Falcons head coach Arthur Smith was not happy that the Saints ran up the score in their blowout win on Sunday, and he let Dennis Allen know it.
The Saints knocked around the Falcons in the final game of the season and scored a late fourth-quarter touchdown with 1:10 left on the clock to make it 48-17.
When the two head coaches went to shake hands at midfield as the game ended, Smith could be seen angrily yelling as he walked up to Allen.
Neither one shook the other’s hand as Smith continued to yell at the New Orleans head coach, who looked like he had been trying to apologize.
“That’s f–king bulls–t,” the onfield mics picked up Smith saying.
“I understand that,” Allen could be heard replying.
Smith stormed off to his locker room after that, only briefly turning around to have an exchange with another member of the Saints staff before continuing to walk off the field.
Allen did apologize after the game as he opened his postgame media conference.
The Saints coach said that the team had wanted to get Jamaal Williams his first touchdown of the season, but then called the move “unacceptable,” according to New Orleans Football’s Mike Triplett.
“That’s not who we are, not what we’re about,” Allen told reporters.
It was later revealed by Allen that the Saints players went rogue on the play and changed Allen’s call or knee to the run.
Williams scored with just over a minute left in the final quarter after Tyrann Mathieu intercepted a pass and ran it back to Atlanta’s 1-yard line.
It was the Saints offensive linemen that made the push to get Williams a TD, Guard Ceaser Ruiz told The Athletic.
Smith, who was fired early Monday morning, told reporters afterward that it “got out of hand” and that he “just gave them my opinion” when he discussed the postgame conversation with Allen.
While both coaches seemed to take issue with the decision, Saints fans on social media didn’t have any issue with it nor did former Giants Tiki Barber.
“This is football man, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want,” Barber said on the CBS broadcast. “With all due respect to Arthur Smith’s opinion there, stop them.”
