New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis Named NFL Executive of the Year!

The George Young NFL Executive of the Year award presented annually by The Sporting News was won by New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis for the 2007 NFL Football Season. "The satisfaction we derive is from helping in the recovery of people in our region," said Saints GM Mickey Loomis. For a man whose promotion into the GM position was more that he had to jump into it, and do so with out seeming as if he was throwing rocks inside of the glass building the organization had become by that point, he sure has come a long way.

After the firing of then General Manager Randy Mueller by New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson on May 9th, 2002 at the end of the 2001-2002 season because of a supposed "difference in style" between them, when we all knew it was because Benson and Mueller had some sharp words for each other, Dir. of Operations Mickey Loomis not only had to take over a team that Randy Mueller had built into a super bowl caliber team, but had to do so in the midst of a team that had gone through some big locker room problems and underachievement on the field during the year before. The team had a complete meltdown at the end of the year, getting blown-out of their last four games. Let's not get into the locker room problems during the year except to say, they were real bad. And Tom Benson was piping mad. The GM was under the gun, Coach Jim Haslet was under the gun for not playing a healthy and capable Jake Delhomme instead of injured Aaron Brooks and thus possibly getting the team into the playoffs. And everyone from Benson, the whole Saints organization, and the fans were in complete utter amazement of what had become of the team. Even the state and the city were in the act as there was always controversy over who's giving and who's getting between Benson, the state, and the city almost ever since he's owned the Saints. And that year had more than its fair share. The team was in a complete disarray. And so the announcement was made relatively quickly that Mickey Loomis would assume the General Manager position.

From there he successfully navigated his way through a large player personnel upheaval with the trading or exodus of Ricky Williams, Willie Roaf, Jeff Blake, Willie Jackson, Robert Wilson, Cam Cleeland, LaRoi Glover, Joe Johnson, Tom Ackerman, Phil Clarke, and a whole host of transition on and off the team.
Jim Haslet wound up keeping his team-for another year at least since everyone including the fans were utterly disappointed with how the season had turned out and how he handled the team that year.

By the following year General Manager, Mickey Loomis, had managed to smooth the waters over for the team. Letting go who wanted to go and who needed to go, while still having half the team left in tact for the next season. He brought in some good talent to bolster what he chad lost. Benson would calm down and realize that getting rid of everybody would only put him back at square one with what he had been doing for the past two years. And besides he hadn't seen a good return on all of the money he had spent to have all of those talented players on the team the couple of years before.

The team came out the next year, 2002, went 6-2 at their break at mid season. But from there had another bad slide down the last eight. Another meltdown. Another disappointing season. It was going to be hard to get back that 2001 team. The following year, 2003, the team made more improvements talent-wise and made strides in getting that togetherness back. But although they looked better as a team they only had a mediocre year. 2004 didn't bring any real improvement record-wise nor team-wise. And by this time fans were screaming for the release of QB Aaron Brooks. And Jim Haslet had all but looked like he wasn't going to get the job done.

Then there was the year from hell. Hurricane Katrina hit and again everyone from Benson on down to the fan were really in rough waters this time. The team managed to make one valiant effort and beat the Carolina Panthers in the first game of the season, 13 days after the hurricane caused havoc on the city and the superdome. The rest of the year was a write-off. By the fifth game the entire team had had enough, getting blown out By Green Bay by the second largest margin ever in team history.

And we all know the story from last year. One of the biggest turn-around years in NFL history.

"The satisfaction we derive is from helping in the recovery of people in our region," said GM Mickey Loomis.

You can say that again. And again. And again. Because that's what you've been doing for the Saints organization time after time. You sure have come a long way! And winning the award was well-deserved.