NEW ORLEANS — The Saints lose a tough one in Houston. And I think the first observation is we got a little bit of "Fool's Gold" in New England.
I think the Saints rolling over the Patriots last week was more about the Pats being likely the worst team in the NFL than about the Saints being a good.
The Saints are an average NFL team. We can see that. We can say that after six weeks, and I think so are the Houston Texans. On this day, the Texans were a little bit better.
C.J. Stroud, the rookie quarterback, made some plays.
The Saints defense had their roughest outing. Costly pass interference calls to Marshon Lattimore and Paulson Adebo. Not a great day for the Saints defense.
But here's the thing, the Saints defense only gave up 20 points. The NFL average for points scored by a team in a game this season is 22.2. So, the Saints actually held Houston on what wasn't a great day. They held Houston under the NFL average. That means the Saints offense just needs to be average and this team can win.
And the Saints offense was not average. They weren't even close to it.
Alvin Kamara ran hard, did a lot of good things. The Saints offensive line right now is a disaster and Derek Carr is not playing up to the standard that we expected Derek Carr to play up to when the Saints signed him for $150 million.
That's just a fact, he said after the game.
A lot of stuff's not on the same page at this point and you can certainly feel it.
But the Saints have a long way to go to become a good NFL team, and I think that is the bottom-line takeaway from this loss in Houston. The Saints are an average NFL team right now. They're 3-3. The record is exactly what it looks like it should be.
And the next game is a tough one. It's Thursday night at home against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who I think are a little bit above-average NFL team.
The Jags are not great, but they're a little above average, and the Saints are average. There are going to be a lot of games like this that could go either way.
So, 9-8 or 8-9 looks like the most likely result for an average football team, at least at this point in the season.
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