Saints offensive line coach Aaron Kromer is functioning as the head coach for the first six weeks of the season while both the regular head coach, Sean Payton, and the interim head coach, Joe Vitt, are suspended. And Kromer says that he, Vitt and Payton are all on the same page to such an extent that the Saints won’t miss a beat no matter who’s running the team.
Kromer said the Saints take pride in the fact that they didn’t change anything as they transitioned from Payton to Vitt when Payton’s yearlong suspension began, aren’t changing anything as they transition from Vitt to Kromer, and won’t change anything when they transition back from Kromer to Vitt when Vitt’s six-game suspension ends.
“What other program or business do you know or have seen, where they took away the CEO away and said, ‘You can’t come to work,’” Kromer said, via the Shreveport Times. “They took your boss away, and he can’t come to work. I bet you would see a difference. I’ll tell you today that you don’t see a difference in the New Orleans Saints. You don’t. It is the same as it has been. I have seen how this thing works, and I think that it should be flawless.”
Kromer said he’s running the team the same way Payton would.
“We have a good plan here,” Kromer said. “I’m following the plan, and the team is with us. I don’t know that there is a lot of adjustment. We all have to work together in this situation. We can’t have factions, and we never do in our building. Luckily, this is after Sean’s sixth year as opposed to the second year. That would be a lot different. We are going to work this as a group, and I just happen to be sitting in this chair. For me, it’s an opportunity, but it is also a collaborative situation.”
Can a team really lose its coach and not lose anything? Kromer seems to think so.