Saints Report: Black and Gold comeback that wasn’t meant to be

The New Orleans Saints dropped five passes during the first half of Sunday’s game, more than they had in the previous seven games combined, which makes their 27-25 loss to the Atlanta Falcons that much harder to swallow.

In a game that was so much about the Saints being unable to put points on the board, the story line changed very quickly as Trevor Siemian led the Saints on three consecutive touchdown scoring drives in the final eight-minutes of the game, erasing the Falcons’ 18-point lead.

However, the Saints left too much time on the clock and it was those first half sins proving to be too much to overcome.  “I knew there was a lot of time left, so the game wasn’t over when we scored at the end, so you’re still in the game and it looked like Patterson made a really good play down the sideline. It was a good throw.”

Malcom Jenkins said, “We kind of knew what formation that was going to be. We knew what the route was. They ran it earlier, really in the opening drive of the game or earlier in the game and it’s up to me to make checks to put us in the best position to stop that. So, they made a play, especially when they needed it, and hats off to them.”

Head Coach Sean Payton said, “You can focus more on the result of that game, and as a coach, our jobs are to focus more on what caused the result. We didn’t do the things that winning teams do consistently in our league and we’ve got to get that corrected. We’ve got to do a better job coaching, and that starts with me.”

Terron Armstead said, “Every game, every week, man. It’s just the NFL, so a small margin for error and we keep committing those errors, we’re just putting ourselves in a bad starting spot. I think we responded well, cleaned up some areas, started to put some points on the board. But ultimately, we came up short.”

Trevor Siemian said, “That’s the name of the game, right? If you’re consistent and you do everything well all the time, you’d be 17-0. So that’s how this league works. You’ve got to expect everybody’s best every game, and we’ve got to be ready to go next week.”

Marcus Davenport said, “I think the biggest thing with that frustration is we didn’t win. Shoot, I would’ve been okay with, like, nothing if we had won. So, we’ve just got to do more.”

Now some troubling trends starting to emerge, this being the second Saints home loss when leading in the fourth quarter. Also, their second loss to an NFC South team when failing to score in the first half. But they are 5-3 at this point in the season with no Jameis Winston and no Mike Thomas.

Next up for the Saints is a road game against the Tennessee Titans at noon Sunday.