The issue with the Delvin Breaux fiasco where Delvin had suffered a fracture in his leg, but was diagnosed with a contusion is an unreal level of incompetence by the Saints medical staff. This might be an acceptable misdiagnosis for a week or two for a normal person, but you have to understand that this is a multi billion (with B) dollar industry, and teams are supposed to have the best of the best employed and safeguards in place to best protect their assets. It’s not just the personal embarrassment and getting his name dragged through the mud that Delvin had to endure, its the professional incompetence of the organization that they should feel most embarrassed for. Delvin deserves the best treatment, as does every NFL player as they are putting their lives and health on the line to entertain all of us, part of that transaction should include reliable health care.
The Saints have had issues with their medical staff for years, and for me personally I believe this situation falls squarely in the lap of Mickey Loomis. The general manager should absolutely be making sure the best medical staff with the right protocols are being employed, but as much as ‘Loomis math’ is a fun thing for fans as we discuss Mickey’s knack for numbers, this whole situation is proof to me that he truly is NOT a ‘football guy’. Not just from the standpoint of understanding personnel and team building, but from running the organization from the top down and knowing what areas you need to prioritize. When you investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars in assets, it is the prerogative of the company to make sure they are protecting those assets. To us as fans the players are role models, heroes, idols, and superhumans who can do the things we only wish we could. For the team, while they remain all those things, they are at the end of the day a business asset. What Loomis and the Saints have done by hiring, and then continuing to employ a training and medical staff who have repeatedly had issues with diagnosing and treating player conditions (Jeremy Shockey, Chris Chamberlain, and Keenan Lewis to name few) is awful. It’s like buying a new car, and instead of going to the best rated mechanic in town to keep it in top shape and to fix it when something goes wrong….you go to your friend’s uncle’s buddy from work who lives in a trailer on the other side of town and only has a can of beer and a screw driver (which honestly sounds more competent than the Saints doctors clearly are).
I do put some fault at the feet of Sean Payton for how this was handled, but Sean is not a doctor, he operates based on the information available to him. If the doctor says “Delvin is fine”, Sean is going to believe him, and in that scenario Delvin taking so long to get over a bruise would absolutely make a coach think he was dogging it. However, while I don’t blame Payton for acting the way he did based on the information he had, he owes Delvin Breaux one HELL of an apology.
Players are assets to the organization, a good organization protects its assets. The Saints haven’t. The players are also the key to the business and while we as fans root for the Black and Gold before anything else, the players help make those colors mean what they do just as much as we the fans do. The players deserve the respect, the professional courtesy, and the peace of mind to know that their are in the best hands possible. The ONLY acceptable course of action for the Saints is to audit their entire medical and training staff, to review all the procedures and protocols they have in place, and to do everything they can to ensure this kind of fiasco never happens again…..and they should do this if for no other reason than its the simple and competent business decision.
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