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Trevor Siemian isn’t the reason the New Orleans Saints fell flat against the Atlanta Falcons. Well, he shouldn’t be seen as one of the top reasons. The journeyman quarterback threw with enough accuracy and anticipation to give his receivers opportunities to catch the ball and make a play — and his efforts were wiped out by drops throughout the game.
“I thought we dropped a few balls, more than our fair share,” Sean Payton observed after the game when asked about Siemian’s performance. He declined to single out any one position group, noting that drops were an issue all across the offense: “It wasn’t just receivers. I saw other guys dropping balls.”
This is a problem that’s been festering for weeks, or even months. No team has invested fewer draft picks and salary cap resources in their receiving corps in recent years than the Saints. And on Sunday that problem finally became too big for Payton to ignore, as hard he’s tried.
“I like the guys we have in that room,” Payton has said before, offering zingers like, “I don’t care about your PFF grades,” or “We like them better than you guys in the media do.”
The receiving corps struggled before Siemian took over from Jameis Winston, and they’ll struggle with Taysom Hill, too. It’s a talent-poor group that Payton has to micromanage and scheme open but that’s the kind of offense he’s preferred to run. He wants automatons that he can handpick and put into position. The issue is that even if he draws up the perfect play to get someone open, he can’t then catch the ball for them. At some point these guys need to meet the expectations that come with playing in the NFL.
Sure, they went into the season expecting Michael Thomas to return and lead the group as he has before. But the Saints chose to not build any sort of a safety net for themselves and now they’re in freefall. It’s costing them games and potential playoff seeding and their odds of competing for another division title. They’ve got no one to blame but themselves.
Maybe Odell Beckham Jr. can help cure what ails them, if they have the opportunity to go sign him. But this is a problem too big for just one player to correct. It’s going to take a concerted effort in the offseason to overhaul the group. And that means more frustration for the Saints and their fans in the months ahead.
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