Mickey Loomis has earned plenty of game balls in his career with the New Orleans Saints, but the one he received Sunday will take a special place on the mantel of his Old Metairie home.
Saints owner Gayle Benson presented the ball to Loomis in the middle of the euphoric Saints’ postgame locker room after the team’s victory over the Carolina Panthers at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.
The win was the 200th of Loomis’ tenure as general manager, and the ball commemorated the milestone with an image of Loomis and the inscription “The 200 Club: Al Davis, Bill Belichick, Jerry Jones, Curly Lambeau, Tex Schramm, Kevin Colbert, Ozzie Newsome, Bill Polian, Mickey Loomis.”
"Quite some time ago, I wanted to get into team sports because I love this feeling when you win a game," Loomis said during his postgame speech to the team. "I love it. I still love it. You don’t get it in any place else in your life really.
"A few years ago, my realization came (to me) that it’s not what you do, it’s who you do it with. I appreciate every single player, coach and person that’s been a part of the organization for all 200 of these wins."
The 200 Club includes six Hall of Famers and at least one future one.
"When I look at the list of names, I feel like a pair of brown shoes at a tuxedo shop,” Loomis said in his typical self-deprecating manner.
In his 22-year tenure as GM, Loomis has overseen the most successful tenure in franchise history and orchestrated one of the most impressive franchise turnarounds the NFL has seen, hiring Sean Payton as head coach and signing free agent quarterback Drew Brees in 2006. That dynamic duo led the Saints on a 16-year run that featured seven NFC South division titles, eight playoff wins and the club’s only Super Bowl championship.
Under Loomis’ watch, the Saints have enjoyed a two-plus-decade run of competitive football. Since he took over in 2002, the Saints have had only one season with fewer than seven wins, and that was the outlier 2005 season, when the team was displaced because of Hurricane Katrina. Only the Patriots have enjoyed a longer run of sustained success in that span.
Loomis’ renowned ability to crunch numbers and manipulate the league’s salary cap is one of the main reasons behind the successful run. His Mickey Math has pioneered league-wide trends in cap management and spawned imitators among rivals.
“In the NFL, you’re basically turning your roster over every three to four years, so to maintain that kind of success over a long period of time ain’t easy, plain and simple,” said Dave Gettleman, the former general manager for the Panthers and Giants. “Mickey’s consistency has led to this amazing accomplishment.”
Added Saints president Dennis Lauscha: “His creativity and passion in finding ways to keep our organization a consistent winner has been remarkable.”
More than anything, Loomis has authored a cultural transformation on Airline Drive. Since he assumed command, the Saints have become a destination franchise for free agents, a place where players regularly spurn rival suitors and willingly take pay cuts to stay around.
That was a foreign concept two decades ago.
Yes, some players still move on. Guys such as Terron Armstead, Trey Hendrickson and Marcus Williams received offers they couldn’t refuse in free agency, but more often than not, the Saints win those battles, largely because of the winning culture and positive work environment Loomis has helped to foster.
“Since I have been in New Orleans, I have been a part of one of the most talented locker rooms in the NFL year in and year out,” said All-Pro linebacker Demario Davis, who, next to Brees, might be Loomis’ greatest free agent acquisition. “It’s one thing to get talent, but it’s another thing to get the guys that can gel together. That speaks to who Mickey is as the leader of this organization.”
Thanks to Loomis’ leadership and direction, the Saints have blossomed into one of the league’s model small-market franchises. As a result, the perception of the club has been altered around the league.
Loomis’ management style mirrors that of his former boss, longtime Seattle Seahawks GM Mike McCormick, who believed that the head coach and players were the faces of the franchise. The GM’s job, in Loomis’ mind, is to support the players and coaches and take the heat when times grew tough.
Loomis prefers to operate in the shadows. And his steady, even-keel personality provides the perfect ballast for his coaches during the course of an intense NFL season. Over the years, he's learned to skillfully balance his role as counsel, booster and boss to his staff.
"There's not a lot of things that he hasn't seen in this league, so he's a great guy to bounce ideas off of," Saints coach Dennis Allen said. "He's not irrational. Every decision that he makes is going to be made with a lot of thought. He never lets anything get him rattled, and that calm consistency is important."
“The first thing that comes to my mind is his steady, insistent demeanor,” Payton said. “It just promotes a really good work environment. … He is very consistent, very steady, a good listener and incredibly intelligent. This is an industry where there’s a lot of ups and downs, and he has a great way of making sure the ups aren’t too high and the downs aren’t too low.”
Over the years, head coaches and quarterbacks have come and gone, but Loomis has remained a totem of consistency.
He's the embodiment of stability that, for better or worse, has become the Saints’ calling card.
