Heat turning up on a few coaches

Friday, Nov. 26, 2004 | 9:42 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Minutes after the New Orleans Saints unveiled their latest slipshod performance Sunday, owner Tom Benson walked out of a Superdome elevator and into the glare of television cameras.

Benson stepped forward and offered his take on the Saints' 34-13 loss to the Denver Broncos that dropped New Orleans to 4-6.

"It was the worst performance I've seen in 20 years that I've been the owner," he said. "They looked like high school kids."

The words carried much of last week's football conversation in New Orleans, where Saints coach Jim Haslett has now joined Cleveland's Butch Davis and San Francisco's Dennis Erickson as coaches whose jobs seem vulnerable.

On Monday, a day after the Browns (3-7) lost to the Jets, ESPN.com, citing league sources, reported that Davis needed a victory against the division rival Bengals in Cincinnati on Sunday just to keep his job. (The Browns have publicly denied any such contingency.)

In San Francisco, where the 49ers, at 1-9, are tied for the worst record in the league, Erickson had to shoot down rumors this month that he was interested in returning to college coaching, this time at the University of Washington.

"I'm going to finish this thing and do what I came to," Erickson said on Nov. 7 after a loss to Seattle. "It's just the middle of the second year, and I see a lot of improvement."

While Erickson's relatively recent arrival in San Francisco could buy him time, Haslett has no such luxury in New Orleans. fter a trip to the playoffs in 2000, Haslett's first season in New Orleans, the Saints missed out for three consecutive seasons.

After Benson compared the Saints to a high school team, the scrutiny of Haslett has grown. At his news conference on Monday, Haslett said Benson had a right to say whatever he wanted because he is the owner.

"The league wants to make sure we're being consistent and diligent in respect to our standard security procedures," Detroit Lions spokesman Bill Keenist said Thursday.