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Things looked rough early on, but it didn’t take the New Orleans Saints very long to rally back against the Detroit Lions. After an opening play pass from Drew Brees was deflected and intercepted, setting up a Lions touchdown to go up 14-0, the Saints kept their cool and went to work.
They scored 35 unanswered points, and cut the Lions rally off short of a comeback. The final score was 35-29, but it wasn’t nearly that close for most of the afternoon.
First, the good: the Saints offense finally got into gear with several big gains through the air, including pickups of 29 yards (to Alvin Kamara), 25 yards (to Emmanuel Sanders), and 20 yards (to Tre’Quan Smith, who scored two touchdown receptions). New Orleans also ran the ball well all day, with Kamara averaging 4.4 yards per carry while backup running back Latavius Murray averaged 4.6 yards per attempt.
The Saints defense also logged three sacks and had a pair of interceptions in the end zone, but one was wiped out by a weak illegal contact penalty on the other side of the field. They played better than anyone could have expected without starting cornerbacks Marshon Lattimore and Janoris Jenkins.
But there was some bad: the Saints were terrible on critical downs, going 7-for-14 on third down and allowed the Lions to convert all three of their fourth down attempts (plus a two-point conversion). New Orleans also drew four flags for 67 yards, maintaining their lead on the NFL’s most penalty yards this season. Some of those fouls were botched calls by the NFL’s officials, but the Saints do clearly have some areas to clean up.
But now they’re 2-2, and positioned for a big game against the Los Angeles Chargers on “Monday Night Football” next week. The Saints are a game behind the 3-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (who won a shootout with those same Chargers), and could really use another win before their Week 6 bye.