The truth is Saints outplayed the Falcons (1 Viewer)

tenordas

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Seeing a whole lot of "sky is falling" posts, but the truth is we outplayed the Falcons. They won on three plays, one of which was a fluke.

Play #1: mistake by Shaheed trying to field a punt inside the 5 yard line. This was his mistake completely. Players shouldn't ever try to field a ball there. Let it bounce and hope it goes into the end zone. Instead, he muffed and Atlanta scores.

Play #2: Nice job by the Atlanta lineman getting his hands up to knock down the screen pass. THIS IS THE FLUKE PLAY. Instead of the ball falling harmlessly to the ground, it bounced up in the air into the waiting arms of a Falcon who easily ran it in. This play was just bad luck, no way to prevent the ball not "bouncing your way" sometimes.

Play #3: 4th quarter. We have them, but Adebo panicked and gave up huge yardage by unnecessarily interfering n the pass. The receiver wouldn't have caught the ball. He shouldn't have interfered. That's a learning moment on him.

Three plays, two of which are completely fixable with coaching (and by the player being smart enough to learn from making the mistake). The other play was a fluke.

Other than that, we outplayed them completely. Their offense only managed field goals and was mostly anemic the entire game. Our offense scored 24 on them, well enough to win most games, especially when one's defense is shutting the opponent out of the end zone.

Yes, it's a game we should have won, but it's also a game to look at and see that our team is good, not bad. Even with a bunch of injuries, we were the better team on the field. To me, this game shows how much promise and talent we have, on the field and on the sidelines. I expect we're gong to go on quite a winning streak from here because our schedule is very easy once we're past next week.

And frankly, watching the Chiefs play these first four weeks, they are no great shakes so far. We have an excellent shot at beating them...unless, of course, the NFL already has decided we're supposed to lose.

Just my two shakes.
 
We outplayed them like Minnesota outplayed us in the NFCG in 2010. Turnovers (5 for them) mattered and was the difference.

Still don't feel great about yesterday.

I don't know what it is with Allgeier (sp?), but it looked like our D wanted no part of him. He was a beast.
 
I am not too worried about the Falcons. I think they will lose a lot of games this year and will not compete for the division. This is a loss that should not have happened and probably won’t happen next game.
You make good points. The other thing I would point out is injuries. If any of our injured significant players play this game, we win going away.
But injuries are a part of the game. Except we seem to always get bit by that part more than most.
That being said, I think once some of these injured players come back, we will make a run. I just hope it isn’t too late.
And I think we need to be up by 3 scores with less than 2 minutes left to even have a chance at winning the game.
 
We have outplayed every team that we have played this year essentially. The first two obviously, this week, and three quarters of the Eagles game. Could be 4-0, or 3-1, but 2-2 now. Have to be able to stop making self inflicted errors and pull games out.
 
The Falcons moved the ball but kept finding ways to stall their drives. Offensive penalties were probably their biggest issue, plus a few missed throws by Cousins. They still averaged 35 yards/drive on net against us, and that was with six penalties for 51 yards. This is a week after we gave up 48 yards/drive to the Eagles (who could only net 24 yards/drive against the Bucs).

I think we are seeing some positive luck on our end that those drives aren't turning into scores, our defense hasn't looked too great these last two weeks. We are 18th in yards allowed per drive versus 6th in points allowed per drive, the scoring performance will likely regress. For comparison, we were 8th in yards allowed per drive and 5th in points allowed per drive in 2023.

The positive would be that our offense found a way to generate some points despite the injuries we've had, and they tend to give our opponents worse field position that helps to offset the excessive bending that we've seen on defense.
 
Yeah, we are better than ATL--at this point. They still have the capabilities to improve as Cousins gets further removed from injury. We need to get more consistent on offense. Our D will be fine. We absolutely erased Pitts, a week after getting torched by Goedert. That was pretty impressive, esp considering Demario was down and Gay left right away. We'll need to repeat that effort v KC next week.
 
We are not a bad team. In fact last year was not a bad team, just bad coaching. Despite all the injuries we have played well. Should of been 4 and 0. Only crazy thing about is that luck has never ever been on our side. 2009 was a blessing but still this team has been on the other side many time over one play.

Kansas City on the other hand, has been different story. Don't be surprised if it just take one play to screw us next game. And as always Kansas City will benefit from it.
 
We outplayed them like Minnesota outplayed us in the NFCG in 2010. Turnovers (5 for them) mattered and was the difference.

Still don't feel great about yesterday.

I don't know what it is with Allgeier (sp?), but it looked like our D wanted no part of him. He was a beast.

We don't do well against power backs. It didn't help our LB corps got depleted.
 
Last week too , loosing two games by a combined 5 pts is frustrating

Yesterday was worse because we gave them 7 in a 2 pt loss

We gave them 14 in a 2 point loss. Honestly, both the offense and the defense were good yesterday. The offense disappeared for a couple quarter and the defense could have done better on the last drive, but both outplayed the Falcons. We lost on the Shaheed dropped punt for TD and the deflected pass for at TD.

And this team, while they are overall pretty good, is not good enough to overcome those types of mistakes. But, somehow they need to figure out how to stop making those mistakes or win despite those mistakes because as AK said after the game, in the NFL it's the close games that matter.
 
We don't do well against power backs. It didn't help our LB corps got depleted.

I will never understand why Atlanta draft Bijan Robinson in the first round but refuses to give him the ball. I'm glad they don't but it's baffling. Allgeier is a good back but why draft Robinson if you aren't going to use him? I thought it was strange that they drafted Robinson when Allegeier was doing such a good job, but it's even stranger to draft Robinson and not really use him. I mean I don't think he really touched the ball after his long TD was caused back on the holding call.
 
Hope this isn't your first NFL season. This is how games go.

We didn't even lead in the second half till the last minute.
 
I will never understand why Atlanta draft Bijan Robinson in the first round but refuses to give him the ball. I'm glad they don't but it's baffling. Allgeier is a good back but why draft Robinson if you aren't going to use him? I thought it was strange that they drafted Robinson when Allegeier was doing such a good job, but it's even stranger to draft Robinson and not really use him. I mean I don't think he really touched the ball after his long TD was caused back on the holding call.
Got to feed the hot hand. Without demorrio out there, Allegeir's running style was brutal
 

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