Glad this game happened. (1 Viewer)

[Winter]

Coming off bye, 8-2 record under SP. All players practice and healthy. 7-1 vs 1-7. At home. Against the Falcons. In the bag.

I'm not in the least bit worried or surprised by this game. It sucks and ruined my Sunday, which was otherwise a great day. Anyone who has doubts in this team after yesterday, I wonder what you've been watching all this time. All great teams still have that reality check moment in a season. Unfortunately for some, it comes too late and at a costly time. This is probably the biggest reality check at the best time we could have gotten. I think this team will take away that having Drew back doesn't automatically mean wins, and they never should have if they did. This is a reminder that no matter how much better you think your team is in this league, that if you aren't on point all week, all game, every game, you're gonna get jumped.

Let's see how this team responds.

Enough with this team now sucks and, insert other team's players we should have, or no more super bowl.

And enough with the Payton engagement... People got to live their lives. Maybe the date he chose meant something special. We don't know, I don't care. Would you rather it have come during the playoffs, or a month from now?

I'm licking my chops knowing this team will be right for the rematch. Fool me once...

 

[Super]

He should have never served the cheese at the party

 

[fdl16]

Rationalizing is fun. No one is glad this game happened.

 

[rememberTHEsaints]

Agreed.

If we needed a wake-up call, then what better game to have one?

 

[Will Survive]

Coming off bye, 8-2 record under SP. All players practice and healthy. 7-1 vs 1-7. At home. Against the Falcons. In the bag.

I'm not in the least bit worried or surprised by this game. It sucks and ruined my Sunday, which was otherwise a great day. Anyone who has doubts in this team after yesterday, I wonder what you've been watching all this time. All great teams still have that reality check moment in a season. Unfortunately for some, it comes too late and at a costly time. This is probably the biggest reality check at the best time we could have gotten. I think this team will take away that having Drew back doesn't automatically mean wins, and they never should have if they did. This is a reminder that no matter how much better you think your team is in this league, that if you aren't on point all week, all game, every game, you're gonna get jumped.

Let's see how this team responds.

Enough with this team now sucks and, insert other team's players we should have, or no more super bowl.

And enough with the Payton engagement... People got to live their lives. Maybe the date he chose meant something special. We don't know, I don't care. Would you rather it have come during the playoffs, or a month from now?

I'm licking my chops knowing this team will be right for the rematch. Fool me once...

I am in no way "glad" this game happened!

With that said, it was going to happen at some point, and happening now as opposed to later in the season, I am extremely glad about.

That fluke, reality check game is out of the way, while it was against the Clowns, that chafes, but might be more fuel for the refocus of the team's aspirations going forward into the back half of the season.

All in all, the loss doesn't affect the team in the here and now, might be a problem later in the hunt, but if the lesson is learned, and corrected, then it shouldn't matter because we will handle business from here on out.

Get the work boots on, we got work to do... on to the Bucs.

Who Dat!

 

[SammyIsGod]

If given the choice between winning the Super Bowl or winning the Super Bowl and giving the Falcons a later draft pick, I'll take the second option.

 

[NOLAJM504]

Im not glad it happened. If you're going to have a game like this, do it against an AFC opponent. Doing so against an NFC team might ending up costing us the first round bye. I'm not even sure we control our own destiny now, with Green Bay being 8-2. Point being, it has already costed us too much - - so color me NOT Glad it happened.

 

[Maik Jeaunz]

to be honest, I was kinda expecting something like this, and I'm sure some of you were also. the falcons always play us tough, and they were never just gonna roll over and die. and their 1-7 record belied how dangerous they really are.

what I DIDN'T expect was a seeming lack of heart & effort from everyone not named Mike Thomas or Demario Davis. the WR group was invisible, Drew looked shook, and the o-line was toilet paper. even the coaching staff phoned it in. you have one of the most dynamic RB in the league...and he had 4 carries. 4! sure, he caught a bunch of garbage screens and dumpoffs, but why not let him run the ball to get the d-line back on their heels a bit? we were within 1 score for most of the game, 4 carries for AK is absurd.

anyway, blame game this, blame game that. whatever, it's over. time to move on to the next game, but we probably shot ourselves in the foot a bit with situation at the top of the NFC. the margin for error now is tiny if we want home field in the playoffs.

 

[BELOWSEALEVEL]

Like Brees in his press conference, I'll say
"Right" 50 times

 

[TCEd]

I'm not happy it happened ether, but agree that this is a better time to have something like this happen, then later in the season. I think in another thread it was pointed out that Atl made a load of coaching changes & getting Ryan back made the film study kinda misleading, plus there was the senses that we would win this one going away, I know the players always say & did say, they were not overlooking Atl, but honestly their human like us fans & everyone thought it would be a slaughter by us, so it's completely possible some slacking was going on by us & having them being all tweaked up & with nothing to lose mentality, it just jump up a got us. Our Saints will take their medicine & come back strong.

 

[Grant Backer Two]

Tampa home game 2009........ Then, what happened???

 

[Uptking]

Coming off bye, 8-2 record under SP. All players practice and healthy. 7-1 vs 1-7. At home. Against the Falcons. In the bag.

I'm not in the least bit worried or surprised by this game. It sucks and ruined my Sunday, which was otherwise a great day. Anyone who has doubts in this team after yesterday, I wonder what you've been watching all this time. All great teams still have that reality check moment in a season. Unfortunately for some, it comes too late and at a costly time. This is probably the biggest reality check at the best time we could have gotten. I think this team will take away that having Drew back doesn't automatically mean wins, and they never should have if they did. This is a reminder that no matter how much better you think your team is in this league, that if you aren't on point all week, all game, every game, you're gonna get jumped.

Let's see how this team responds.

Enough with this team now sucks and, insert other team's players we should have, or no more super bowl.

And enough with the Payton engagement... People got to live their lives. Maybe the date he chose meant something special. We don't know, I don't care. Would you rather it have come during the playoffs, or a month from now?

I'm licking my chops knowing this team will be right for the rematch. Fool me once...

Thank You!!!

 

[FGE413]

I expected this game to happen either at TB where we tend to struggle or on Thanksgiving at ATL (Thursday night games tend to be weird and sloppy).

I can understand why Payton went pass-happy at the start b/c ATL had the 31st pass defense in the league and Trufant was out. And on our first drive, we stormed down the field only to stall on 3rd and goal because AK tripped and fell on his route. But by the 2nd half, he should've had the same epiphany he had vs. JAX and realized pass-pass-pass wasn't working and we needed to create balance. And it was 13-9 at the end of the 3Q so you can't pull the "oh we were so far behind we couldn't afford to run the ball" argument.

Historically, even the best Payton/Brees teams have laid eggs of varying sizes against bad teams (2006 vs. WAS, 2009 vs. TB, 2011 vs. the Rams, 2017 vs. TB, 2018 vs. TB). Hopefully, this is just one of those games and it's reasonable to think we'll recover and win the division. But I think many of us will be at least a little uneasy until we see the team get another W.

to be honest, I was kinda expecting something like this, and I'm sure some of you were also. the falcons always play us tough, and they were never just gonna roll over and die. and their 1-7 record belied how dangerous they really are.

what I DIDN'T expect was a seeming lack of heart & effort from everyone not named Mike Thomas or Demario Davis. the WR group was invisible, Drew looked shook, and the o-line was toilet paper. even the coaching staff phoned it in. you have one of the most dynamic RB in the league...and he had 4 carries. 4! sure, he caught a bunch of garbage screens and dumpoffs, but why not let him run the ball to get the d-line back on their heels a bit? we were within 1 score for most of the game, 4 carries for AK is absurd.

anyway, blame game this, blame game that. whatever, it's over. time to move on to the next game, but we probably shot ourselves in the foot a bit with situation at the top of the NFC. the margin for error now is tiny if we want home field in the playoffs.

 

[kizzy821]

I have never and will never understand why football teams need constant reality checks. What other profession can you say that about? They have to constantly be reminded to do their job. They have to practice their jobs multiple times a week. Watch recordings of themselves doing their job and they still seemingly forget what they're supposed to be doing.

After the game, they proclaim that they have to watch EVEN MORE recordings of themselves to figure out exactly what they did wrong. Gotta watch the tape. We didn't execute. I don't know that I've ever heard a reporter follow that up with a "Why didn't you execute?" Or "If you knew what you were supposed to do, why didn't you do it?"

No matter what happens this season. No matter who leaves and who returns. No matter the opponents or the venue. This is what I know for sure: 10, 11, 12 months from now - Sean Payton and the 2020 New Orleans Saints will need another reality check. It will be as if this game occurred 50 years ago and they have no recollection of it what so ever.

That's just so damned weird to me.

 

[Saintslfc13]

I have never and will never understand why football teams need constant reality checks. What other profession can you say that about? They have to constantly be reminded to do their job. They have to practice their jobs multiple times a week. Watch recordings of themselves doing their job and they still seemingly forget what they're supposed to be doing.

After the game, they proclaim that they have to watch EVEN MORE recordings of themselves to figure out exactly what they did wrong. Gotta watch the tape. We didn't execute. I don't know that I've ever heard a reporter follow that up with a "Why didn't you execute?" Or "If you knew what you were supposed to do, why didn't you do it?"

No matter what happens this season. No matter who leaves and who returns. No matter the opponents or the venue. This is what I know for sure: 10, 11, 12 months from now - Sean Payton and the 2020 New Orleans Saints will need another reality check. It will be as if this game occurred 50 years ago and they have no recollection of it what so ever.

That's just so damned weird to me.

A lack of focus can creep into teams/people, especially when things are going so smoothly for them. You do hear about it in other professions all the time when it's serious enough to hear about, it's part of what keeps your local news agencies employed. The thing is unless you're involved in those professions you're not generally going to hear about what caused that happening, just that it happened.

I understand the frustration but losing focus and failing to execute because of that is not unique to professional athletes nor sports teams. I think a lot of the guys including Coach Payton got complacent in the days leading up to the game. I don't really like the idea of blaming the engagement party but I mean I'm fairly certain if Coach had a chance to do it over he'd have had it during the actual bye week rather than the game week. I also think that once we went down 10 - 3 Payton got angry and decided he was was going to show the Falcons whose boss and started calling plays like a PO'd Madden player. The injuries to Peat and Lattimore hurt our O-line and our Secondary obviously. The lack of run game meant the Falcons were comfortable trying to overwhelm our protection all the time (worth pointing out that run blocking is probably Clapp's bigger strength based on how we typically use him when everyone is healthy). Things spiraled out of control. Even as bad as it was we had a chance to come back until they made it 26 to 9. The series after William's interception was a bit too late to start running but Drew also got greedy a few times in that series when he had Kamara in the flat to move the chains. Basically we just didn't play Saints football and tried to get it all back at once after about the 10 minute mark in the 4th quarter, and when I think about it considering we didn't really run after the 1st quarter you can make the argument we started that much earlier in the day.