The New Orleans Saints had a chance to go into their bye week on a high and with a three-game winning streak. Instead, they'll spend that time facing down more questions than ever.
The first half defense hit a new low, Derek Carr again struggled before leaving with an injury and the Saints got run ragged by a mobile quarterback again in a 27-19 loss to the Vikings. As Deuce McAllister explains, this team badly needs its bye week, for several reasons.
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"I don’t know if this one stings or you think about it or whatever, but you need a break,” McAllister said.
The biggest issues came, again, in the inability to get an athletic quarterback to the ground. This time it was Joshua Dobbs, who arrived by trade from the Cardinals less than two weeks ago. He ran for 40 yards in the first half, but it was the constant scrambling to extend that really did the Saints in. He was 18-22 passing in the first have for 220 yards and a touchdown. The Saints trailed 24-3 at halftime.
"You helped him do his job. ... You’ve got guys that are out there, I think they were surprised by some of the speed of the Vikings players," McAllister continued. "Josh Dobbs early, they were surprised by the speed, how athletic he was. I mean, because there were a couple times that guys were within feet of him and they didn’t get a hand on him. He was able to on the score, he paused two or three Saints and he was able to beat those guys to the corner. And so his movement in the pocket. We talked about it a couple of times. The Saints have a problem."
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The Saints defense continued its more positive trend in locking down in the second half. Minnesota managed just 3 points. Dobbs was limited to 4 yards rushing and 48 yards passing (5-13). That allowed the Saints to hang around, even after Derek Carr went out with a head injury. Jameis Winston finished off one drive with a touchdown to Chris Olave, followed by an Alvin Kamara 2-point conversion. He fired in another touchdown on a dangerous ball across the field to A.T. Perry that the rookie went up and snagged for his first career touchdown, followed by another Kamara conversion. The Saints offense got the ball back four times in the 4th quarter with a chance to go down and tie the game. One of those possessions ended with a three-and-out, the next two with interceptions and the final an unsuccessful hail mary.
Those middle two drives were a source of frustrating for McAllister, with the Saints opting to be aggressive and throw deep despite having plenty of time to work with.
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"You ran the ball a couple of times, pretty successfully with Alvin, but then you had to get away from it kind of because of the score," McAllister said. "But when you close it, you have to understand the situation, down and distance. You could’ve ran the ball. You chose to throw it deep. Interception a couple of times and that was basically ballgame. Jameis came in and did his job, but there were a couple of times where you’ve got to go for the sticks. You can’t have all of it. It can’t be a boom or bust-type situation."
The Saints now have to regroup, because at 5-5 they remain in control of the NFC South. When they return from bye they'll head to Atlanta for a pivotal showdown with the Falcons and face a team whose defensive coordinator, Ryan Nielsen, knows the Saints' defense about as well as anyone in the league not named Dennis Allen. The Saints have to make those extra days count.
"[Nielsen] understands and knows what players like, what players don’t like and the film, being able to go to the film and look at it and say, hey look, this guy doesn’t like speed, this player doesn’t use his hands well," McAllister said. "So this Saints team, you need some time, you need some time away because if you’re going to make anything out of this season you’ve got a lot of stuff to fix.”