NEW ORLEANS — It was hard to watch in the second half as the Saints fell to the Minnesota Vikings. The New Orleans Saints are now 5-5 heading into their Bye Week.
Dennis Allen said after the game, that there is no quarterback controversy. Derek Carr is his starting quarterback. We saw Jameis Winston come in to relieve Carr and do some good things. We also saw him throw two bad interceptions when the Saints had a chance to tie the game and maybe send it to overtime.
Carr wasn't much better. His numbers actually looked a little bit better, but the Saints had three points in the third quarter with Carr as the quarterback.
So, neither quarterback really got it done in this game. We had seen the Saints' offense make improvements. This was definitely a step backward for the offense.
We saw the Saints' defense have the same problems we have seen them have all season and that is containing a running quarterback.
Josh Dobbs ate the Saints alive in the first half. Luckily for the Saints, Minnesota sort of went away from letting Dobbs make those decisions. And the second half, they got way more conservative actually played to the Saints' favor in the second half and they were able to get back into the game.
But the Saints' troubles with running/mobile quarterbacks has happened all year. It happened again in this one, You got to try to get that fixed.
Although maybe what we're learning about the Saints is this is who they are. They're going to have trouble with those kinds of quarterbacks. The offense is going to sputter at times.
The Saints are an average team. That's what they've shown us all year. They have beaten some bad teams, three of the Saints' five wins have come against three of the worst teams in the NFL.
Against the good teams, the Saints have struggled.
On the positive side after the Bye Week, the Saints play one team with a winning record: the Detroit Lions. It's possible for the Saints to win 11 games this season without ever beating a team with a winning record, and they have been good at taking care of business, not great because they lost the Green Bay.
The Vikings are a pretty good team. The Saints weren't quite able to keep up with them. And especially the problem with the mobile quarterback keeps rearing its head.
The Saints get this week off, then a huge one coming out of that they get the Atlanta Falcons, another mediocre team the Saints are going to play them twice.
A division championship is really on the line in those two Falcons games and the Bucs games. The Saints are 100% still in the playoff hunt, despite a very discouraging loss in Minnesota.
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