There's no sugarcoating it, the New Orleans Saints crash landed against the Falcons in Atlanta. It was bitter and ugly and a microcosm of the 2023 season.
Prime opportunities end as missed opportunities. The Saints went 0-for-5 in the red zone, twice turning it over in massive momentum swings, during a 24-15 loss. It was another week littered with injuries on offense and a defense that was supposed to be a bully getting bullied in its own right.
The Falcons and Saints are now tied at 5-6 atop the NFC South, and the noise will only keep getting louder around a team that just can't seem to find its identity for yet another season.
With all that in mind, here are my stock up and stock down players from a frustrating Week 12 in Atlanta.
━━
STOCK DOWN
QB DEREK CARR
Any time the offense goes 0-for-5 in the red zone and one of those trips is a 92-yard pick-6, the starting QB is going to land on the stock down list. Jessie Bates made a heck of a play and took it to the house. It was a low moment for the veteran QB.
I still think putting everything at the feet of the QB misses the larger picture. Everyone wants a scapegoat, and there's no more obvious target than the guy with the ball in his hands on every play. That said, Carr isn't the reason A.T. Perry just ... didn't run his route on a fade, one play after a catchable ball to Rashid Shaheed hit the turf. He also wasn't the issue when Taysom Hill had a ball knocked out of his hands inside the 5, another Bates special. He also isn't the reason Ryan Ramczyk got called for holding on the edge to negate a first down in the red zone. There's plenty of blame to go around, and that's not an excuse, it's just the frustrating reality of this team.
Another piece of that reality is that it finished Week 12 without any of its top three WRs on the field, and that very well could be the case again in Week 13.
Now, don't get me wrong, Carr had his misses. There are always misses. The fact is you just simply haven't gotten the type of production that was promised when Carr was brought in. The issues were there when Thomas, Olave and Shaheed were all healthy. The issues remain when they're not.
Carr simply hasn't shown that he can elevate this offense, and it's getting more and more difficult to endorse the idea of this being more than a one-and-done project. You should be, at the very least, seeing signs of an identity and growth from this team. You've seen a lot of mostly empty yards. That's about it. This game, while being a bit unique in the sense of all the adverse circumstances you encountered, is just the latest installment in a season of misses.
The line today was 24-38 for 304 yards and an interception.
I still don't think changes get made in-season. It's just not how the Saints operate and fixes aren't as simple as just putting in the backups. That said, the question this offseason shouldn't be whether changes are needed, but how sweeping and far reaching should they be.
━━
RUN DEFENSE
The Saints knew that the Falcons were going to hammer the ball on the ground with their trio of talented backs and a mobile quarterback. They were prepared. They had a plan.
The plan didn't work.
Bijan Robinson put up 91 yards and a touchdown on 16 attempts (5.7 yards per carry).
Tyler Allgeier put up 64 yards on 10 attempts (6.4 yards per carry).
Cordarrelle Patterson put up 43 yards on 8 attempts (5.4 yards per carry).
Desmond Ridder added 30 more yards on the ground for good measure.
But in the end it wasn't just the yardage, it was the statement that was made in the 4th quarter. With the Saints defense in need of a stop and fully aware of what the Falcons were going to try to do, they couldn't find a way to get it done. Even with all those big, bulky defensive linemen that are here for exactly that purpose, there was no answer.
It was discouraging to say the absolute least, particularly because in the instances that you forced Ridder to actually throw, he was shaky at best.
If this defense can't stop the run, I genuinely don't know what it is.
━━
WR AT PERRY
I don't want to be too hard on the rookie. There's a reason you don't want to throw developmental players into the fire with a major role early on in their careers. That said, man, in a game where it felt like one red zone touchdown would have made a world of difference, you lost a prime opportunity when the rookie apparently thought he false started and proceeded to not run a route at all.
The problem? Nothing was called. And whether it was a missed call or not, I mean, come on ... you've got to run your dang route until the whistles make you stop. There will be criticism of why Carr threw the ball to nobody in the back of the end zone, but when you're running a fade the ball is coming out early and you're throwing to a spot. That's just how it works. It's not on the quarterback when the receiver stands still after the snap.
I don't know if that miscue dashed some confidence in the rookie, but he wasn't targeted again until a drive late in the 4th quarter with the game effectively out of reach.
There will be better days ahead for A.T. Perry. He made a nice alert play to scoop up a fumble that was knocked out of Carr's hands on a scramble. That play saved a drive, so it should be mentioned.
In the end I don't think his stock is down significantly, it's more a matter of a disappointing missed opportunity. A.T. had a chance to prove his mettle and stamp his ownership of a major role with Mike Thomas out for at least three more weeks. He certainly didn't do that in Week 12.
━━
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
The coaching staff at large. That's Dennis Allen. That's Pete Carmichael. That's whomever you want to point a finger toward. At a certain point folks need to be held accountable. I don't know exactly what that looks like in the end, but these results aren't an aberration, they're a pattern. Something isn't resonating. ... I'm as big a Cam Jordan fan as you'll find, and I think the fascination with sacks undervalues a guy who has always been a run-first defensive end. But the value wasn't there today. He finished with .5 tackles in a game where the Falcons ran the ball 41 times. Cam left with a shin injury late and maybe that was affecting him throughout. Still, you need your stars to play like stars. I didn't see that from Cam in this one. ... Atlanta's sound system. I typically keep this about the Saints, but y'all, really? You hype up this hip hop celebration, and you can't even keep your PA system active? TI tried to get the crowd hyped, and nobody could even hear him. What a mess. Heck, we couldn't even hear the refs for much of the first quarter. Fortunately they got things sorted out in time for Ludacris to drop from the ceiling. Not a banner moment for Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
━━
STOCK UP
K BLAKE GRUPE
It's easy to forget, but you might recall that Blake Grupe's consistency was one of the bigger concerns coming out of Week 9. He made his only kick in Minnesota, and he hit his first five field goal attempts today.
The final attempt from 54 fell short, and I have to wonder if the groin injury that he arrived on the injury report with Friday sapped some of his distance. He didn't get all of it, at any rate, because he assuredly has the leg to hit from there, and he hit from 52 earlier in the game.
The Saints won't be tearing things down and they'll need their kicker to be on point the rest of the way. On a day with a lot of negatives, his performance was a bright spot.
━━
S TYRANN MATHIEU
It seems like every few weeks people waffle on Tyrann Mathieu's impact. He made his presence felt in this game. On a day where it felt like someone just needed to step up and make a play, he did it twice.
The first came late in the first half with the Falcons looking destined for at least 3 points, and possibly more, to make things really ugly heading into the break. That's when he broke on a Desmond Ridder pass over the middle of the field for an interception to keep things at a one-score game at halftime.
He did it again late in the third quarter, reading a ball to the outside perfectly and undercutting Ridder's throw for a pick that set up what should have been a go-ahead scoring drive, if not for a Taysom Hill fumble inside the 10 on the final play of the third quarter.
I don't need Tyrann to make every play, but he does have to make impact plays. He seems to be one of the few Saints defenders capable of doing that right now.
On the whole, I'm not sure the tandem of Mathieu and Marcus Maye are getting the job done the way you need them to, and my biggest issue is Maye in coverage. The Saints got more aggressive today in the blitz part of the game, and it worked until it didn't. The Falcons were able to isolate Demario Davis in coverage and Bijan Robinson beat him cold for a TD that basically iced the game.
In the end I'm satisfied with what I've seen from Tyrann.
━━
RB ALVIN KAMARA
Alvin Kamara's general demeanor might confuse some folks. He looks a bit casual at times, but rest assured he cares. He cares a lot.
And if not for some brutal red zone turnovers, we'd probably come away from this game talking about his all-around impact and what was probably his best game of the past two seasons. He broke tackles. He made defenders miss in space. Heck, there was even a successful screen. Carr threw a pick-6 to rob a potential chance for a Kamara TD, and Hill's fumble did the same thing.
AK finished with 69 yards rushing on 15 carries, along with another 50 yards receiving on his 4 catches.
One way or another, Kamara isn't the problem. He did all he could in this one.
━━
HONORABLE MENTION
WR Lynn Bowden Jr. didn't come into today expecting to have to carry the load at WR. But after injuries to Rashid Shaheed and Chris Olave, that's exactly what happened. He's never going to be accused of having the best hands in the world, but he certainly is dynamic when he gets the ball into them. He finished with 40 yards on his two carries, and the Saints better figure out ways to keep getting him involved, because there's another game to play in 7 days and there aren't a ton of options. ... TE Juwan Johnson had a solid day overall, one that included a trip back to the locker room for concussion tests of his own. He finished with 4 catches for 45 yards. The connection between he and Derek Carr seems to be building, but it's starting to feel like too little, too late. ... WR Chris Olave was well on his way to a massive game that might've saved his offense. Unfortunately we'll never know because he went out with a head injury early in the second half. Still, a season high with 114 yards on 7 catches. He's a player you'll continue to build around and feel good about it, regardless of how things go the rest of the way.