The New Orleans Saints are still reeling after a devastating loss to the Philadelphia Eagles last weekend. Luckily, the Atlanta Falcons also lost last weekend to the Kansas City Chiefs. With New Orleans just one game in front of the Falcons in the division, this early rivalry game is of huge importance to both rosters.
Injuries Killing The Saints Roster
Looking at the Saints first here, they are ravaged with injuries. As of right now, it has already been announced that the team will be missing Demario Davis, Cesar Ruiz, and A.T. Perry on top of losing Erik McCoy for the next two months due to the injury he suffered last week. This means that the Saints will be missing two of their best offensive lineman, their All-Pro middle linebacker who will be missing the first game of his career due to injury, and Perry, their backup receiver. Perry would have been desperately needed here considering that Chris Olave tweaked his hamstring on Friday at practice and is now in doubt about playing on Sunday. But it gets even worse somehow. The team also doesn’t know if Alvin Kamara and Cedrick Wilson will play, with both holding questionable tags coming into this. The only positive injury news is that the team will see Taysom Hill and Khalen Saunders back on the field again.
If you’re the Saints, you need to figure something out for this offensive line. Losing the starting center and right guard is not what you want to see. Plus, if Olave can’t play and Wilson doesn’t make it onto the field, the Saints will really just be left with Mason Tipton and Rashid Shaheed for the receivers. This offense will need to get incredibly creative to beat a tough Falcons defense. Expect some creativity with the offensive line pairings, the play calling, and the receivers that are on the field.
Falcons Missing Linemen As Well
Flipping over to the other side now, the Falcons are also missing two of their starting offensive linemen. Kaleb McGary has been ruled out due to a knee injury, and Jake Matthews is missing due to a personal matter. Besides that, the Falcons got good news when Bijan Robinson and Matthew Judon both fully participated in practice on Friday. As of writing this, it’s expected that both Grady Jarrett and David Onyemata will be available after missing Friday’s practice with a rest day.
The winner of this game is going to be determined by which offensive line can hold up the most. The Falcons have a better defensive line on paper, and a better offensive line, though that Saints secondary could cause some problems for Atlanta similar to how they did to the Eagles. It also doesn’t help that Kirk Cousins hasn’t been mobile in the pocket this season, which could impact how this game plays out for Atlanta. On paper though, the Falcons are meeting the Saints at a perfect time. I believe that the Saints’ defense will be able to do a great job limiting the Falcons’ offense, though the difference will be on the other end. My thoughts are that the Falcons’ defense will stifle the Saints’ offense without two starting linemen and with the possibility of three receivers not suiting up. If Kamara also misses this game, it might be over before it even starts. And of course, we can’t talk enough about how massive of a loss Demario Davis is to the defense, as he lines everybody up and runs the plays through.