Tag: Score

Saints beat the Panthers in NFL’s least-convincing 28-6 victory

The Saints beat the Panthers in the NFL’s least-convincing 28-6 victory. Only a one-win Panthers team could have fumbled this game:

It’s not often a team win s a game with a 28-6 margin and is left asking a ton of existential questions, but that’s where the New Orleans Saints stand. Only a one-win Carolina Panthers team could have fumbled the opportunities the Saints gave them to pull back and steal a win on Sunday.

Derek Carr threw the ball 26 times and only gained 119 yards, with 37% of his yards coming on a single 44-yard completion to wide receiver A.T. Perry. Carr was sacked just once but pressured often, and he threw the ball away several times when he could’ve worked faster to make a play. He frequently threw behind his receivers and struggled with his ball placement throughout the afternoon.

Things weren’t much better defensively. A better coaching staff would have seen Bryce Young gain 40 yards on just three carries and dial up some designed runs to take advantage of that athletic mismatch with an old and slow Saints defense. But Carolina didn’t. They asked Young to throw 36 times and his inaccurate passes continuously fell incomplete if they weren’t broken up by a Saints defensive back. Young only completed 13 passes for 137 yards at 3.8 yards per attempt. Carr had 4.6 yards per attempt.

It may feel like nitpicking to look at a game the Saints won by 22 points and have so many complaints, but don’t lose sight of the big picture. The Saints are so, so fortunate to play in such a weak division with mismanaged teams like the Panthers padding out their schedule. A 6-7 record would have New Orleans in third or fourth place in every division in the NFL but the NFC South. Instead, they’re rewarded for their mediocrity with a tie for first place.

But let’s not be so negative. Maybe the Saints can build on this win, figure some more things out, and rise to the occasion to compete with better teams like the Los Angeles Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a few weeks. They don’t have any other option but to try.

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Alabama football knocks off No. 17 Tennessee 34-20

Alabama uses second-half spark to knock off Tennessee 34-20

Despite entering the halftime break facing a deficit of 20-7, the Alabama Crimson Tide walked away victorious on the third Saturday of October. The Tide blanked the Volunteers in the second half en route to a 27-0 run to secure their fifth win in conference play. Anytime you pick up a win in a rivalry game it means a lot, especially when you overcome a 13-point deficit.

After halftime, the Tide responded with a two-play drive that ended with a 46-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Bond. The Tide offense went on to score the next three possessions and pull away from a very good Tennessee squad.

Chris Braswell put the punctuation on the evening with a sack and forced fumble that Jihaad Campbell scooped and took back to the house to put Alabama up by 14. The Tide have earned a much-needed bye week, but will be back in action Nov. 4 against the LSU Tigers with the SEC West on the line.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.

Saints show too little, too late in disappointing loss to Jaguars

The Saints offense showed too little, too late in Thursday night’s disappointing loss to the Jaguars. This team has signs of life but they might just be walking dead:

You can’t say they didn’t try to rally back. The New Orleans Saints offense found some life in the second half of Thursday night’s game with the Jacksonville Jaguars, with Taysom Hill and Michael Thomas scoring a pair of badly-needed touchdowns to help tie the game up — and Alvin Kamara came through on a crucial two-point conversion to put a pin in that effort.

But it was too little, too late. The offense couldn’t get out of their own red zone and a bad punt by Lou Hedley was returned back into New Orleans territory. Their defense caved in on a long touchdown pass to Christian Kirk, and that was that. The Saints’ final possession ended with an incomplete pass on fourth-and-goal. The Jaguars will go back to Jacksonville with a win, leaving the Saints at 3-4.

Nobody expected the game to come down to the wire like this. The Saints defense and special teams coverage units did their jobs by forcing a couple of early takeaways, but the offense wasn’t able to get going until the second half (helped, maybe, by a halftime talk with Ronald Curry). Derek Carr had too many miscommunications with his receivers — not helped by Chris Olave quitting on his routes at a couple of critical moments — and they failed to execute in scoring position at the end of the night. Carr’s receivers were either covered too tightly or they dropped the would-be touchdown pass, as Foster Moreau did at the end. It’s dispiriting.

Getting down to the 6-yard line with all three timeouts, only to fail to score a touchdown after four straight shotgun passes, is a questionable decision. But that’s how the Saints have operated all season. They haven’t done anything in phase with the offense, defense, and special teams complimenting one another. Dennis Allen’s squad is all out of sorts, and losses like this are proof of it.

Carr isn’t a talented enough quarterback to elevate those around him (or at least he hasn’t looked like one so far). His receiving corps has not met expectations and Olave’s effort level is becoming a serious problem. But they aren’t the only issue here. Pete Carmichael’s play calling has done them no favors. Why is Olave the target on a fade route with the game on the line instead of Jimmy Graham? Why was Graham essentially brought out of retirement to watch moments like that from the sidelines?

This is still a flawed team. But this isn’t the end of their season. Lesser squads than the playoff-bound Jaguars are lined up in front of them and it’s very feasible for this Saints team to go into their bye week with a winning record. With that said, it’s beyond obvious now that they need to make some changes to correct the course and get there. What they’ve done to this point in the season has not worked.

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Final Week 7 score predictions for Saints vs. Jaguars

Final Week 7 score predictions for Saints vs. Jaguars on Thursday Night Football

Expectations aren’t very high for the New Orleans Saints going into Thursday night’s game with the Jacksonville Jaguars — dropping a couple of losses in winnable games will do that. With the Saints offense all out of sorts and struggling to put points on the board, it’s fair to ask whether they can compete with a surging Jaguars squad.

Here’s what our staff is predicting for Week 7’s final score:

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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Analyzing what went right and what went wrong in Saints’ win over Patriots

Instant analysis from Saints’ much-needed Week 5 win vs. the Patriots: What went right, what went wrong, and what’s the bottom line?

The New Orleans Saints are back in the win column as they go on the road to shut out the New England Patriots. The offense finally looked alive as the defense puts together an incredible game.

So we’ve got some important questions to answer while analyzing the 34-0 win: What went right? What went wrong? And what’s the bottom line?

Final score predictions for New Orleans Saints at New England Patriots

Our staff writers made their final score predictions for Week 5’s game. Picking the winner in New Orleans Saints at New England Patriots:

It’s safe to say that many fans aren’t expecting big things out of Sunday’s New Orleans Saints game. The Saints (2-2) are a team with a competent defense shackled to a miserable offense on a collision course with the New England Patriots (1-3) — a squad who fits the same description.

There hasn’t been much movement in the betting line this week. The oddsmakers at BetMGM Sportsbook favor the Patriots by a single point at home, setting the over/under at 39 points. Our staff writers shared their final score predictions for Week 5’s matchup, and we’re all forecasting a low-scoring affair:

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Final score predictions for New Orleans Saints vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Our staff writers made their final score predictions for New Orleans Saints vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What is your pick for the final tally?

Our staff writers made their final score predictions for Week 4’s matchup between the New Orleans Saints (2-1) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-1), with each team looking to get a leg up on the other in the race for the NFC South title.

What is your pick for the final tally? Neither offense has really lit the scoreboard up to start the season, but both teams boast talented defenses, so points could come at a premium. Here is our forecast:

Dennis Allen’s Saints defense just broke one of the Dome Patrol’s best records

Dennis Allen’s Saints defense just broke one of the Dome Patrol’s most impressive records

Now this is impressive. Dennis Allen’s New Orleans Saints defense just broke one of the best records in team history, established by the famed “Dome Patrol” themselves way back in 1991 — holding opposing offenses to 20 or fewer points in 10 consecutive games. It’s the longest active streak in the NFL, too.

And the 1991 Saints team accomplished that feat in a single season, while the Saints set the pace a year ago and have kept it going. Sure, things got closer than they needed to on Monday night; the Panthers took advantage of Allen’s too-soft prevent defense in the final minutes to drive downfield and score a garbage-time touchdown pass, tightening the tally to 20-17.

Still, this is a rare achievement no matter how you slice it. Allen has built one of the league’s best defenses over the years and largely kept it together while introducing new elements and refining what worked. Hopefully he has the right pieces in place to develop an offense to compliment the defense.

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