The New Orleans Saints reached an impasse in their search for an identity in Sunday’s 27-25 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. While the team has been rightly lauded for finding some beauty in chaos this season, Sunday’s defeat showed how tumultuous that ride can be – and the risks that come with it. The sloppy defeat made several season trends once uncharacteristic officially impossible to ignore.
Is this defense capable of being elite? Seven weeks have all but proven that; but teams are only as good as their weakest link, and capability is only valuable in its execution. We’ve seen several games this season largely won by the defensive unit, but Sunday showed they’re not invincible. It’s hard to place full blame when the offense failed to score a single point by halftime. Fans in the Caesars Superdome took clear note of Sean Payton’s disappointment in last week’s crowd noise, but the fourth quarter excitement quickly fell eerily silent.
Mistakes culpable in the team’s earlier losses to the Carolina Panthers and New York Giants reared their head, making an ugly trend for once not limited to the defense. The search for an identity once-patient has reached its climax. Chaos is hard to thrive in, and the Saints are perhaps the best at exploiting adversity. Sunday showed how quickly that can become insurmountable. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly on the state of the team:
