The New Orleans Saints collapsed late in the game against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday and most of the fandom wasn’t surprised with how it played out. Unfortunately, New Orleans has an innate ability to lose games when they come down to the wire. It doesn’t seem to matter how the game starts; this team finds a way to choke it away at the last second. Let’s get into the meat of the game now.
The New Orleans Saints Beat Themselves
The Saints beat themselves from start to finish in yet another game that they should have dominated from start to finish. Atlanta did not score a single offensive touchdown, kicking four field goals throughout the day and that was all they did. The two touchdowns that the Falcons scored were handed to them by New Orleans. The first was when Rashid Shaheed attempted to field a punt from inside his five-yard line while running backward, and he wasn’t able to bring it in.
The muffed punt bounced immediately into the end zone and Atlanta recovered for a quick touchdown. Fast forward a few quarters, and Matthew Judon deflects a pass on the left side of the field, launching it straight into the air all the way over to the right side of the field to a Falcons defender who intercepted it and ran it back for a touchdown. That’s two touchdowns that didn’t deserve to be scored, yet the Saints gave them away. Then finally, on the last drive of the game, needing a stop to win with under a minute left, Paulson Adebo gets hit with a terrible pass interference penalty to put them in field goal range almost immediately.
Injuries Dramatically Impacted This Game
The second thing that needs to be talked about is injuries. This team is just ravaged from top to bottom right now. Offensively, the team was missing Erik McCoy, Cesar Ruiz, and A.T. Perry. They also lost Taysom Hill once he reaggravated a chest injury, Chris Olave played with a hamstring injury that kept forcing him out of the game, and Alvin Kamara went out there with broken ribs. On the defensive end, Demario Davis missed the first game of his career due to injury, Alontae Taylor exited with an injury, Willie Gay left the game, and Tyrann Mathieu left the game. This is just an outrageous number of starters that weren’t available for this game, and with all of them healthy throughout this game, the Saints likely win.
Why do I believe that? Well, without Demario Davis and Willie Gay, the Falcons had strong success on the ground game in the second half. Missing two of their best tacklers made things incredibly hard, and it was even harder without Taylor and the Honey Badger as well. On the other end, Taysom Hill played two drives for the Saints, and in those two drives, the Saints scored two touchdowns. That’s not a coincidence. The only times that the Saints offense hasn’t looked good this year was when he’s not on the field. He’s such an integral part of this unit and needs to get healthy. Otherwise, we could be in a difficult spot.
There Are Still Positive Takeaways
With all of that being said, there’s a lot to be happy about in what is a depressing day. The Saints went into Atlanta reeling off a tough Philadelphia loss while also missing numerous starters on both sides of the ball, and they took this game down to the wire with some great play. Aside from those two mistakes, the score of this game changes to 24-12. And on top of that, the Saints had the ball at the goal line with three minutes left and went for it on fourth down, failing to convert. They did get the ball back and scored a touchdown with the game on the line, but had they kicked a field goal, they would have won this game. Still, Derek Carr and this offense drove down the field when they needed to despite being horribly banged up and they got the job done. When you don’t allow an offensive touchdown and you score over 20 points, you should win the football game.
Looking at the Falcons now, I don’t believe they played a good game once again. I felt as though they deserved to lose that game against the Eagles last week, but Kirk Cousins led a beautiful drive down the field to win the game. He did it again this week, but this Falcons team could easily have been winless had it not been for the other team collapsing late. Speaking of Cousins, he threw another interception early but snapped back and was mistake-free down the stretch. The only surprising thing to note was that Bijan Robinson was not a factor. He had just seven rushes for 28 yards compared to Tyler Allgeier taking eight carries for 60 yards. Oh, and Kyle Pitts was held without a reception.
Next Week Is Massive
As I look forward to the next game, the Saints have to meet the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football. I hate to say things like this once again, but this feels like a must-win game. New Orleans has to meet the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Denver Broncos in the next two weeks after the Chiefs, so they can’t afford to keep dropping games. This two-game losing streak needs to be snapped, and what better time to show the world what you’re made of than by beating the reigning champs on national television? Kansas City hasn’t played their best ball, but we know how often they win games when it comes down to the wire, and how often the Saints lose games in similar situations. It’s hard to imagine New Orleans wins this game, but the fan in me believes that you should never count them out.