The final score was 30-22, but no one who watched the first three quarters of the Saints' loss to the Rams in Week 16 would try to claim the game was anywhere near that close.
It was a dominating performance by L.A. over an overmatched Saints squad that put 15 points on the board in the final minutes, and WWL's Bobby Hebert summed it up bluntly in his postgame rant.
Listen to Bobby Hebert's full postgame rant in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
"You might [see the score and] say 'oh the Saints hung in there.' They didn't hang in there," Hebert said. "The Saints got their ass whipped. The Rams were three touchdowns better than the Saints today.”
That looked like it'd be the final result, too, when the Rams settled into a 30-7 lead midway through the 4th quarter. New Orleans drove the field for a touchdown to Juwan Johnson, then blocked a punt and Derek Carr hit A.T. Perry for a TD, followed by a Chris Olave 2-point conversion. But in the end they were empty yards and points with the Saints defense unable to get the offense the ball back.
The Saints offense couldn't run the ball. The Saints defense couldn't stop the run. Matthew Stafford picked the secondary apart all day and rookie Puka Nacua went wild for 9 catches, 164 yards and a TD.
“I don’t know, this is supposed to be the playoffs before the playoffs, it sure as hell didn’t look like it," Hebert said. Were we ready to play? I mean, when you look at the beginning of the game, did it look like we shouldn’t belong on the field with the Rams? We were getting gashed.”
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In the end, a trip out west for Thursday Night Football was always going to be difficult. A loss, however it happened, would've been a major blow to the Saints' postseason hopes, with the team now needing at least two losses from the Bucs to regain control of its postseason destiny.
But the way the Saints lost, in such a complete fashion, did more than that, in underscoring just how far away the Saints are from the other team that took the field with a 7-7 record this week.
“When I look at, oh, you might say just a bad day at the office. I didn’t even think we belonged on the field with the Rams," Hebert continued. "I haven’t been discouraged in a while. You know, when you look at other games, well, the Saints, they’re not that far off. No, they were really far off in this matchup. I think the Rams at the end you might say they got a little too conservative, but I thought the game wasn’t even close.”