Before beginning his postgame press conference, Dennis Allen took a deep breath, commenting to no one in particular that he hopes all of his head coaching wins don't require quite as much stress as Week 1.
And that's fair, because it's hard to get more white-knuckle that New Orleans' 27-26 victory over the Falcons that was almost as memorable for the mistakes and issues as it was for a thrilling comeback from 16 points down in the final 12 minutes.
"I told them all in there, 'look, enjoy the win, but have tough skin tomorrow,' " Allen said. "Because we're not going to win a lot of games playing the way that we did today."
He's referring, of course, to film study when his team will have to answer for an array of issues and miscues that left the team needing the miraculous recover against what should've been an overmatched Atlanta squad. The offensive line struggled to block, there were silly penalties, the timing and offense had clear signs of rust, the defense struggled to impact and pressure Falcons QB Marcus Mariota, and they even missed a 44-yard field goal and lost a fumble.
But Jameis Winston found his rhythm, which coincided with a few big touchdown throws to Michael Thomas. Jarvis Landry and Chris Olave also had signature moments, and the most important element of Allen's group helped escape what looked like a sure defeat.
"I said this a couple weeks ago, you guys asked me about the team and our team is tough and gritty," Allen said. "And that's what I love about them. And that's exactly the way they played in this game today."
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KEYS TO THE COMEBACK
"We hit a couple of balls down the field and then they began to try to pressure us a little bit more as as as we kind of stayed with it," Allen said. "but I thought we got into a rhythm and Jameis looked good. And you know a couple of throws down there in the red area to Mike T on the back shoulders were were big play so it was good to see him back out there."
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ABOUT THOSE LAST TWO KICKS
What was going through your mind when Wil Lutz went out there to kick a potential game-winner from 51 yards?
"I thought he was gonna make it."
How about when Younghoe Koo lined up for a 63-yarder to potentially steak it back for Atlanta?
"I thought he was gonna miss it."
We never had to find out if that was true, because DE Payton Turner got his big paw up to block the kick and end the game.
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ABOUT THOSE LATE MISCUES
The blocked kick saved what would've been a brutal finish, considering the game would've been much closer to the end (and the kick probably closer) if not for a confusion-caused penalty on the drive. After a big play to Jarvis Landry, neither Winston nor Allen was aware that he had been ruled out of bounds and the clock was stopped. The Saints got back onto the field and spiked the ball, but with the clock stopped that resulted in a penalty for intentional grounding.
The Saints lost the down, 10 yards and 10 seconds. That meant their next snap came on 2nd down, and advanced to the 36 yard line. On third down, the needed spike meant the kick had to come then, saving time and timeouts for Atlanta.
Allen took the mistake on himself.
"When Jarvis went up and caught the ball I thought he was inbounds. And you can't intentionally ground the ball. You can't clock it when the clock is stopped. And so, look, I put that again back on me. There were several things there late in the game that, you know, I felt like I got to do a better job. So there'll be stuff that we'll look at, there'll be stuff that we'll learn from and hopefully we'll be better when we're in that situation again."
The next mistake came when Marshon Lattimore was flagged for unnecessary roughness, a penalty that wouldn't have mattered if the clock stayed at 0. But the refs granted the Falcons a timeout, and the 15 yards moved an impossible field goal into the range of highly unlikely. Marcus Maye had also dropped an easy interception on the play, but Turner made sure it didn't matter.
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ON TAYSOM HILL'S BIG DAY
Taysom Hill isn't a quarterback anymore, but that's the position where he had his biggest impact. He ran for 68 yards and a touchdown in the first quarter, which represented the majority of the Saints' offense in the first half.
"Taysom was the offense early on. You know, it was good to see him get back out there. And we've had some success with him running the football against this team. And you know, obviously the explosive run down there was huge. And then to finish it off with the kind of sweep around the edge. You know, I thought we blocked it pretty well on both those runs. So that was good to see."