A Saints fan perspective, and allow me to clarify a few misconceptions, perhaps:
A. The Saints front office is far from "incompetent," Payton's autobiography talks at great length about why he took the Saints job even in the face of so much difficulty in 2005 was because of how forthright and professional Loomis and Benson were with him. People forget, but before Payton this was still a fairly competitive team under the same leadership otherwise, they were at least in the thick of the playoff hunt most years even with one of the worst head coaches in football (Jim Haslett). But because it's the Saints and because of their history people are very quick to jump on the assumed "incompetent" label but I'd say that has not been the case for many years, at least not since Ditka was around.
B. The power struggle with Benson's family is over. He won. There's nothing more to that. Benson's "young wife" is nearly 70 years old, a respected community figure and in general a very well-thought of person. She is not just some golddigger. Look into the history of the kids in question though (specifically Rita LeBlanc) and it will be very obvious why they had to be shown the door.
C. Sean Payton is not what he used to be. I would hesitate to call him a total burnout at this point, but it's close and I truly do feel he is at least burned out as far as the Saints go. He used to be daring, aggressive, innovative. Now he's like run, run, pass, punt, and chew out the defensive coordinator. His teams used to have laser focus, now they are a disorganized mess weekly. Payton is so oblivious on the sidelines he did not even realize Brees had sustained a relatively major shoulder injury during a game until after the game was over. He played Colston most of the game yesterday despite the guy having a separated shoulder so bad he could barely even grip the football.
And there are far too many rumors of SP's pill-popping and heavy drinking over the years to ignore. There have been rumors of him being drunk at team practices and meetings. His wife tossed him out for running around on her, he's known to chase all the young girls and do the party scene. It is fairly clear he has a substance abuse problem. Those things were easy to ignore when the team was winning, but now they're not and it's just an ugly look.
I think if you visited the Saints forums you'd probably be surprised to see how many people kind of want him gone. He arguably hasn't been "THE Sean Payton" since he came back from his suspension in 2013, and arguably he wasn't even the same before that, when the federal investigation over him supposedly stealing vicodin all came to light. I think the fame and money got to his head a little bit.
My personal hope is that we can move on from him at the end of the season. Bring in a good defensive-minded head coach who can develop some of the real good young talent we've got on defense and hope Ireland hits another home run with the draft (I know it's weird to say you hit a home run in the draft when you're 1-4 but it's the honest truth). Stick with Brees for another year while you improve the o-line and groom Garrett Grayson for 2017. But that's just MO.
