Five weeks of Saints football. Five straight losses.
It's the reality for the Saints, but that doesn't mean it's one theyre
"It’s difficult. It’s difficult losing," Payton said. "We have a few days here. We’ve got to get back and get on to the next game.”
The Saints have had their share of two-, three- and four-game losing streaks in the Payton coaching era. But he can't share any insight on the last time they had to bounce back from five consecutive defeats. The last time it happened was in 2005, a year before he arrived in New Orleans as the new head coach. The game also marked the first time the Saints had started three different QBs in a season since 1999, with Billy Joe Tolliver, Billy Joe Hobert and Jake Delhomme all seeing action in a forgettable 3-13 campaign.
But the mission will be the same, Payton said. They'll analyze film, identify mistakes and correct them. And hopefully get some key players back in the process.
“You’ve got to look at the entirety of it all and be honest. When you watch it, you’ve got to study what we’re doing well, who’s doing it," Payton said. "Obviously we’ve got a number of new guys that are doing things that are playing for the first time, and you know, if they’re going to play next week we’ve got to improve. In the meantime get some of those other guys back.”
Payton wouldn't dive into a lot of specifics before reviewing the film, but he did express frustration about a turnover in the red zone shortly before halftime. The Saints got the look they wanted. They ran the play they'd designed to attack the coverage they faced. The ball was delivered in the right location, but the ball deflected off Kenny Stills' hands and was caught impressively along the sidelines by Cowboys rookie Micah Parsons. A drive that looked like it would bring the Saints, at worst, into a tie at 10 late in the first half turned into a Cowboys drive for a 13-7 lead and a clear momentum shift.
"I’ll be honest with you, we’ve got to catch that first interception," Payton said. "We’ve got to, it’s the perfect coverage look we get, you drop a ball, they make a good play on it. That’s unfortunate.”
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THOUGHTS ON TAYSOM HILL'S PERFORMANCE
The struggling offense found a spark with a QB change, but Taysom Hill's performance flagged down the stretch. He threw a pair of ugly interceptions and was battling a finger injury that forced him to wear a splint throughout much of the game. He went in battling a partial plantar fascia tear in his foot that kept him out of action the past two weeks, but that wasn't much of a factor. Hill played "with guts," Payton said, but the overall performance of the offense was the bigger issue throughout the first half.
Hill said he injured his finger when his follow-through on a pass had his hand collide with a defender. He spent the entirety of the Cowboys' first scoring drive in the injury tent, but came back out and immediately rifled a ball for a 27-yard gain to Juwan Johnson, who left with a neck injury and didn't return. The Saints ran a heavy allotment of QB runs the rest of the way, but that wasn't based on any injury issues, the coach said.
“He was playing quarterback. He hurt his finger, we had to splint it somewhere in the first half," Payton said. "But he felt good enough to go. Our plan was to play him. ... I thought he played with a lot of heart."
Hill finished the game with 19 completions on 41 attempts for 264 yards, 2 TDs and a backbreaking 4 interceptions. He was also easily the team's leading rusher, with 101 yards on 11 attempts.