The kick return penalty killed us. (1 Viewer)

[Mississippi Saints Fan]

I’m not sure how the game would have unfolded had we scored on that, but I can’t help think of how much of a jolt that would have given the team tonight. It’s one of the worst parts of the kicking game. Return TDs are rare, and they’re so easy to be called back.

It doesn’t do much good to harp on it now, but I just feel that one play perfectly sums up how this game went. So close on many plays, but mistakes killed any momentum we had going. Big bummer. I’m not going to bag on our team. We could have won, but we just didn’t have it tonight. It happens, but it hurts to be so close yet again and come up short due to our own mistakes. There’s always next year. Ughh

 

[Taker597]

Not the wasted possessions in the redzone?

 

[Saint Spud]

You’re not wrong. It was brutal.

But we also made so many other mistakes. And our offense is so limited with Brees at QB that we can’t overcome that.

 

[Broad St. Saint]

Honestly, Granderson simply needed to stand up with his hands up at that point -- Harris didn't need anything more. Stupid penalty to push the guy down.

 

[VA WHO DAT]

Also the fumble by Cook when we looked to have a nice drive despite one pick at the time and failures in the redzone.

 

[yamsi]

This wasn’t a single point of failure, bad showing all round.

So much potential, the ribbon on the end of Drew’s career, wasted. Ugh.

 

[Mississippi Saints Fan]

Not the wasted possessions in the redzone?

Re-read my post. I said this play summed up how the night went. We killed ourselves with mistakes. But specifically to the return, being so early, and having a play like that would have helped possibly set a better tone.

 

[SweetT]

Rule #1.....if you are looking at the back of a defender’s jersey, don’t touch him. Pretty simple, but I guess that’s easy for me to say

 

[26ISTHEMAN]

7 points and 70 yards of field position to boot. That one hurt for sure.

 

[sammymvpknight]

I don’t know if he doesn’t get tackled without the block

 

[Mississippi Saints Fan]

I don’t know if he doesn’t get tackled without the block

He was running like a madman tonight. The way he bounced off that hit and took off full speed. He was determined, and I think he’d have scored anyway.

 

[St. Geezy]

The Cook fumble is what lost it. We were up 7, had just crossed midfield, and looked to be rolling. We score there to go up 14 or even 10, Tampa likely folds.

Their offense wasn't special tonight. They just got aided by turnovers along with a tired Saints D due to poor offensive execution. As Payton indicated after the game, we had to defend against too many snaps.

 

[CowtownSaint]

The call mattered. It mattered but time. I’m not saying it cost the game. But it drastically effected the outcome. There wasn’t enough there. I’ll say this though, they called a fair game.

 

[SRAddict]

You know what really killed us? Selling our souls for the ‘ship in 09. Feels like we’ve been snakebitten one way or the other, be it choosing the worst time to drop a game in the regular season, untimely injuries, or coming out flat during a playoff game. Ok i’m done

 

[black_floyd]

Also the fumble by Cook when we looked to have a nice drive despite one pick at the time and failures in the redzone.

This 1000000%. It didn't matter what happened up to that point. If we'd gone up 27-13 on that drive we were a 90% lock to win, if not more. And the thing that burns me to my forking core is that when I saw that Cook was the one that caught the pass I immediately remembered the fumble by TB's goal line in the second game as well as another fumble he had since then and thought "I swear to god, Cook, don't fork this up for us!" And before I could even begin to speak any of those words the biscuit was already on the linoleum.