The New Orleans Saints were once a team that found ways to win. They're now a team that finds ways to lose.
Never was that more clear than a game against the lowly Panthers that they dominated in every meaningful statistic, but still lost 23-22. The skid is now at 7 and the 2024 season feels lost.
This will be a difficult game to digest for everyone, the players, the coaches, and definitely the fans. So what does it all mean? Let's unpack.
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THREE DOWN
A rusty Carr
Hyperbole aside, Derek Carr was exactly fine in this game. He completed 18-of-31 passes for 236 yards, a touchdown and no turnovers. He had a nice connection to Foster Moreau for a touchdown that put the Saints ahead in the 4th quarter. Considering the level of offense we’ve seen the last three weeks, it was, again, exactly fine.
The problem is the Saints need more than fine, and Carr is here because he was expected to be more than just fine for this team. He told us going into the game he was as close to 100% as he could be coming back from an oblique injury that cost him three games, but I think we’re in one of those Sewerage & Water Board “100% of the capacity available” scenarios. Carr attempted one deep pass all day, and it was an ill-advised one when all you needed was 5 yards to keep the game alive. I hated the decision. The rest of the day I questioned whether he was being trusted to throw deep at all, and the decision to check it down from the 50 after calling a timeout just before halftime didn't help.
Generally speaking the accuracy just wasn’t there and Dennis Allen conceded in his postgame that his quarterback looked "rusty." That shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Any time you're coming back from injury and miss multiple weeks, it’s fair to expect a bit of rust. His reps were limited in practice all week. Still, I expected more. The fans and team should've expected more. The throw to Chris Olave that ended with another scary concussion and a trip to the hospital was high and put his receiver in a vulnerable position. I think putting it all on the QB is letting the defender off the hook for a dirty hit to the head of a defenseless receiver who didn’t even have the ball, but an on-target ball might’ve prevented the brutal hit. The Panthers did the same thing to Juwan Johnson later in the game after a ball got tipped up. He was checked for a concussion but was cleared to return. That one wasn’t on the QB, it was on defenders playing recklessly.
Still, there were plenty of bad balls that had nothing to do with injuries. It looked like Carr had a chance on the first two third downs in the red zone that fell incomplete, the first when he mistimed a ball to Moreau coming out of his break, the second when he dumped a ball short of Alvin Kamara at the sticks. I've still yet to see Carr and Tipton be anywhere near each other on basically every throw, almost as if they're working together for the first time, every time. Maybe that's the answer. The Saints' thin WR room was thinner than ever for the majority of this game. If you were facing a defense better than the Panthers, who knows what might've happened.
Carr certainly gives you a better chance to win than his young backups, but he still didn't look like the 11-year veteran you brought in to swing results in your favor. There are injury excuses, but we’ve heard too many of those. There have been too many excuses and the fanbase is rightfully tired of them.
Carr set an NFL record in this game by becoming the first NFL quarterback to start in losses against 31 different NFL teams. That doesn't happen by accident. The only team left on that list is the Raiders. They’ll come to town in Week 17. The question is how many of the current players and coaches are around when that game arrives.
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The Dennis Allen experience
It’s hard to win games with the amount of injuries the Saints have encountered this season. It’d be unfair to even have this conversation without stating that out front.
The number of injuries that the Saints have dealt with, particularly the soft-tissue variety, is absurd. It’s hit virtually every position group. It’s infuriating.
That said, the injuries weren’t why you lost this game. The Panthers are as beatable a team as you'll face. If you can’t win in these circumstances, you may not win another game.
To underscore just how big a failure that was: In the past 20 years going into Sunday, teams that rushed for 150-plus yards, outgained their opponents by 150-plus yards and won the turnover battle were 250-0. As of Sunday evening they’re 250-1. The Saints did all those things and found a way to lose.
We keep hearing about a focus on the details. Well, the details are what lost you this game. The silly penalties continued, particularly on offense. On a pair of drives where the Saints could’ve iced the game there were two holding penalties and a facemask, each on first down. That meant those drives included a 1st and 29 and 1st and 23. Unacceptable on one hand and nothing new on the other.
But there’s also the decisions. On the opening drive of the second half Dennis Allen opted to burn a timeout rather than take a 12 men on the field penalty against his defense. In a lot of cases I’d understand that. In this case the Panthers had 1st and goal from THE ONE. I don’t know the odds on scoring a touchdown in that situation, but it’s got to be well over 90%. Sacrificing a timeout to save a foot is the wrong call in that scenario. It’s bad situational management. It’s a poor understanding of the situation. The penalty was bad enough, but you doubled down.
Oh, and it came after two of your star defensive players got hurdled by a tight end for a 46-yard catch and run.
The Saints also had a chance to win the game on their terms with a 4th and 1 near midfield. The Panthers hadn’t stopped the run or short yardage scenarios all
day. Hindsight might be 20/20, but the data is available in advance. Play to your strengths. Make the opponent uncomfortable. Nope.
There’s simply too many examples of those kinds of things. The players aren’t playing with detail. That’s on the coaching. At a certain point coaches need to be held accountable, just like the players. I always felt like throwing DA's Raiders tenure around missed the point. Going 8-28 with a different team wasn't going to color the front office's opinion of how his Saints tenure was going. It was always going to come down to what happened in black and gold. The problem for DA is that the numbers here aren't much better. As of this week he's 18-29 as the Saints head coach (.419). Things have turned in the wrong direction, and they've gotten there very fast.
Dennis Allen is well liked in the building and within the organization and the Saints front office isn’t one that will be quick to move on from a coaching regime. I think quick-trigger front offices are some of the worst in the NFL, so I'd honestly say the patience is largely a strength. But in this case the fanbase is rightfully fed up. You don't make decisions based on what the fans want, but you do have to be aware of the sheer magnitude of the noise at this point. It might be loud when the Saints return to the the dome next week, but I don't expect it to be good loud.
When will enough be enough? I don’t know. But the Saints currently have a much more realistic chance at the top pick in the draft than this season turning around. It’s frustrating to say, but it’s true, and it's hard to see how things are going to get better any time soon.
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The motivation
Going into this game we heard about the locker room from various sources. It was still bought in, they said. The messaging was still being received, they said. I want to believe that, but it's getting more and more difficult to do so.
Just listen to the tone of the players talking about this loss. Measure the looks on their faces. Read their actual words on social media. Put it all together and it’s not a pretty picture. There's no looking past it.
You’ve got players arguing with other teams about who the worst is. You’ve got sheer embarrassment. A lot of these players have never experienced anything like this. Most of the former Chiefs, all the Sean Payton era Saints, these are depths they’ve never plumbed before. We’ll hear a lot of the same lines throughout this upcoming week, I'm sure, but they won’t ring the same.
I’ve always said that a team isn’t really broken until the locker room is fractured, and that's when moves get made. I don’t know if you can endure a loss like that without serious cracks forming … and maybe worse than that. This is a generic section of this column. I’m not singling anybody out. It's a group effort.
A loss like this is like dropping a boulder into a pond. The ripples are significant and they’ll affect pretty much everything that exists within it. There’s no alternative. Putting your head in the sand and trying to sell the idea that all is well? That serves no one.
I think the fallout from this game is just getting started and could be felt for seasons to come.
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THREE UP
Alvin Kamara
This has been a rough season. So much has gone wrong, but doubling down on Alvin Kamara isn’t one of those things.
In a game you entered with virtually zero RB depth, you didn’t need it. AK ran hard inside. He ran hard outside. He tied his career high with 155 rushing yards on a day when that absolutely should’ve been enough.
Alvin hasn’t lost a step. The Saints are just lost in the woods in so many other ways that not even a vintage AK day could drive a win.
You might argue that this year’s Saints aren’t going anywhere and they should be in the business of selling off their aging pieces wherever there is an opportunity. I have a feeling that conversation will be happening a lot ahead of Tuesday’s deadline. AK shouldn’t and won’t be one of those pieces.
All that said, one of the good things that happened today is Kamara didn’t become the franchise’s career rushing leader. He was just a carry or two away, and I wouldn’t be complaining if it happened in a winning effort, but that moment should be a celebration. It should come in front of the home fans that have so few things to be happy about this year.
He only needs 11 more yards and those will certainly come next week, most likely in the first quarter against the Falcons. It’ll be something to cheer for. I’m not looking forward to much the rest of the way, but I am looking forward to that — and he’ll put that record WELL out of reach by the time his Saints career is done.
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Alontae Taylor (outside)
One of the pleasant surprises of this season has been Alontae Taylor fully committing to his role as a slot corner. He’s done it well, even if he’d be the first to tell you that the outside corner spot is where he belongs.
He came up as an outside corner. His size, speed and length is ideal for that spot. It’s why the Saints drafted him in the second round a few years ago despite having a cupboard stocked with quality corners. This week the Saints really had no choice, he was sent outside and delivered on those claims.
He finished the day with 4 tackles and 3 passes defensed. He made big hits when they were there to be made, he made plays on the ball. Any time Bryce decided to go his direction it went the Saints’ way.
The lone negative was that he put himself in perfect position to make multiple interceptions and instead he settled for clean PBUs. Those game-changing opportunities need to be game-changing moments.
The future for Alontae is outside and he showed why this week. Ideally there’s a future where the Saints aren’t turning to practice squad players across from him.
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Perfect Blake Grupe
I’m going to be honest and say I’m really struggling to find a third positive, but the Saints can’t be mad about their kicking game. In this one you saw Blake Grupe go 3-for-3 with makes from 29, 33 and 51.
It’s not his fault that the Saints offense couldn’t give him an opportunity for a game-winner. I fully believe that if he got that chance he’d have made it.
Some of the short misses have been frustrating and he’s going to need to make sure that consistency improves as his career continues, but I think it’s going to be a long one in the NFL. His field goal numbers on the year are 16-17 (94%). He’s perfect outside of 50 yards (3-3) with makes from 57, 52 and 51.
Among kickers with at least 10 attempts, Grupe ranks No. 2 in make percentage. Only Lions kicker Jake Bates is higher in that regard (12-12).
In a universe where the Saints give themselves opportunities for cltuch kicks and walkoff wins, I feel good about what he can get done.
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Honorable mention
Foster Moreau only had one catch, but it was a pretty one, hauling in a contested ball for a touchdown that put the Saints ahead. The Saints don’t get many of those, so I’m going to credit him big-time for that one. … Shemar Jean-Charles was put in a tough spot, called upon to start after rookie Kool-Aid McKinstry went down with a hamstring injury midweek. It wasn’t perfect. He got beat for a touchdown early in the game, and he was targeted in coverage frequently. Still, a DB makes money when he can be oppotunistic and take the ball away. That’s what he did on a deep ball to rookie Xavier Legette when he straight up wrestled the ball away for a key interception that — at the time — felt like it’s be enough for a win. …. I wouldn’t say this was Matt Hayball’s best day punting, but he did show off the wheels on a fake early in the third quarter. Gold star. … Jordan MIms had a few nice moments and looked reliable. I have a feeling he’s going to end up being the RB2 as this season goes on. … Pete Werner is the Saints’ best defensive player. He led the team in tackles again. This wasn’t on him. … In general I felt like the Saints handled the run well. Apparently it’s not enough to win, but it’s better than the alternative.