NEW ORLEANS — Collectively, the New Orleans Saints have outscored their opponents 127-70 through four games and are among the NFL leaders in a number of offensive and defensive categories.
Yet, they are facing the very real possibility of having a losing record by the end of Week 5.
Failures to close out a pair of close games on consecutive Sundays hasve made the Saints a case study in how misleading statistics can be.
“I still feel great about this team,” fourth-year Saints linebacker Pete Werner said Monday. “We have such a talented team – in my opinion, the best team that I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here. We’ve got all the confidence in the world because we know we’ve got the players. We just have to go out and execute.”
The Saints have been ahead on the scoreboard in the last two minutes of all four of their games. Their leads over Carolina and Dallas in Weeks 1 and 2 were insurmountable. Not so in Weeks 3 and 4, games they lost by a combined total of five points.
In Atlanta on Sunday, the Saints outgained the Falcons in the air and on the ground. New Orleans ran 19 more offensive plays than Atlanta and possessed the ball for nearly 36 minutes.
Yet the Saints left the field with a 26-24 loss – and a two-game skid – after the Falcons' Younghoe Koo made a 58-yard field goal with 2 seconds left.
Two costly plays – one on offense and one on special teams – kept the Falcons in the game on Sunday.
Receiver Rashid Shaheed, normally reliable on kickoff and punt returns, uncharacteristically decided to field a punt near the 10-yard line and muffed it into the end zone, where Atlanta recovered it for a touchdown. Later, Derek Carr's attempted screen pass was batted high in the air and intercepted for a touchdown.
“We've got to eliminate some of the mistakes that cost us,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said. “This week, I felt like we played good enough to win in a lot of areas and still came away with a loss. So, that was frustrating.”
Even while missing key players such as linebacker Demario Davis and safety Tyrann Mathieu, the Saints' defense remarkably kept Kirk Cousins and the Falcons' offense out of the end zone for an entire game.
Late-game execution. Against the Eagles, the Saints fell behind 15-12 after a major defensive bust on a 61-yard passing play that set up a short Philadelphia TD run with 1:01 left. Then, needing only a field goal to tie, the Saints turned the ball over when Carr threw a second-down interception under pressure.
At Atlanta, a pass interference penalty by cornerback Paulson Adebo – who might otherwise have been one of the stars of the game because of his interception and three pass breakups and 12 tackles – set up Koo's winning kick.
“We’ve got to find a way to make the plays at the end," Allen said. “When you want to be a good team, you’re going to play in a lot of tightly contested games and we’ve got to find ways to win those things.”
Versatile tight end Taysom Hill had two touchdowns rushing in the first half in Atlanta before leaving the game in the second quarter with his second upper body injury this season.
While Shaheed's eight catches for 83 yards gave him a third productive game as a receiver this season, he was held out of the end zone for a second straight week and his muffed punt was a pivotal error in what could turn out to be a crucial divisional loss.
In addition to losing Hill, linebacker Willie Gay Jr. went out in the first quarter with a hand injury, further depleting depth at that position with Davis (hamstring) already out. Guard Cesar Ruiz missed (ankle) Sunday's game and his status for Week 5 is unclear. Mathieu, who has played through heel and calf ailments this season, injured his groin in Atlanta and did not play in the second half.
4 — The number of touchdowns allowed by New Orleans' defense through four games this season.
New Orleans travels to face defending champion Kansas City in a Monday night game on Oct. 7. If the Saints want to avoid a three-game skid, they'll have to find a way to hand the Chiefs (4-0) their first loss this season.
