What happened in the game last night?

football said

Part of the struggle I contribute to the starters not playing together during preseason. Even in training camp, half of the starters weren't practicing as much.

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In very isolated cases, yes. Things like the timing between Winston and Thomas on some of those slants. But that's really more about practice time together than preseason. But overall I still think the preseason is a kind of reaching for a simple answer to reinforce preexisting beliefs (similar to "it's because we didn't have Kwon/CGJ").

The truth is that it was a cascade of "all the wrong things happening." It should not be discounted that the falcons played VERY WELL. They came in with a good gameplan and executed. They had the saints on their heels the entire time, trying to just figure them out. They used the crowd well and manipulated the saints with formation/alignment. And they were very intentional in what they were doing.

Ironically enough, the saints waiting until there were like 11 minutes left in the game to commit to high-tempo offense might have won it (as opposed to commiting to it earlier).