The New Orleans Saints have a problem and to this point, there have been no real signs of fixing it.
This is a sloppy football team. A football team that makes critical mistakes in critical moments. There are a lot of ways to lose, and the Saints have found them more often than not over the first three games of Kellen Moore’s head coaching tenure. The latest a 44-13 blowout at the hands of the Seahawks that saw the Saints commit 13 penalties, 11 of which were accepted.
"We didn’t do enough to give ourselves a chance,” Moore said. "We’ve got to be prepared more. It starts with me. We’ve got to give ourself an opportunity to compete in these games and so too many penalties, too many missed opportunities.”
So who were the culprits on the panelty front?
Bryan Bresee: unnecessary roughness, -15
Torricelli Simpkins: false start, -5
Kelvin Banks: false start, -5
Chris Olave: false start, -5
Kelvin Banks: offensive holding, -10
Asim Richards: offensive holding, declined
Davon Godchaux: roughing the passer, -15
Kelvin Banks: false start, -5
Chris Olave: illegal shift, declined
Fadil Diggs: offside, -5
Nathan Shepherd: defensive holding, -5
Justin Reid: offside, -5
Xavier Truss: false start, -5
Not all penalties are created equal. Three were called on the rookie left tackle in his first true road environment. Another two were called on the backup LG (Torricelli Simpkins) and the backup RT (Asim Richards). But then there are penalties like the one Bryan Bresee had on the opening possession after the Saints had gotten a stop on third down. The Seahawks scored on the next play and the snowball kept rolling from there.
“It’s self-inflicted wounds, man,” Cam Jordan said. "We’re not a good enough team to overcome that right now and at the point in time it clearly shows every game. These penalties have hurt us. We’ve got to figure out a way to clean those up.”
Moore made sure to point out that this was a lesson game, not one where you go out back and bury the tape. The Saints need to dissect this game and find out what went wrong. Where did the execution break down on offense, defense and special teams, because the Saints were thoroughly dominated in all three phases.
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The team has had refs out at practice each of the past two weeks to try to hammer in on the details. It’s likely that will happen again, along with some accountability this week for repeat offenders. Getting players healthy, particularly along the O-line, will help. But quarterback Spencer Rattler has a simpler solution.
“We just have to be more dialed in,” Rattler said. "I mean, we knew it was gonna be loud. It was a loud environment, tough environment, but I mean, we had those opportunities, we had the looks and we just shot ourselves in the foot.”
Fixing those issues will be paramount to making sure this movie doesn’t get rerun in a week, with the Saints heading out to Buffalo for a showdown with the Buffalo Bills and reigning MVP. The Saints have opened as 16.5 underdogs against the trendy pick to win this year’s Super Bowl.
“We’re going to have to harp on that all week again,” Rattler said, "because we’ve got another tough road game. … It’s going to be tough to win games if we can’t clean that up.”
Agreed.