NEW ORLEANS — The 2023 New Orleans Saints are entertainment chaos. They mix good plays, bad plays, penalties, injuries, and up-and-down coaching to create something that is simultaneously not very good, yet not bad enough for us to turn off our TVs.
The Saints' 27-19 loss in Minnesota to the Vikings might be the perfect example of the Dennis Allen-led Saints.
The Saints had a good plan, but bad execution, costly penalties, and bad quarterback play to go along with quarterback injuries. The 2023 Saints check every box and have every ingredient you need to build a .500 football team.
The Saints day is perfectly summed up by two mind-melting mistakes on offense. The first was when the Saints were trailing 17-3 but offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. dialed up a screen against a Vikings blitz. It's set up beautifully, Alvin Kamara has three Saints blocking for him and only two Vikings defenders. This should be a huge gain, maybe with Kamara a touchdown. It gained one-yard cause the Saints didn’t block a soul.
The second play that might have driven you to pull your hair out and caused me to hide all sharp objects and lock my liquor cabinet was with the Saints trailing 27-19 in the fourth quarter. Jameis Winston is in for an injured Derek Carr and is in full Jameis ‘Let’s just throw the ball all over the yard and see what happens’ mode. It was delightful, thank you Jameis, for making a dreadful Sunday afternoon interesting.
The Saints had first and 10 at their 37, Winston threw a dart to Chris Olave for 24 yards to the Vikings 39-yard line. There’s a flag that looks like offsides. You can feel the entire stadium falling into “Oh no, are we about to get beat by Jameis Winston going full Jameis?”
Except the offsides wasn’t on the Vikings defense, it was on Saints receiver Rashid Shaheed for lining up what appeared to be like two yards offsides.
Details matter kids. Details like a receiver asking the official “Am I lined up on the line of scrimmage?” which any receiver can do! Three plays later Winston threw an interception, and the threat was over.
The Saints are the fifth-most penalized team in the NFL. They had nine accepted penalties against the Vikings. I’d say the Saints need to get that cleaned up, but we are 27 games into Dennis Allen’s tenure, if it was fixable, it’d be fixed by now.
I know Pete Carmichael Jr. catches a ton of grief from Saints fans, but if he watched that film flying home from Minnesota on his iPad, I bet he had the urge to break it into pieces. My untrained eye counted six different times where the Saints had the right play vs a blitz-happy Viking defense and the Saints for whatever reason failed to execute it. Botched screens, missed throws, bad blocks.
The Saints defense continues its personal crusade to have all games start at 1:30 pm. The Saints defense the last three weeks in the first half: 58 points allowed. The Saints defense in the second half the last 3 weeks: 13.
The 2023 Saints have merged the 2012 Steve Spagnuolo defense with the 1991 Dome Patrol to create some Frankenstein monster designed to drive everyone, including Dennis Allen, insane.
The Saints are 5-5, yet they are still in first place and have complete control of their playoff destiny. Wait, it gets funnier. In two weeks, the Saints get to play the 4-6 Atlanta Falcons in maybe the most hysterically meaningful game these teams have ever played.
Both teams' fans mostly are concerned about their coach, and their quarterback, and some, if not all, want people fired into the sun despite being in contention for a division title. In wrestler parlance, on November 26, come to Atlanta for a loser leaves town match. I do not think either team will fire their coach during the season if they lose, but friends let me tell you, if Dennis Allen pushes the Falcons to 4-7, Arthur Smith's career in Atlanta is deader than Elvis Presley.
Some of you might not find the pillow fight for the NFC South as delightfully humorous as me, and I respect your choices, but a pillar of my Saints’ fandom is burning undying hatred of the Atlanta Falcons. I am incapable of being okay with the Saints losing the NFC South to the Falcons for a promise of some future that may be better for the Saints but also might be worse.
Nope.
We’ve returned to the most basic of Saints fans’ desires, a hatred of all things Falcons and a need to see their fans suffer even more than we are. If all that is left in 2023 for the Saints is to make sure the Falcons can’t win the NFC South, I embrace this with every Saints fan fiber of my being. My Saints fandom has returned to where it started when I was 7 years old and that is “Saints, if you just do one thing this year, beat the stupid Falcons.”
Ralph Malbrough is a contributing writer and Saints fan living in Houston. Email him at saintshappyhour@gmail.com, find him on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter at @SaintsForecast or download the Saints Happy Hour Podcast.