Yikes. A week after beating the Green Bay Packers in every phase, the New Orleans Saints got a taste of their own medicine against the Carolina Panthers. With the exception of their special teams execution, the Saints were outplayed on offense and defense by Carolina. We got the full Jameis Winston experience today.
It was the worst-coached game of Sean Payton’s career. It’s not like there was a Hall of Fame defender creating havoc and spiking his game plan, like J.J. Watt did in 2015’s 24-6 loss to the Texans. There wasn’t a specific mismatch like Robert Quinn against Charles Brown as in 2013’s 27-16 loss to the Rams. And they didn’t overlook their opponent as they did in 2019 coming out of their bye week, as the Atlanta Falcons got away with in 2019’s devastating 26-9 upset.
The Saints didn’t have a good plan to start with, and they compounded it with too many mistakes and too little ambition to correct them. Here’s everything we know: