NEW ORLEANS — After a middling 2023 campaign, the New Orleans Saints appeared to put the NFL on notice by opening the 2024 regular season with a pair of blowout victories.
With a whopping 91 points scored, only 29 allowed and enough highlights on both sides of the ball to produce a season’s worth of hype videos, the Saints came marching into Week 3 as one of only nine NFL teams with a perfect record.
The question persisted: Are the Saints for real?
Did the offseason addition of offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak truly revive quarterback Derek Carr and an underachieving unit, and did continuity on defense truly transform New Orleans into a juggernaut that whipped the Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys in the same jaw-dropping fashion?
The Saints returned to Caesars Superdome on Sunday for an opportunity to garner validation against the Philadelphia Eagles, who were 1-1 but regarded by many in the NFL as one of the NFC’s elite teams.
The measuring-stick game wound up revealing warts and deficiencies as the Saints lost 15-12. After scoring at a prolific rate for two weeks, New Orleans’ offense had to scratch and claw for every yard and point against Philadelphia. And after having its way with its first two foes, the Saints defense suffered one collapse too many.
A 6-for-13 showing on third downs, a paltry 89 rushing yards, four punts and an inability to capitalize on two defensive takeaways and two special teams stands doomed the Saints. A pair of defensive breakdowns that resulted in a pair of 60-plus-yard plays paved the way for the Eagles’ two touchdowns, including the game-winner with 1:01 left.
“You knew it wasn’t going to be that easy,” Saints quarterback Derek Carr said while reflecting on his team’s first two games.
His interception with 48 seconds left sealed the Saints’ loss to the Eagles, but he remained an optimist afterward. “For us, this is a great opportunity,” he said. “You get hit in the mouth, you know?”
Carr was referring to the famous Mike Tyson quote: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The response to that blow, the fighter went on to elaborate, is most defining.
Indeed, NFL seasons are long, and one defeat doesn’t define a team. What will, however, determine the Saints’ legitimacy is how they respond to their first brush with adversity. Can they quickly regroup and deliver a win at NFC South opponent Atlanta next week?
If the Saints learned anything Sunday, it’s that their offense operates at its best when it’s able to capitalize on early-down success and balance. Balance and a strong rushing attack are tenets 1A and 1B of the offense passed down to Kubiak from his father, Gary, and Mike and Kyle Shanahan. Successful runs keep pass rushers from zeroing in on quarterbacks and lead to play-action passes and big shots downfield. A healthy mix of the run and the pass leads to rhythm.
The Saints’ game-opening possession featured chunk gains on first downs and second- and third-and-manageable scenarios that Carr and company capitalized on while marching downfield at a crisp pace.
But then came the adjustments by an Eagles defense that opponents have gashed against the run. Defensive guru Vic Fangio threw a five-man front at the Saints, who struggled to overcome that crowded front and thus failed to muster the same production on early downs. First-down sacks or tackles for a loss led to second- and third-and-long situations and, eventually, punts.
“When you look at it, I think they did a better job up front than we did,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said. “And I think that’s really where it started.”
The first half ended with the Saints clinging to a 3-0 lead, but they had gained only 71 yards.
Fortunately for New Orleans, a strong defensive effort included an end-zone interception by safety Tyrann Mathieu as Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts tried to force a touchdown pass to wide receiver DeVonta Smith. Defensive lineman Carl Granderson also forced a Hurts fumble recovered by linebacker Willie Gay. The Saints later gained a possession thanks to a blocked punt by J.T. Gray, and a defensive stand also forced Philadelphia to settle for a 60-yard field goal attempt that Jake Elliott narrowly missed.
Again and again, the Saints defense kept defending. Again and again, the offense sputtered. And there’s a problem with that: Eventually, a defense wears down from all those extra snaps.
Two minutes into the fourth quarter, Saquon Barkley delivered the first gut punch — a 65-yard run in which he knifed through the heart of New Orleans’ defense virtually untouched and raced to pay dirt, giving his team a 7-6 lead. The Saints did turn that short field from the 60-yard Elliott miss into a touchdown drive (Carr found Chris Olave on a 13-yard toss to cap a 50-yard march) that gave them a 12-7 lead with 2:03 left following a failed two-point conversion.
Then came the final and most costly defensive breakdown. Philadelphia tight end Dallas Goedert ran a crossing pattern underneath and Saints defenders Marshon Lattimore and Jordan Howden and Gay collided while trying to get to him. Goedert made the easy catch and galloped 61 yards before getting tackled at the 4. Barkley ran for the touchdown and two-point conversion on consecutive plays, and the Eagles picked up the win.
.@saquon Blew Bayou 😏 pic.twitter.com/8b91mBwEDe
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) September 22, 2024
Sometimes players and coaches come away from losses completely dumbfounded and grasping for answers to the ills that plagued them. There was no great mystery behind the Saints’ loss, however. Yes, they looked drastically different offensively. But simple transgressions often add up to crippling outcomes.
“Defensively, we just gave up too many explosive plays,” Allen said, “and that was really the key to the game: the explosive plays that we gave up, and, really, kind of our inability to move the ball offensively. … We made too many mistakes. And when you play a good team and you make mistakes, they take advantage of it. And I thought they did that today.”
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Fierce competitors hate moral victories, so no one on the Saints will look for positives from Sunday’s defeat. They will, however, accept the challenge to come back strong after the loss.
“Adversity is like a builder of life,” Mathieu said. “You cannot go through life and expect great things without hiccups, without setbacks, without adversity. So, yeah, I mean, this sucks. We pour our heart into the game. We sacrifice a lot to get to Sunday, and we want to be able to win, not just for us, but for everybody. And so it doesn’t always go your way. But the positive is that it’s a lot of great teams — a lot of great people — that wouldn’t be great without hard times. And so, yeah, we’ve got another game next week, a division game. So I believe we can’t sulk in this too long.”
Carr challenged his teammates to report for their next round of meetings and practices with the same energy they had after their two wins, but with an even greater sense of urgency and an ultra-critical eye during self evaluations.
If the Saints can do that, and get back in the win column next Sunday against a gritty Falcons team, maybe the answer to the question “are the Saints legitimate?” is yes. If not, maybe those gaudy scores from Weeks 1 and 2 were simply fool’s gold.
(Photo of Saints’ Will Harris and Eagles’ Dallas Goedert: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
