Sloppy execution turned into too many penalties

The Saints drew a dozen penalty fouls on the afternoon, and it was nearly evenly split: the offense was flagged six times, the defense fouled five times, and special teams ace J.T. Gray gave Atlanta the ball back by running into the punter. It was an ugly afternoon for everyone involved, with the Saints breaking down in fundamental areas such as hand placement (four different players were fouled for illegal use of hands, and a big gain by Thomas was taxed for an unnecessary facemask penalty). Whether the Saints coasted through practice or didn’t prepare well can’t be said, and it doesn’t really matter. You can prepare well and still get outplayed, but they simply phoned in from an effort standpoint against Atlanta.

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