Joe Vitt Must Not Be Named New Orleans Saints Interim Head Coach

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton must serve a one-year suspension that starts Monday, April 16, and lasts through the entire 2012 NFL season. Now that Bill Parcells is likely not interested in coaching the Saints in Payton's absence, the team will look elsewhere for a fill-in.

More likely than not, Payton's fill-in will come from the ranks of the coaching staff already in place in New Orleans. There are a number of worthy candidates on staff, but the most obvious choice—assistant head coach and linebackers coach Joe Vitt—must not be considered to be the Saints interim head coach in 2012.

Vitt has been with New Orleans since 2006 and he's coached one of the most productive positions groups on the team. He also has interim head-coaching experience with a 2005 stint with the St. Louis Rams, a team that went 4-7 while Vitt stepped in to coach.

As tenured and as qualified as Vitt appears, Vitt's six-game suspension that looms on the horizon is a huge deterrent to coaching continuity, and the reason why Vitt can't be handed the job.

You hear players and coaches talk about continuity all the time. An offensive line protects better, it opens holes more frequently when its been together as a unit for a while. The longer a quarterback works with the same offensive coordinator, the better his chances of success are. The same can ring true for a coach, or in this case terrible consequences can occur if coaching continuity is jeopardized.

If Vitt is tagged as the Saints interim, let's look at how this will work.

Vitt would coach the team through OTAs, training camp and the preseason. As soon as the regular season starts he'll be forced to serve his six-game suspension. At that point a new coach—likely someone like defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo or offensive line coach Aaron Kromer—will coach for those six games before handing the head-coaching headset back to Vitt.

Yes, these players are professionals, but having to switch gears like that from coach to coach during the season is bound to have ill-effects.

And what happens in Week 7 if say Kromer (in my opinion, the right choice for the interim job) has coached the team to a 6-0 record? Is he supposed to just hand the team back to Vitt and give up all that momentum? If so, and if that's the way it goes down, what happens if Vitt's Saints lose in Week 7.

It would be chaos, that's what would happen.

Now let's consider the impending player suspensions. It's not a certainty, but it's quite possible that a number of Saints players will be suspended for their part in the bounty program. It could be a total of 27 players.

These suspensions can't happen concurrently, so while the team is forced to stagger suspensions, backup players—quite possibly some rookies—are going to be forced into action. Is it fair to those young players to have to adjust to different coaching styles?

Talent is king in the NFL, but continuity is of the utmost importance. If the Saints appoint Vitt as their interim head coach, it would be a colossal mistake.