Saints backup running back Jamaal Williams, his first touchdown of the season.
Take it away Jamaal 😏#Saints | 📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/L8vZjocAzQ
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) January 7, 2024
Arthur Smith was obviously upset with this act of poor sportsmanship in his eyes, leading to a tense post-game interaction between him and Dennis Allen.
Arthur Smith was not happy with Dennis Allen after the Falcons-Saints game.
Here's how it looked — and sounded — on CBS (with Andrew Catalon on play-by-play). 🏈🤬https://t.co/x1Jnawnq2t
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 7, 2024
What Smith didn’t know at the time of this interaction was that Allen actually didn’t want his team to score on the play. Instead, the team decided to disregard Allen’s wishes and got Williams his lone touchdown of the year.
Saints quarterback Jameis Winston, who relieved Derek Carr as the starter for this play, explained the decision from his perspective while talking to reporters in the locker room.
“I apologize to DA (Dennis Allen) because the play was victory (formation),” said Winston via Garland Gillen of Fox 8 in New Orleans. “But I also explained to DA that it was a team decision. I asked the guys what they wanted to do. We know how much Jamaal (Williams) means to this team. I understood from DA’s perspective. He didn’t condone that at all. But we decided as a team to do it. It was an offensive team discussion.”
Jameis Winston apologized to Dennis Allen because the play call was "victory". But also explained to Allen it was a "team decision" to go for the Saints TD. "We decided as a team to do it." pic.twitter.com/BorTC6p4nm
— Garland Gillen (@garlandgillen) January 8, 2024
It’s an understandable decision from Winston’s perspective to get a valued veteran like Jamaal Williams in the endzone for the first time all year.
He also wasn’t the only one who wanted to get Williams the touchdown. As he said, it was a team decision by the offense and several offensive linemen spoke about the situation and agreed with the decision after the game as well.
Here's what Erik McCoy had to say about the last touchdown. pic.twitter.com/S2XSjHH2hA
— Luke Johnson (@ByLukeJohnson) January 7, 2024
Cesar Ruiz on Jamaal's late TD: When you’ve got a guy like that who comes in & works his ass off every single day, day in & day out & was the touchdown champion the year before & he doesn’t have one, I just wouldn’t be able to go to sleep at night knowing I didn’t get him one.
— Rod Walker (@RodWalkerNola) January 7, 2024
However, Dennis Allen clearly didn’t see things this way. He used his postgame press conference to both publicly reprimand his team and offer an apology to the Falcons and Arthur Smith.
“That’s not who we are and that’s not how we operate,” said Allen of the decision via Saints sideline reporter Jeff Nowak. “We should have taken a knee so I want to apologize to them. We have a good rivalry and it is a heated rivalry. But there is a way that we go about doing our business and I wasn’t happy about that.
“We should have taken a knee. They asked me about getting Jamaal a touchdown at the end. I said I wanted to take a knee. We put victory (formation) out there. The guys did that on their own. That’s not acceptable.”
Dennis Allen started off his presser by apologizing to Arthur Smith for the end-of-game TD. The play was supposed to be a kneel-down … but the players were committed to getting Jamaal Williams a touchdown. Bizarre situation, to say the least. #Saints pic.twitter.com/O17qKPkEil
— Jeff Nowak (@Jeff_Nowak) January 7, 2024
[Jeff Nowak on Twitter/X, Photo Credit: New Orleans Saints on YouTube]
