Tag: result

Saints failed to change the narrative in prime-time loss to Rams

The Saints failed to change the narrative in prime-time loss to Rams. Dennis Allen’s team is exactly what their record says they are:

The New Orleans Saints kicked off against the Los Angeles Rams with everything in front of them. The stakes couldn’t be higher with the loser needing a lot of help to stay alive in the playoffs race. Dennis Allen’s team had every opportunity to change the narrative and prove they belonged.

A win would have dramatically improved their playoff chances by opening up a wild-card seed as well as the NFC South title. A loss would’ve made them long shots to even win the division. With celebrities like Shohei Ohtani and legendary former Saints quarterback Drew Brees in attendance and the game broadcast to a national audience, the stage was set for Allen’s team to prove their doubters wrong.

And they fell flat on their faces. The Saints lost 30-22 and were never in control of the game’s flow. Allen’s handcrafted defense started the night off by allowing an eight-minute, 95-yard touchdown drive to the Rams. Derek Carr wilted under pressure and threw an awful interception in the second half to set up a quick Los Angeles touchdown run.

When the Saints finally rallied back in the fourth quarter by blocking an L.A. punt to set up shop in scoring position, they were already down 30-14 with the announcers previewing the Rams’ next game.

It was a disaster. Allen’s odd decision to try an onside kick late in regulation made it all too easy for the Rams to run out the clock inside New Orleans territory. Both teams may have taken the field with a 7-7 record, but by the final whistle it’s clear they didn’t belong in the same company.

That validates all of the criticism Allen and his staff and quarterback have faced: that they can’t beat good teams (the Saints are 1-6 against squads at or over .500 this year), that they’re undisciplined and prone to penalties, and that they aren’t as competitive as recent wins over the lowly Carolina Panthers and New York Giants would suggest.

Allen carried himself with a bit of swagger after knocking out those two clubs. Now he has to face the music after coming up short in the most important game of the year.

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Saints got what they deserved in mistake-filled 20-13 loss to Texans

This is who they are. The Saints got what they deserved in a mistake-filled 20-13 loss to the Texans:

This is who they are. The New Orleans Saints got what they deserved in a mistake-filled 20-13 loss to the Houston Texans. It was an afternoon full of self-inflicted wounds, unnecessary penalties, bad decisions in critical situations, and poorly-coached players failing to execute basic assignments.

Dennis Allen was given the quarterback he wanted, the assistant coaches he wanted, and the NFL’s easiest schedule and he’s lucky to exit Week 6 with a 3-3 record. Sunday’s loss in Houston epitomized many of the complaints fans have had for the team over the first 23 games of his tenure.

Allen’s decision to settle for field goals came back to bite him when rookie kicker Blake Grupe missed twice, from distances of 52 and 29 yards. Things didn’t go much better when the offense was in scoring position with Pete Carmichael’s play calling leaving little margin for error — it’s just one example, but Carr’s final pass attempt to the end zone fell incomplete as an off-target lob to Michael Thomas with two defenders covering him.

That same poor situational decision-making popped up earlier on fourth down. The Saints needed just four yards for a conversion but they made it a longer down-and-distance situation by dialing up a pass to Alvin Kamara that asked him to cover eight yards and shake two defenders loose. It didn’t work.

Carmichael is who Allen was most comfortable calling plays. Carr is the quarterback he coveted in free agency. Doug Marrone is the offensive line coach he hired to develop Trevor Penning and Cesar Ruiz, both of whom were liabilities in this game. As a team the Saints were penalized seven times for 83 yards, with four of those fouls coming against the offensive line.

This is the team Allen wanted to go into the season with. This loss is on him and the people he’s empowered. At the end of the day they’re a team that’s fortunate to have won as many games as they’ve lost, because it could be much worse.

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49ers ended the Saints’ streak of 332 games without a shutout

The 49ers ended the Saints’ streak of 332 games played without a shutout loss on Sunday. It had been the longest active streak in the NFL:

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It’s been a long, long time since the New Orleans Saints were last shut out. They put points on the board in 332 consecutive games — which had been the longest active streak in the NFL. But the San Francisco 49ers snapped that streak on Sunday, and now the Saints are left to pick up the pieces. Annoyingly, that isn’t even an NFL record. The 49ers themselves set it with 420 games played without a shutout.

So what happened in New Orleans’ last shutout? To give you some context, it happened on Jan. 6, 2002 at the end of the 2001 regular season. Jim Haslett coached the team, and Aaron Brooks was the Saints quarterback at the time, with Drew Brees closing out his rookie year with the Chargers (who played in San Diego at the time). At the time, this was a game between two rivals in the old NFC West; the NFC South would be founded a year later. Sean Payton was finishing out his second season as the New York Giants offensive coordinator and Dennis Allen was busy working the secondary at Tulsa, his first full-time coaching job. It capped a four-game losing streak that put the Saints at 7-9, eliminating them from the playoffs.

And of course it was the same 49ers team who beat them in a 38-nothing shutout at home. Terrell Owens started the game with two long touchdown catches from Jeff Garcia (of 56 and 60 yards, both in the first quarter) and things didn’t get much easier from there. The Niners racked up 407 yards of offense while limiting New Orleans to just 126 yards, intercepting Brooks four times and jarring loose four fumbles (three of them from Ricky Williams). San Francisco improved to 12-4 on the year but got knocked out of the playoffs a week later.

Things might be headed in a similar direction all these years later. The Saints are long shots of reaching the playoffs, while the 49ers look like a possible Super Bowl contender. There are still games left to play and decisions to make, but that’s where we are. History doesn’t always repeat itself  — but it often rhymes.

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Why did the Saints make Dennis Allen their head coach again?

The Saints are too bad in too many different ways to harbor any more faith in Dennis Allen. Any continuity they hoped to maintain has been overwhelmed by hard-to-watch, mistake-prone football:

This is hard to watch, and it isn’t getting easier. It feels like the New Orleans Saints are discovering new and innovative ways to lose each week the Dennis Allen era stretches out further. They fell 42-34 to the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night, plummeting to a 2-5 start to the season. Allen hasn’t risen to the occasion. Why is he here again?

Any continuity Allen was hired to maintain from the Sean Payton era was eroded over the summer. And the warning signs were there. Team leaders like Terron Armstead and Malcolm Jenkins left the team and were not replaced. There isn’t any sense of accountability — Allen watched Andy Dalton throw three interceptions and then encouraged him to “Keep doing what you’re doing,” coming out of halftime.

The Saints are sloppy. They’re prone to mistakes and missed tackles and turnovers. They’ve got no viable quarterback, no first round pick to look forward to, and they’re over even the most optimistic 2023 salary cap estimates by more than $50 million. Allen took the wheel and immediately steered their ship into the rocks.

Pete Carmichael Jr. asked for a lesser role, but Allen talked him into hanging around as offensive coordinator and gave him play-calling responsibilities. Carmichael’s responded by broadcasting tendencies for all to see and taking his best players off the field. Alvin Kamara hasn’t scored a single touchdown this season after working as a prime red zone threat for years. Allen should be able to hang his hat on the defense he built, but instead he alienated fan-favorite defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson and jettisoned him at a loss of value. Allen’s defense has been a tremendous disappointment. It feels like we haven’t seen Tyrann Mathieu make a tackle in the open field all season.

So why is he here? If Allen is failing to make executive decisions and his specific unit (which he handcrafted over the years, having started out as the defensive backs coach before climbing the ladder) is letting the team down, why is he here? What does he do here?

It’s a question the Saints may struggle to answer. But there’s a resolution. They can look across the street and see what must be done. The New Orleans Pelicans hired the wrong coach, too, bringing in Stan Van Gundy — and when that partnership collapsed in on itself, they pulled the plug. That’s where things are headed for the Saints. They can delay the inevitable, but it’s clear and obvious to anyone watching that, unfortunately, Allen is the same coach now that he was a decade ago, overwhelmed and in charge of the Raiders.

Injuries have been a problem, sure, but so much of his defense is still intact. Cameron Jordan, David Onyemata, Marcus Davenport, Demario Davis, and Pete Werner are all playing the same roles that they filled a year ago (and in many cases for several years). And they’re falling to pieces against opponents they should be manhandling. Maybe Allen is stretched too thin as a head coach and can’t work as hands-on as he’d like with his unit. Maybe it was all a mirage. Either way, there’s no answers the way things stand now, and no sense in continuing them.

Firing Allen eight weeks into the season would be rash. It would be unprecedented. But look at what the expectations were going into the season. The Saints told anyone who would listen that they had Super Bowl aspirations this year. They sold out and made moves to pursue that goal. And they’ve fallen flat on their faces. And as head coach, Allen is chiefly responsible for it. That’s how it works in a leadership position.

They’ll probably wait it out. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis will want to let Allen have a full year, maybe two, so he can say Allen had a fair shake. So long as games are being sold out and the city is obsessively tuning in for games, he won’t feel any pressure from ownership to make major changes. Welcome to NFL Purgatory.

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Dennis Allen had the perfect take on thrilling Saints-Falcons fourth quarter

Dennis Allen had the perfect take on a thrilling Saints-Falcons fourth quarter, but he knows the toughest work is still ahead:

It’s not every day that you see a team rally from a 16-point deficit with about 12 minutes left in regulation, but that does seem to happen to the New Orleans Saints more often than most teams. And it’s what Dennis Allen experienced in his first game as the team’s full-time head coach, which he acknowledged after the 27-26 thriller concluded.

“I hope they are all not like that,” Allen deadpanned to reporters during his postgame media availability, reflecting on the intense late-game dramatics. He watched his offense struggle to move the ball for three quarters only to explode in the game’s final phase, with his defense coming up big in a few spots after being run over by the Falcons rushing attack. He was understandably exhausted.

Still, he recognized that the toughest work is still ahead. When asked about his comments to the team after their all-too-close win, Allen said that it’s important to “Enjoy the win but have tough skin tomorrow.” The team’s travel schedule typically sees them fly back from Atlanta to New Orleans late Sunday evening, regrouping Monday for a brief walkthrough practice and film study in positional meetings.

It’s impressive that the Saints rallied back from such a big deficit, but it would have been better to avoid that situation to begin with. They’ll get to work quickly on cleaning up their mistakes and addressing the vulnerabilities Atlanta exploited. Reviewing everyone’s work is the first step in that process.

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Saints defense saves a must-win game vs. Panthers; everything we know

Saints defense saves a must-win game vs. Panthers; everything we know

The New Orleans Saints defense made plays all over the field to seal a must-win game against the Carolina Panthers in Week 17, with a talent-depleted offense doing just enough to retake the lead and hold onto it. Here’s everything we know:

Shorthanded Saints fall to Dolphins 20-3; everything we know

Shorthanded Saints fall to Dolphins 20-3; everything we know

Thank goodness that’s over. The Ian Book-led New Orleans Saints offense was far from competent — they weren’t even entertaining in their 20-3 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Monday night. Between the injuries that have wracked the unit and the many COVID-19 absences they’re dealing with, they just didn’t have any answers for the firepower boasted by a mid-tier Dolphins offense that’s been a weakness of the team all season.

It was ugly. It was disappointing. Here’s everything we know:

6 takeaways from Saints’ Week 14 walloping of the Jets

6 takeaways from Saints’ Week 14 walloping of the Jets

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The New Orleans Saints cut their losing streak off at five games with a win on the road over the New York Jets, but what did we learn from this performance? It’s tough to read into such a lopsided win over a really bad team, but the Saints did some things well enough to make you think it could translate into their next four games to close out the regular season. Here are six quick takeaways in review of Week 14’s big win:

Saints hit rock bottom in first 5-game losing streak of Sean Payton era

It’s never been worse than this: the Saints hit rock bottom in their first 5-game losing streak of the Sean Payton era

This is as bad as it’s ever been for Sean Payton’s New Orleans Saints teams. Their 27-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night extended their losing streak to five games — the longest losing streak of Payton’s tenure. New Orleans had lost four games in a row a few times before but this is breaking new, unpleasant ground. He’s snapped a 235-game streak without dropping five consecutive losses (the fifth-longest streak in league history), which stretches all the way back to the ignominious five-loss end to Jim Haslett’s Saints head coaching career.

So how did we get here? A flurry of injuries to assumed positions of strength like the offensive line (Terron Armstead, Ryan Ramczyk, and Andrus Peat were all unavailable, and have each earned Pro Bowl or All-Pro recognition) and the defensive ends rotation (with former first round picks Marcus Davenport and Payton Turner out of action, and free agent pickup Tanoh Kpassagnon sidelined) went a long way. Alvin Kamara is the team’s best player and he hasn’t been active for a game since Nov. 7. Those are tough hurdles to overcome.

It’s more difficult when other position groups aren’t pulling their weight. Marquez Callaway, Kenny Stills, and Tre’Quan Smith saw a combined 16 targets in the Cowboys game and converted them into 3 catches for 28 yards. Stills in particular gave a poor effort on a shot at the goal line that was deflected off his hands and intercepted by the defense. Maybe the Saints waited too long to give him another shot — either way, he doesn’t add anything to the offense at this point in his career. The receiving corps as a whole is talent-deficient.

And that impacts the offense at large. It doesn’t matter which quarterback the Saints put under center; Jameis Winston, Trevor Siemian, and Taysom Hill have all struggled to work with such a weak set of pass-catchers. Rookie draft pick Ian Book wouldn’t do any better. This is a problem Payton created by years of neglectful drafting, and now all we can do is grind our teeth and hope he finally gets around to addressing the issue in the spring.

Will it be too late? Probably. The Saints have five games left on their schedule and all but two (Week 14 against the New York Jets and Week 16 versus the Miami Dolphins) are against teams that either have a winning record (Week 15 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) or have already beaten New Orleans this year (rematches in Weeks 17 and 18 with the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons).

Sure, the Saints could miraculously cure their woes and go on a five-game winning streak, starting off against the Jets next week. But that just doesn’t feel realistic. This team is too flawed and too snakebit to pull off a feat like that. You just won’t hear that pessimism from Payton or anyone else on his staff. They have a lot of work to do and plenty left to play for. Don’t look for him to throw in the towel.

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Saints put up a good fight, but fall to Cowboys 27-17 in Week 13

Saints put up a good fight, but fall to Cowboys 27-17 in Week 13

It wasn’t enough to win the day, but the New Orleans Saints fought hard enough to keep it close with the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. Down 20-10 midway through the fourth quarter, a timely interception by Marshon Lattimore gave them a second shot at life — and a huge fourth down conversion on a dart from Taysom Hill raised a lot of hopes, only for another tipped pass off of Hill’s injured throwing hand to fall into Cowboys possession. Dallas secured the win with a late pick-six, and New Orleans fell to 5-7 with a final score of 27-17. Here’s everything we know: